You Cannot Turn Off One Emotion And Replace It With Another

 A dragonfly is near the end of his life in this form,
and he's just fine with that.

One of the main premises of “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy” is that you must first recognize a “negative” emotion and replace it with a “positive” one.  My belief is that suppressing emotion is one of the worst things you can do to yourself.  By doing so, you are opening yourself up for whatever mental condition you already have to get worse, and for the frustration and grief to manifest itself in endless physical conditions and diseases.  This occurs in large varying degrees.  There is the person who believes he should always be “positive”.  This person will suppress anything that is labeled as “negative”, he will smile through everything, he will be thankful for all the “good” things in his life, and he will be ok with just about everybody – regardless of how badly the person behaves – at least that’s what will be on the surface.  Underneath this façade, he will be frustrated, angry, resentful, and sad, but, since society has dictated that he not acknowledge those emotions, he will suppress them.  The bad part is, those things will surface in other ways – in anger when he doesn’t realize what he’s doing, he will be passive/aggressive, he will be secretly vindictive, and he, at some point, will likely display physical symptoms ranging from mild to deadly.  The more mild cases of the emotion suppressor will be the ones who will have displayed “negative” emotions in his younger life, maybe experience some degree of depression and/or anxiety, then end up in the therapist’s office sometime in his laTE 20s or 30s.  The therapist will convince him that he must shut off these “negative” emotions and turn on the “positive” ones.  So, this person will be convinced that the therapist is offering something of value – after all, he has the credentials and experience, claims he has a “Thriving business”, has helped countless patients, and voila, he’s the guru who must be speaking the gospel.  So, the depressed person goes out into the world with a smile and a “better attitude”.  He will swallow a bully’s aggression, he will try to ignore the fact that he lost the job he’d had for the past twenty years and was close to earning his full pension, he will try to ignore the fact that he lost his home, and he’ll bull forward, trying to convince himself to be thankful that he’s not a paraplegic, that he had a place to fall, or that his homeless situation didn’t cause his immediate death – citing, “It can always be worse”.  When you try to express your frustration, anger, disgust, or other displeasure to the "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy" therapist, at whatever situation has you depressed, scared, and whatever else, he will stop you in mid sentence and say, “That’s not helpful, you can’t have those thoughts, you need to erase those thoughts and replace them with positive ones”.  Again – suppression of emotion – one of the worst things you can do to yourself.  I believe that there are very few genuinely happy people in the world – and it seems to be heading in a worse direction, not better.  The reason for this is all the bad information we are fed, morning, noon, and night.  The ones who pretend to be happy, you can’t just look at what they say, you need to look at their life (of course, if that’s possible).  Some may have tons of money, some may have a somewhat comfortable life, others don’t have much, but they pretend that they’re doing just fine.  Again – look at their life – meaning see what they’re like in stressful situations, see what they're like when they think nobody is looking.  See if they are kind and generous, compassionate.  A genuinely happy person will never be mean, selfish, or vengeful.  Genuinely happy people are inviting, glad to listen to a troubled person, and will give to someone who is less fortunate than himself.  That’s not to be confused with people who blow smoke up people’s pants, offer “help” only to have the hidden agenda of wanting something for himself, or try to take down anyone who has or does what the pretentious one wants. Keep in mind, there are worlds of difference between a happy person having the occasional down moment, and the chronically malicious, vindictive person who is constantly scheming and scamming, in order to get what he wants in some sneaky, underhanded way.  Also, a genuinely happy person will never gloat or be smug.  Does the person strike you as “real”, or does he strike you as pretentious?  Is he quick with compliments, or is he honest but kind and matter-of-fact?  Is he encouraging?  Is he in good health when relatively young?  Is his living space and means of transportation practical, or are they showy?  Does he listen, or does he insist on talking about himself, his property and belongings, and his achievements?  If you can gather the answers to these questions, you can make a fairly accurate assessment.  I believe that the single most important aspect, the single most important thing you can do for yourself is to be totally and completely honest with YOU.  Now, most people would not knock an old woman over the head and steal her purse, BUT, most people cannot be honest when it comes to things of the heart.  Most people won’t admit that they are angry, disgusted, hurt, resentful, or jealous.  What they do instead is hide from these traits and emotions, while they rear their not so pretty heads in other ways.  Denial is one of the most glaring symptoms of hiding from such societal indecencies, and for being dishonest.  We’re conditioned to think that it’s unacceptable to be any of these.  It’s perfectly ok to be angry or hurt.  As for being resentful and/or jealous, if you are honest with yourself, these emotions will not be able to enter your world.  If you are ok with who you are – which requires you to be honest with YOU, again, these things will not be part of you.  Resentment comes from self loathing, same goes for jealousy.  Self loathing is a somewhat complicated subject, and I think I’ll have to address that more completely at a later time.  For now, I’ll just say that it would be in your best interest to be ok with who and what you are – whatever that may be.  If you’re less intelligent than average – there is not a damn thing wrong with that – so be ok with it, embrace it.  If you are what is perceived as “mediocre”, same – not a damn thing wrong with that – be ok with it, embrace it.  If you’re exceptional in one or more things, be ok with that, because if you are, you will never be smug, and you will never feel the need to gloat.  FTR, gloating and being smug is for cowards – and I’m pretty sure most of you do not want to be known as a coward – especially to yourself.

So, be honest, don’t deny your emotions.  That doesn’t mean it’s ok to have a conniption every time something happens that you don’t like, what I said was “Don’t DENY your emotions, don’t hide from them”.  Accept them, embrace them, but don’t take that as an excuse to have tantrums.  Accepting your emotions, and always acting on them are two completely different things – which I’ll get into later.

I’ll stop here for now.  One of the things I’ve learned when it comes to reading is that I usually won’t grasp some of what I read the first time around, so I like to read more than once.  Many times, I’ll get a whole different meaning from passages in the second, third, fourth, and other readings.  There’s no hurry, and there’s this:  “There’s never enough time to do it right the first time, but always enough time to do it again”.  This means that you don’t want rush, you don't want to go away with the wrong message because you didn’t want to take the time to understand what is written – here or anywhere else, because then, you’ll be applying the wrong things to your life, likely you’ll find that out at some point, then have to start over – possibly thinking that the source you got your misinformation from was to blame, subsequently feeling frustrated for having wasted so much time and effort, SO, take the time to get it right before you go off half cocked :D .

Be totally and completely honest, be ok with who and what you are, and do not suppress your emotions.  More to come.