Emotions: Useful Vs Indulgent
Let’s dive into the difference between useful vs indulgent emotions. Learning the difference is very important for internal management.
Useful Emotions
A useful emotion is an emotion that moves you somewhere.
They are part of the experience of being human, they within the full spectrum range of duality, contrast and life.
Positive
Motivation, focus, determination, love, generosity, commitment, and so on.
Negative
Sadness, grief, loneliness, discomfort, fear, nervousness and so on.
Most people have no problem feeling the positive ones, but many struggle and resist feeling the negative ones.
Why bother feeling the negative ones?
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Like I said earlier, useful emotions move us somewhere… even the negative ones.
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Feeling is a main part of the human experience which includes both sides of the duality, without the negative the positive does not exist.
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Facing life and the duality of life helps us become a bigger and better person.
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Learning how to embrace the duality makes us capable and anti-fragile.
And, even though many of think we can avoid negative emotions; the truth is that we cannot escape them.
The option is pain now or pain later.
We we avoid our negative emotions we do not process them and they begin to pile up in our bodies, in our energetic system.
Why feel them now, instead of later? To clean out our energetic system.
I remember trying to avoid heartbreak, I was doing everything I could to distract myself from my pain. I watched an eighty episode t.v. series, binge ate foods and tried to keep my self busy… until I noticed that I was slipping into depression.
My way out was in feeling the pain of my heartbreak, I let myself cry and the depression lifted.
Put in the time, attention, and effort to FEEL your worthy useful emotions; lighten your inner load.
Indulgent Emotions
An indulgent emotion is an emotion that does not move us anywhere.
Examples are worry, confusion, victimhood, self-doubt, pity, and blame.
Why not to feel them? Because they spin us out, get us nowhere. result in stuckness; they are simply not useful.
What to do with them?
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Look at them with curiuosity.
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Become aware of them and the thought that is causing them.
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Ask your Self- is it useful?
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Ask your Self- is there an upside?
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Look at what they are creating in your life.
Besides noticing them there is not really an upside to feeling them.
So, decide to choose a new thought or a new perspective.
Useful vs Indulgent Emotions
Client Story: She has many stories about her past being the reason that her life is so horrible, her father did not love. She is in a lot of pain and pushing away the love that she actually wants.
She has been so focused on blaming her past for how she feels and indulging in victimhood that she has stayed stuck by her past stories.
To Feel:
The sadness and grief are useful.
These are the painful emotions worthy of processing and not hitting the escape button.
Not to Feel:
Victimhood is indulgent and not worth spending time on, there is no upside, no forward movement.
What indulgent emotion are you indulging in and getting stuck in?
Mine is overwhelm. The last few months I keep thinking “I have so much to do”, which causes me to feel overwhelm. When I feel overwhelm, I am less productive; and therefore overwhelm is counter to what I want and is NOT useful for me to get stuff done.
Check yourself: make a list of your common emotions that you had last week or last month. Then categorize them into useful or indulgent.