Life in this world is full of challenges and these challenges tend to determine most times our emotions and feelings, they are either negative or positive.
Oftentimes, we feel the negative aspect of these emotions more intensely due to our environment, relationships, families, and circumstances. Also, the world is filled with imperfections and instabilities, therefore, no matter how hard you try to pretend to be happy, these things come.
If you are an entrepreneur, you will understand that it brings additional challenges to what you are already facing. Being an entrepreneur bestows upon you additional responsibilities for people and organisation, and we cannot over-emphasize how tough it can be. If you are in Africa, the challenges become more of survival rather than self-awareness, achievements, purpose, and self-actualisation common in the more developed countries.
Africa has created an unconducive environment for her people to thrive, which is why you see many youths leaving in droves to the western world yearly for a better life; not necessary for wealth accumulation, but for security, portable water, access to basic health care and sense of belonging to a working society.
However, there are still ways to manage these emotions in order not to allow them to determine your life’s direction. The more you dwell on negative emotions the likely it is for you to experience stagnation, confusion, and lack of focus. Managing our emotions is key to living a successful life.
What are emotions?
Emotions are our feelings; they can be negative or positive
I will simply define it as feelings that put us in a state of unhappiness or happiness, a state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. (Lawrence 2021)
Psychologists have explored most human emotions and their definitions. Eckman (1999) identified six initial basic emotions:
- Anger
- Disgust
- Fear
- Happiness
- Sadness
- Surprise
What are negative Emotions?
Pam (2013) defines negative emotions “as an unpleasant or unhappy emotion which is evoked in individuals to express a negative effect towards an event or person.” Reading the list of Eckman’s basic emotions, it is quite easy to determine those that might be referred to as ‘negative’ emotions.
While it is normal to feel these emotions either negative or positive, if not checked or managed, they could have adverse effects in our lives as individuals and drive. We may take decisions and actions that are contrary to our goals, values, or aspirations.
Our emotional makeup
Man is in three parts: man is a spirit that has a soul and lives in a body. This means that each of these parts has its function and how they influence our physical actions. The spirit and the soul are together, while the body is what we see, which houses both the spirit and the soul.
The Spirit, Soul, and Body.
The Spirit: is the voice of the conscience and intuition. When the conscience and intuition speak, that’s the man’s spirit talking. What influences our conscience and intuition is the inherent human nature that is inbuilt and also what we consume (as per knowledge and environment).
The Soul: the soul is where the reasoning and emotions are processed. The soul processes what comes from the conscience and intuition. It always questions the conscience and intuition if they have not learned to walk in sync, that’s why you hear people make statements like, I felt it in my spirit to do it this way or my intuition said this, etc.
The Body: The Body is the channel of expression and collections and it executes whatever the soul has processed. It is also a tool for information gathering for the spirit and soul through the five senses.
With this, anyone can understand how humans work, we can manage our emotions by being deliberate on what we consume through our five senses. Every information we receive through our body, the soul captures it and passes judgment on whether they are good or bad and gives the body instruction on the next line of action.
To manage your emotions to a significant level you must be deliberate on what your Spirit and soul consume. Most times the Spirit will always give you the right information or direct you in the right route, but the soul will always be at war if we have not trained both to align.
How to manage your emotions
- Read the right books
- Listen to the right messages, podcast etc.
- Learn what will benefit you at the point
- Create recreational times for yourself
- Seek things that will create a lasting memory, relationships, family, friends, and spirituality.
I believe this blessed you, please leave a comment and feedback
https://positivepsychology.com/negative-emotions/
To your success
Lawrence Obi
