Lightening Your Backpack of Negative Emotions

Reflect on the past week. What are your three most common emotions you experienced? If you had a choice, what three emotions would you like to experience?

If you get very different answers from these two questions, it is okay. Do not beat yourself up. Chances are, many of us spend more time in unpleasant emotions than pleasant ones. These emotions weigh you down, as if you are wearing a backpack full of boulders. Every step takes considerable effort to move. Every move is a struggle. It is challenging to continue. Those boulders are situated in the backpack, as if they are stuck. They seem to be hard to get rid of.

Imagine the unpleasant emotions you experience most of the time, such as frustration, anger and overwhelm. You carry them with you. What does it look like when you are at work? You start your day with those heavy weights. You see things differently. Your attitude is affected by what you carry. You are subconsciously releasing those emotions into the atmosphere and others sense them.

Those negative emotions slow you down. You may be dwelling in a state of mind, holding onto a belief that is not serving you. Your focus is affected. Your efficiency is compromised. The quality of your work is affected.

What is the solution? Things in the backpack are removable. We can let them go. Letting go of negative emotions does not mean we are abandoning them. In fact, ignoring or rejecting those emotions may make your backpack heavier. If you do not process your feelings, they have nowhere to go. You spend much effort pushing them away or avoiding them – which is draining your mental energy.

To effectively remove each boulder of negative emotions in your backpack, acknowledge what you are carrying. Accept their existence rather than push them away. Understand what beliefs caused those boulders to form. Allow yourself to feel those unpleasant feelings. They are not the best feelings (that is why the default action is to avoid them). Pay attention to how you physically feel when you experience frustration, for example. Where do you feel it most intensely? Is there a temperature associated with it? Is there a color? Is it moving fast or staying still in your body? Once you allow them to exist and allow yourself to process them, their intensity gradually weakens.

As the intensity of those negative emotions decreases, so is the weight of your backpack. You feel lighter. It is easier to go through your day, even when it is full of unknowns and challenges.

The more you allow yourself to experience and process the negative emotions, the faster you are ready to move on. That is, the faster you are to lighten the load on your back.

The other way to lighten your backpack load of negative emotions is to experience more pleasant emotions. When you find more opportunities to experience positive feelings, your capacity to handle the negative feelings gets bigger. This means that you are getting stronger to carry an even heavier backpack. At the same time, you have the ability to unload the backpack faster.

We each carry our own backpack. It is open to put things in or to take things out. We get to decide what to take out and what to put in, if we are more conscious of our thoughts and feelings. Let go of the thoughts or beliefs which are not serving you. They are the cause of your unpleasant emotions. Lighten the backpack by processing those negative emotions and infuse more pleasant emotions in life.