Dealing with Negative Emotions
The doctor left. I sat there, disbelieving. He’d cut me off without answering my questions. I didn’t know what to do. Despite the fact that he hadn’t said goodbye, I didn’t think he was coming back. If I’d known we had so little time, I wouldn’t have wasted any of it on sympathizing with him about his computer troubles – I’d have made every second count. Now, what was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to wait in the exam room? Or go to check-out? I poked my head out the door. The doctor sat at a computer, thirty feet down the hallway. He turned to me and said that I should wait in my room, the nurse would be coming. Silently, I went back in. What about my questions? If I could ask just one more, which would it be? A minute later, I opened the door again, willing to brave his annoyance if I could just get one more answer. He was gone. I closed the door and waited for the nurse.
Afterwards, I replayed the appointment again and again. I also got more and more angry with the doctor for not answering my questions. These thoughts kept intruding while I was driving, walking, and trying to work. I needed to try something else. So, this time, I replayed the appointment from the doctor’s point of view, and I gave him time to tell me how he felt and thought. How there were so many people who needed his help, many of whom were doing much worse than me, and he didn’t want to turn them away. How, despite his long work hours and the assistants he had hired, he was forced to have short appointments with each person. How he’d helped hundreds of people by providing care that met well-established guidelines. On and on I went, exploring every aspect of the situation, letting him have his say. Afterwards, I was calm. I wasn’t angry at him anymore. I could now focus on what we had talked about and what I needed to do next.
Mindfulness training emphasizes that emotions are fleeting and claims that we can just let them go. However, it is normal to get upset when negative things happen and for those emotions to linger. Sometimes, emotion regulation requires active work. There are many possible strategies, including distraction, exercise, support-seeking, problem-focused coping, focusing on the positive, being fully present, reframing the issue, and acceptance. The following paper describes over a dozen emotion regulation strategies and shows which ones are used the most by emotionally intelligent people.
Pena-Sarrionandia, A., Miolajczak, M., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Integrating emotion regulation and emotional intelligence traditions: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 160. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00160
Not all of these strategies work equally well for all situations and emotions. Therefore, it’s helpful to have a wide variety of strategies in your toolbox. If one strategy doesn’t work, you can try another. Over time, you’ll learn which ones work best for you.
Kimberly A. Barchard is the Director of the Interactive Measurement Group and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at UNLV. She has been conducting research on emotional intelligence for about 20 years. This includes research on empathy, emotion perception, emotional awareness, emotional understanding, and emotional granularity. A couple of years ago, she completed the online mindfulness-based stress reduction training at https://palousemindfulness.com/