Quit “shoulding” your emotions (DW#459)
Once you start becoming aware of your emotions, it is very tempting to start labeling them as good or bad – positive or negative. You may be tempted to believe that sadness and anger for example are bad. And happiness or excitement are good. You then may begin to tell yourself "I should not feel anger or resentment". "I should feel happy at my success".
We will later cover why it is not useful to treat emotions as good or bad. For now, please stay with the practice of noticing and naming the emotion itself without the judgement of good or bad.
While becoming aware of emotions is helpful towards managing them effectively, labeling them as good or bad often has the effect of trying to get rid of the emotion without really understanding what it is trying to teach us.
Suspending our judgement about particular emotions also allows them to run their course and dissipate. Labeling, judging and "shoulding" the emotion on the other hand, tends to feed the emotion and keep it going rather than letting it run its course.
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