In that case, Barb suggests, it's time to look for a healthy distraction.
Maybe you should go for a walk.
Maybe you should go out and get some coffee.
Maybe you can talk with a colleague or a friend, or take up a project, or part of
a project that you're really interested in, just to get your mind off of that.
Because our minds can kind of get stuck in these ruminations that really
don't help us in the long run.
So we can work to increase our positive emotions when appropriate,
we can work to decrease our negative emotions when appropriate.
But sometimes, unpleasant emotions aren't things to be gotten rid of but a rather
negative processes that can lead toward something positive on the other side.
So there's a book that was published not too long ago called,
The Upside of Your Dark Side, written by Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener.
And they do a great job of making this point.
They examine various negative emotions and
talk about some of the upsides of experiencing those emotions.
So let's just take two or three of them as an example.
Think about anger, and anger may be one of those emotions that we think of
immediately as an unpleasant emotion, or a negative emotion, or an emotion that
can adversely affect our health, and it can in certain circumstances.
But imagine a world in which we don't have any anger.
Anger can actually be a strong motivator for justice.
So if someone does something to you, or maybe to a family member, or a friend,
that's just not right, sometimes feeling angry about that can motivate you
to take a stand and to make sure that that person is protected.