Recycling your emotions is no bueno

You're better off offering them a cup of tea.

Have you ever met someone who you’d describe as “bitter” or “anxious”? Those people have been recycling their emotions.

When you recycle emotions, they harden. Anger recycled turns into bitterness. Fear recycled turned into anxiety. Gratefulness recycled turns into happiness.

When you don’t let your brain process an emotion fully, when you run from it, then it stays in the back of your mind. This isn’t anything revolutionary – it’s basic psychology. When you don’t accept and acknowledge and give space to the fear or anger you feel, it festers.

Maybe you’re afraid that your child isn’t doing well in school. When they come home 30 minutes late, you lose it. You yell at them. You reprimand them for failing to listen to you and that provides you temporary relief. Really though, what you’re feeling is a deep fear that your child won’t have a happy life. You’re afraid that if they don’t focus on school, then they will never have a good job and they will always be struggling to get by.

Maybe your partner doesn't agree that you should do the kitchen remodel this year, even though your kitchen is old and ugly. You're so upset because they don't value something that will bring you a lot of happiness. You blow up at them. But really you're afraid of being trapped in an unhappy marriage like your parents. When your partner disagrees with you, you predict relationship doomsday and push them away instead of feeling open and curious about how reach a compromise.

The more you run from acknowledging your fears, the more you recycle those negative emotions. The more you recycle them, the more they became a part of who you are, instead of just a thing you occasionally experience.

Next time your anger or fear arises, acknowledge it explicitly. Welcome it as a natural part of being alive. I literally imagine opening a door and saying "Welcome" to the dark feeling and offering it a cup of tea and a place to hang out in my house. I tell this emotion that it's okay for it to exist. That it's natural and an expected part of time. I tell my fear that "you are welcome here and you are okay".

Try it :) You'll find that this terrible emotion that you don't want to experience just fades away. Once it's welcomed, once you stop resisting it, your nervous system calms down and you will feel peace.

Emotions last at most 90 seconds.

You’ll see that the fervor of your emotion will die down. The fear might still be there, but by acknowledging it, you’re able to control it. It won't dictate your life anymore. Awareness brings control.

Next time your kid messes up, instead of blowing up, you can explicitly tell yourself “this is making me panic because I’m worried Jimmy won’t have a happy life and all I want in this world is for Jimmy to be happy”. After explicitly telling yourself why you’re upset, you open up space to think about “what now”. What can you to communicate better because obviously yelling at Jimmy isn’t working.

When you stop running and avoiding your negative emotions, then you stop recycling them.