We’re smarter and more creative when we’re in a positive mood, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore negative emotions. In fact, learning to skillfully experience fear and negative emotions is crucial to keeping our mood positive. In contrast, resistance to negative emotions literally backfires and makes them more prevalent.

Choose Your Focus

You may have heard the phrase “what you resist persists”. When you resist an emotion, it doesn’t go away but rather it keeps gnawing on you until it’s acknowledged. In business, fear of failure is often the most poignant emotion, and I can recall times when I was so afraid of failure that I simply couldn’t let my mind consider the possibility. It seemed that failure would destroy my very being, and the mere thought of it was extremely painful. What I didn’t realize was that avoiding the fear of failure made it stronger and more persistent.

At times I was actually more focused on not failing than on succeeding, and therefore I expended far too much energy and effort to avoid failure. You may want to consider if this is true for you. When we’re focused on failing, we become obsessive about gauging whether we’re winning or losing and overly sensitive to any sign of losing, such as criticism from others. Self preservation becomes paramount, and we go to great lengths to always appear as a winner. In contrast, when we’re focused on succeeding, our attention is more fully focused on achieving the goals.

Lose the Fear

We fear failure because we think the emotion of it is too painful to bear. I’ve learned that if I allow myself to feel the fear, as in imagining that I’m really failing and feeling the full emotion of it, I experience that it’s not too painful to bear and it loses its grip.

I’ve found that this process works in dissipating any fear. In your mind, conjure up images and scenarios that evoke the full force of the fear. Pay attention to where you feel it in your body and mentally explore those sensations. While doing this, lose the story line of the fear. For example, if you’re dealing with the fear of bankruptcy, feel the fear and negativity of it without the story line of how you got into the situation or how you’re going to fix it. Holding onto the story line will keep your cognitive mind engaged and not allow the full emotion to be felt. As you feel the fear intensely, you’ll notice that it begins to dissipate.

We’re stronger when we know we’re able to handle any outcome, even our worst fear. So it’s wise to build up your ability to feel comfortable with the full range of negative emotions. It follows that we’d have stronger businesses and societies if we stopped limiting the emotions that are acceptable to feel. It bugs me when parents tell their kids that it’s not okay to cry out of anger or sadness, and it’s frustrating that businesses expect employees to check their emotions at the door.

Some forward thinking businesses have gone to great lengths to help employees face their fears, and they’ve received some huge paybacks. For example, Xerox has sponsored vision quests, where employees would spend four days in the woods with nothing but a sleeping bag. This enhanced the innovation of employees, and one of these events led directly to the design of an environmentally friendly copier-printer-fax machine. Other companies such as EMC and Metropolitan Life Insurance have used fire walking for the same purpose. Our organizations, including businesses and societies, would have greater potential for success if we became comfortable with experiencing the full range of human emotions.

Do you know of other companies that use techniques to help employees deal with fear and negativity? Do you have any other tips for personally handling negative emotions?

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