Cry, cry....but also try

Hello Readers,
Its been a long time since I wrote my last blog. But I was unable to find anything inspiring enough to write about. Now I have finally found it. Today, I am going to write about the importance of NEGATIVE EMOTIONS by sharing my personal experience.

So here it goes. For those of you who don't know: I had been preparing for banking exams the last year. I gave many, many exams resulting in failure. But I didn't mind, because my focus was clearing the IBPS clerk exams. My first victory came when I cleared the IBPS preliminary examination that happened in the month of December. After that, I rigorously started studying for the second round which took place at the end of January. And today, April 1,was the D-day! I failed the examination by less than a mark.
I started asking myself, "Why couldn't I have scored just 1 more mark?" "Why does it always happen to me?" "What am I going to do in my life now?"
Today, the whole day, I was feeling extremely sad and fearful. Sad about not getting a job. Fearful of not getting a job ever.
Of course, sadness and fear are emotions that none of us willingly want to experience. But they are important. The sadness that I felt made me think that I should need to work harder so that I don't feel this emotion again! The fear motivated me to take action and make a tentative plan so that I don't remain unemployed for the rest of my life.

So although I am still totally clueless about what I am going to do now, I am sure that my negative emotions will drive me towards achieving something or the other.

The moral of this story is: Don't refrain from "feeling your negative feelings". Instead embrace them, for they are actually healthy, if you experience them in the right quantity.

Here, the words "in right quantity" are of utmost importance. As I have mentioned in my previous blog as well, negative emotions, when experienced in appropriate quantity (appropriate in relation to the triggering event),are considered as "Healthy Negative Emotions". Examples include anxiety before an important presentation that helps you prepare well for the presentation or the fear of a large, barking dog that instructs you to run away from it. 

However, when these same emotions are experienced at extreme levels or for extremely long duration of time, they are considered as "Unhealthy Negative Emotions". For example, being so anxious about the presentation that your blood pressure shoots up, or that you blank out during the presentation. 

Here, instead of acting as motivators like healthy negative emotions, the unhealthy ones actually impact negatively on your physical and/or mental well-being. 

As such, it is of utmost importance that you stay in-touch with your emotions- positive or negative, for they are the signals to your mind as well as bodily needs. 

I felt like I should write this blog because there are many people who believe that expressing one's emotions is a sign of weakness. It is really not! I especially want to give a shoot-out to the boys and men out there who are bearing the burden of patriarchy on their shoulders, always feeling the need to be in control. 

Finally, before I conclude my write-up, I would like to request all the readers to take as much care of their mind as they do of their bodies. 

Please do share with your near and dear ones. And do comment if this blog helped you even in a teeny-tiny way. Suggestions always welcome!