The proper way to pet your peeve

Do you HAVE negative thoughts and emotions?  Of course you do.  If they are there, then they SHOULD be there. Simple. They’re not bad.  They are a part of your experience, and they have a purpose.  

They’re like a low oil indicator on the dashboard.  They signal that something has gone wrong and must be tended to.  

Instead of avoiding and denying them, the solution is simply to set up housekeeping and move into them.  Buy furniture. Decorate.  Spare no expense.  And throw a housewarming party.  But PUT A TIMER ON IT.  Pick a date and time when you will let it go.  Set the timer. And enjoy your new digs.  Throw a party in there. Indulge your peeve.  Welcome it as an honored guest. Whether it’s a pity party or a rage attack, a minor traffic incident or a major life change, it’s okay to feel what you feel.  

Just put a timer on it.  

In the case of minor irritants – a rude store clerk or a driver who cut you off, for instance – this “permission to be enraged for the next 72 hours” is simply preposterous. Why on earth would you choose to spend the next 3 days just fantasizing about revenge and defending your ego over such a petty thing? You won’t, of course. The very idea of holding onto that anger causes you to let go of it. You’re safe now.  You’ll have a little chuckle at how easily we allow inconsequential events to spoil our fun.  

In the case of major upsets, this “Housewarming Party” is still a very serviceable technique.  Yes, the loss of a job, news of a horrible diagnosis, and similar experiences can create seemingly insurmountable fear and anger.  It’s okay to feel that.  You’d be inhuman to NOT feel that. The point is not to avoid feeling what you feel, it’s to feel it until it becomes pointless to dwell in it any longer.  If you know in advance that you’re going to get up on Monday morning and start fresh, you’ve ALREADY begun the process. You’ve acknowledged that there is no point in dwelling forever in despair and helplessness.  And you’re not going to.  But you can let yourself be temporarily sidelined by it. Even the BEST athlete gets injured, and they need time to recover.  

When you give yourself permission to be sad, angry, and overwhelmed, you stop kicking your own self to the curb as if you were unworthy of even your own attention. You claim your right to your feelings, no matter how selfish, mean, or unresourceful they are.  And you DO have a right to feel however you feel until you don’t feel that way anymore.  One of the lovely things about feelings is that they are always in motion.  They come.  They go.  No one ever died from having one.  You can feed and pet the most horrible emotion until it’s so large and hairy that you can’t really take it seriously.  There will come a point – probably long before the timer goes off – when you simply cannot sustain it and no longer WANT to.  

But for as long as you attempt to shove it into a dark and airless corner, it will hammer on the walls until it gets your attention.  More often than not, it shows up as physical pain.  That is guaranteed to get your attention in a most unpleasant way.