I am writing this from a hospital where they are resecting a tumor from the brain of an 11 year old boy I love – one whose parents are like younger siblings to me. On top of that, in the past week, I have buried two friends fathers, counseled another regarding his dad going onto life support, and arranged for hospice care for a dear friend who is not much older than me.
I am sad, I am angry and I am a whole bunch of other negative things too. According to recent research though, not only is all that negative emotion okay, it’s actually a useful part of working through this, or any other, dark time.
Far from advocating wallowing in pain, or the use of eternal pessimism as the prism through which we view our lives, a new article in Scientific American nevertheless indicates that allowing ourselves to experience negative emotions is a key component in confronting the painful challenges we face in our lives. It’s ultimately about the therapeutic value if embracing the negative along with the positive — making appropriate space for both.
It may sound obvious, but then I think about how often we are told, tell ourselves or even tell others to: “look on the bright side,” “stay positive,” “don’t let things get you down,” “focus on the good stuff,” etc.
I know such counsel is generally well intentioned, and that simply sinking into a downward spiral of negativity is unhelpful, to say the least. I even appreciate that just as with physical suffering, it is easier to stay out of pain than it is to get out of pain, the same is true for emotional suffering. And yet, making space for negative emotion — for feeling it deeply and acknowledging both its authenticity and its appropriateness — is not only okay, it is therapeutic.
When things suck, we – or at least I, and the people covered in this study – need time to embrace the “suckiness.” Only then can we really move through the painful times toward building better ones. It’s sort of the opposite of being told to “calm down” when we are freaking out, and we all know how well that works, right? Not!
On the other hand, naming the “enemy” we face, and appreciating how real it help us address it. Once I know that the pain is real, authentic, worthy of sympathy and empathy — and I get some of both — that’s when I can dig in an begin working my way out of the suck. That’s what this study is all about, and what I think most of us need.
The time does need to come for embracing the positive, or at least for not focusing on the negative, and if that is where we should choose to spend most of our energy, most of the time. It just turns out that we need not forego the negative to get to a more positive place, and that we are not failing during those painful times when we feel like like is failing us, or failing those we love.
Tears are valuable, negative emotion is healthy, and letting ourselves rage and ache is often really helpful. They are kind of like going in vacations, in a weird sort of way. It’s no way to live in the long term, but neither is never having them.
So yeah, I am making no apologies for this week’s anger and tears. They are my tears and my anger, and they are both real and appropriate. I don’t want them, but I need them. And when I really trust that, is when I can begin to see that they are hardly all there is, and I can begin to put things in perspective. And as far as I can tell, it is perspective which we need most in dealing with hard times — and probably good times as well, but that is for, forgive me, another time.
Listed for many years in Newsweek as one of America’s “50 Most Influential Rabbis” and recognized as one of our nation’s leading “Preachers and Teachers,” by Beliefnet.com, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield serves as the President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute, think tank, and resource center nurturing religious and intellectual pluralism within the Jewish community, and the wider world, preparing people to meet the biggest challenges we face in our increasingly polarized world.
An ordained Orthodox rabbi who studied for his PhD and taught at The Jewish Theological Seminary, he has also taught the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs an ongoing seminar, and American Jewish University. Rabbi Brad regularly teaches and consults for the US Army and United States Department of Defense, religious organizations — Jewish and Christian — including United Seminary (Methodist), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox) Luther Seminary (Lutheran), and The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) — civic organizations including No Labels, Odyssey Impact, and The Aspen Institute, numerous Jewish Federations, and a variety of communal and family foundations.
Hirschfield is the author and editor of numerous books, including You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, writes a column for Religion News Service, and appears regularly on TV and radio in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to Fox News Channel. He is also the founder of the Stand and See Fellowship, which brings hundreds of Christian religious leaders to Israel, preparing them to address the increasing polarization around Middle East issues — and really all currently polarizing issues at home and abroad — with six words, “It’s more complicated than we know.”