I have found three ways to reduce negative emotions, and they all work differently on different ones.
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- Realise that “You are responsible” for the situation, the emotion, how you handle the situation, and what you do about the emotion. For example jealousy is cured by thinking “It’s down to me to do something about this” and worry is cured by “It’s down to me to do some preparation and make sure that nothing goes wrong, instead of worrying”
- Realise that living in the past, or the future, is not healthy. Living in the bad past (“if only I hadn’t done that”, “I can’t believe he did that!”) is where you find regret and anger, and living in the good past (“I wish I could go back to the good old days!”) leads to sorrow. Living in the bad future is where you find worry and fear, and the good future (“When my ship comes in it’ll all be alright, it’ll be jam tomorrow”) leads to disengagement from the present, and probably disappointment. There are no negative emotions in the present.
- Realise that you are choosing your negative emotions because of perceived payoffs, which are in fact false. You choose regret because you want to change the past, and you choose anger because you want it to make you stronger, and you choose guilt because you want to tell yourself you’re a good person (but you still did the bad thing) or you want to change in the future (but the guilt is giving you permission to keep doing the bad thing – “I know I did it but at least I felt guilty”). All negative emotions have a perceived payoff, and it’s always false.
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Here’s a chart of which methods work best:
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 | “I am responsible” | “I will live in the present” | “What is the payoff that I think I’ll get but I won’t??” |
Anger |
Yes |
 |
Yes |
Worry |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Guilt |
Yes |
 |
Yes |
Fear |
Yes |
 |
Yes |
Sorrow | Â |
Yes |
Yes |
Laziness |
Yes |
 |
Yes |
Envy |
Yes |
 |
Yes |
Regret | Â |
Yes |
Yes |
Hate | Â | Â |
Yes |
Impatience | Â |
Yes |
 |
Blame |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Impatience | Â |
Yes |
Yes |
Embarrassment |
Yes |
 |  |
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What are the commonest negative emotions: article and statistics here https://www.chriscroft.co.uk/whats-your-pet-negative-emotion/.
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