The Power of Negative Energy

The best template for constructing a new and better life is to make your life inclusive of everything that G-d is sending your way, even anger, fear and negative emotions.

You might be wondering what’s so positive about negative thinking and negative feelings? How can negative feelings really help you?

Let’s start by remembering the iron-clad spiritual principle that everything that happens to us is always and only good. Most of us don’t yet think that way. We find ourselves in challenging circumstances, or we find ourselves dealing with some very intense negative feelings, and then we add to our problems by looking directly at the “brick wall” and telling ourselves how bad and terrible and awful it all is. But as soon as we do that, we’ve made it so much harder to get out of that negative state.

When a person is fearful, or angry, or jealous, when their juices are going and their blood is boiling, they are suddenly in possession of an awful lot of energy and motivation to act, to move, to scream, to say, or to do something. Once the negative emotion has dug all that energy up for us we can use that energy and channel it into something healthy and good for us.

Emotions such as anger, fear, and jealousy are actually more activating than calmness and relaxation. We’re all aiming for the relaxed, calm, content state of being, but how much do relaxed, calm people actually accomplish in the world? It’s much harder to get off the couch and to make something happen when you’re in a state of “nirvana.” But when we’re hopping mad? When we’re scared? When we’re feeling competitive? Suddenly, we have the strength to change things we resigned ourselves to years’ ago; or to try things that everyone tells us can’t be done; or to challenge things that can’t be challenged. Negative emotions can help us to move forward in our lives in a way that will enable us to have success and enjoyment.

Another way to tap into the value of negative thoughts and emotions is to use them as a signal to let you know that you have veered away from your commitment to staying positive. When we decide, for example, that we are not going to think negatively anymore, we must be realistic about this. A decision to be positive doesn’t mean that at times we aren’t going to think or feel something negative. The commitment to be positive doesn’t mean that you are going to be perfect. Decide right now that you are in fact a human being and for sure there will be times when you are going to once again say or do the wrong thing. Your commitment to staying positive means that you are committing yourself to not dwelling on negativity. When you think of it this way, then you can “brush away” the momentary negative experience before it takes root and then quickly replacing the negative emotion with its opposite positive emotion, or a thought of being grateful for something. You can immediately say to yourself or someone else: “I’m sorry I didn’t mean that the way it came out…what I really mean is…”

Even if a woman is yelling at her husband, screaming blue murder at him, telling him all sorts of horrible things about himself, yelling that she wants a divorce – if this guy has emuna and he has prepared in advance, he can take his momentary automatic feeling of fear or wish for revenge and turn it around to feel even more inner strength to believe in his marriage, and that this woman really loves him, even though he’s being screamed at and cursed at the moment. If he has worked on this and reviewed it a lot, it won’t take any will power for him to stick around, and sort his marriage out because he’s made it apart of himself. This guy’s ability to switch from negative to positive has become a part of his identity. And now he is giving off powerful spiritual vibrations of certainty, and positivity and acceptance for his wife, which she cannot understand logically but that are going to turn the situation around.

What’s going on with the wife, right now? She’s just let her husband have it, no holds barred, and he’s responding with solidity and unconditional love – and that’s exactly what she’s looking for! The husband doesn’t need to come up with a brilliant speech to win her back, he just needs to believe in his marriage, and believe that right now, he needs to be yelled at. Instead of bristling with anger, the husband’s strong focus on creating a good marriage helps him to accept all the verbal chastisement calmly; and when he does that, life starts to respond to him in turn, doors that were locked and bolted shut start to open, and it becomes a cycle of progress. And he’s seeing real movement not just in his marriage, but also with his children; and with his career; and in his belief in himself. He’s stopped the vicious cycle in its tracks, and now everything is starting to turn in a positive direction.

So the next time that you have a negative thought imagine that you just crossed over the white line on the highway – it’s your signal that you’re swerving off course and out of the lane. Just as you quickly adjust the steering wheel to bring your car back into alignment, you can learn to just as quickly adjust your emotional state back to the straight path of positivity, gratitude and emuna. But as in all areas of emotional and spiritual development, we are only as good as the amount of daily practice and review that we make of these principles.