Have you met the "no pain no gain" person yet? When you are having a really rough day and they try to perk you up with platitudes such as "if you don't have the bad days, then you can't appreciate the good ones" and "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger".
Don't you just want to slap them a bit, or is that just me? All I really want at that moment is a hug, to be offered a glass of wine and to chat.
Sometimes there are days when life just isn't great, even bloody horrible. I want to premise that these articles are not about a Pollyanna view of life, banishing all negativity. Life is full of ups and downs. It's more about what you do in the tough times that determines how much you suffer rather than avoiding negative emotions altogether.
Positive emotions are a powerful way of helping us cope and perform better in the face of challenges. A positive mindset builds resources such as social, physical and intellectual skills. This has been called "happiness advantage" by one researcher.
Positive emotions help to counterbalance the effects of negative emotions. Case in point. My son was having a monumentally bad morning recently. Negative emotions were flying all around the house. We needed affirmative action - a mood repair technique was needed. Tentatively I made the approach. We talked quickly about how he was feeling, angry! But before we talked about why, we needed a surge of positive emotions to resolve the issue creatively and efficiently. Skateboarding was needed. So around the block we went and we dropped off most negativity along the way. We returned home in positive moods, solved the issue quickly and were on our way to a great day.
