Acknowledge and embrace your negative emotions | May Chen | TEDxTaipei

Why don't we like to be labeled as "emotional"? Should we be ashamed of showing our true emotions? Clinical psychologist May Chen offers her views on why correctly identifying one's emotions is crucial in adapting to the challenges of everyday life. Believe it or not, acknowledging negative emotions is essential to your psychological well-being and can even save your life!

May Chen is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in areas of organizational, social, health, forensic, and clinical psychology. She currently teaches at the National Central University in Taiwan, where her main research focus is in the areas of stress, emotions, and health. May's most recent projects include EQ development and trainings for school children as well as psychological evaluations of violent sex offenders.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

What if I said to you

that the violent criminals
and sex offenders inside Taipei Prison

are much better
at controlling their emotions

than our university students?

Would you believe me?

Since I do psychological research,

I often have the opportunity
to go to different places

and get to know
different kinds of people.

Over the past few years,

in addition to working
with university students,

I've also visited Taipei Prison often.

What I just mentioned
is the result of our latest study.

When we started,

we were a little surprised too.

Emotion. What is it exactly?

Is it good or bad?

Do you want to have them?

I started working part time
when I was in high school.

I was told very early on,

"When you come to work,
leave your emotions at the door."

Then I learned what people meant
by the word "professional."

A very important part of it
is to not have emotions.

Not to get angry when you
encounter someone unreasonable.

Not to cry when you feel sad.

That's in the workplace.

At home, if you have a
disagreement with your family,

they might say to you,
"Don't be so emotional."

Emotions: when you have them, it's like
you've become a second-class citizen.

What you say is reasonable but useless.

Now you might say,

"That's just your generation.
Kids today are different.

They have a well-rounded
training from a young age."

Is that so?

Early this year,
we started a research project

to get elementary students to identify
their emotions and develop their EQ.

In class we asked the children,

"What is anger?

Do you remember
the last time you were angry?"

The children replied,

"I don't know.

I don't. Mom and Dad
say I shouldn't get angry.

Our teacher says it's bad to get angry."

As we can see, nobody
seems to like having emotions.

Why hasn't evolution
just gotten rid of them?

How have they managed
to survive until today?

There are many reasons.

An important one is
that they can save lives.

Maybe not as many lives
as the previous speakers have,

but they can still save lives.

(Laughter)

I once had a patient

who was a successful
career woman on Wall Street.

She first came to me hoping
to get to know herself better

so she could develop her leadership skills
and become a better leader.

She shared with me that when working
in a male-dominated environment,

you can't reveal your
weaknesses and frailties.

After a long time working like this,
you learn to suppress your emotions.

During the time I counseled her,
she started having marital problems.

Her relationship with her
husband became unstable.

One time during a fight,

he picked up a glass from the table
and flung it at her.

She quickly got out of the way.

The glass hit the wall,

and there were
shards of glass everywhere.

Afterwards, I asked her a question

that all psychologists
eventually ask their patients:

"How did you feel?"

"How did you feel?"

She said, "I felt angry.
How can he treat me like this?"

I said, "What else?"

She said "I felt hopeless.

When I first married him,
he wasn't like this."

Are there any emotions

that you think
you'd have in this situation,

that she hadn't mentioned?

Fear.

What happens when we're scared?

We flee.

What happens when we are angry?

We attack the other person.

If we can't correctly
identify our emotions,

instead of running away in fear,

we might think we're angry
and attack someone;

this can lead to
very serious consequences.

This woman had stifled

and ran away from her emotions
and insecurities for so long

that she had forgotten
what it is to feel fear.

Her situation was urgent,

and I couldn't teach her
in such a short time

how to experience fear again.

So I don't have the chance to reestablish
this kind of "circuit" in her brain.

This is a diagram of the brain,
the one you've just seen.

When we experience fear,

the information
from the body's five senses -

what we see,
what we hear and so on -

is passed from the thalamus

to the sensory cortex for processing.

The hippocampus,
which is in charge of memory,

will download the relevant
information from the situation

and send it to the amygdala
for comparison.

The amygdala stores
our previous experiences of fear.

It evaluates the level of danger
compared to past experiences

and then orders the hypothalamus
to make an appropriate response.

You can see that in this circuit,

past experiences and memories
play a very important role.

But we didn't have enough time
to reestablish it.

So we could only work
on awareness and recognition.

I told this woman,
"The next time this happens,

no matter how you feel,
you have to call 911 immediately."

We went over it repeatedly,

and in the end, there was a time
when they fought again.

This time, her husband grabbed a knife.

Afterwards, she told me
she was angry at the time,

she looked at him
and hesitated for a few seconds,

but because of what we practiced,
she eventually called 911.

Fortunately, the police
arrived within 7 minutes

and tragedy was avoided.

Emotions can direct our actions
and decide their consequences.

Correctly identifying emotions
can save your life.

Of course, this is a more extreme example.

On the less extreme side,

our research keeps telling us
that our physical and mental health,

our academic achievements
and job performance,

our leadership skills and creativity

are all intimately related
to our emotions.

But what exactly are emotions?

In fact, they're a kind of feeling,

our own subjective experience.

They can be influenced by many things.

Like our thoughts and opinions.

They can also lead to different actions,
like attacking someone.

"I'm so angry because
I think you tricked me!

So I'm going to hit you."

My thinking could be wrong
because I misunderstood you.

My behavior could also be wrong,

because I shouldn't hit people
when I'm angry.

But feelings themselves
aren't right or wrong,

correct or incorrect, good or bad.

In the United States,
you'll often hear people say,

"You shouldn't feel that way."

I hate it when people say that.

It's like if I said to you, "I'm so cold!"

And you replied, "Then stop feeling cold!"

(Laughter)

This is your own subjective experience.

Nobody has the right to tell you

that what you're experiencing
is right or wrong, good or bad.

At this point you might ask,

"Are you saying
that the criminals in prison

got there just because of
emotional problems?"

I remember when I was in
Taipei Prison evaluating them,

I asked them the same kind of question:

"How did you feel when you did this?"

They immediately responded,
"I know. Pissed off!"

Then I asked, "So what could you do
to feel a little better?"

They said, "I know!" right away.

"I felt much better
after beating them up."

(Laughter)

On the other hand, when I ask
college students, "How do you feel?"

They say, "I don't know."

(Laughter)

"Then, what could you do to feel better?"

"I don't know ..."

(Laughter)

So it would appear

that the prison inmates are much better
at identifying and regulating emotions

than college students.

The problem is how you
express your emotions.

All feelings are okay.

But even though it's okay to get angry,
I shouldn't hit people.

We taught elementary students
about EQ, emotional quotient.

How to correctly identify your emotions,

and the correct way of expressing them.

All feelings are okay.

That doesn't mean all perceptions are true
or that all behaviors are acceptable,

but all feelings are okay.

Even though all feelings
are subjective experiences,

there are a few fundamental emotions

that every person will frequently have.

This goes across cultures.

Today, if you met someone

with a completely different
background, culture, or language,

you'd still be able to correctly identify
the six fundamental emotions

through their facial expressions.

Other emotions can be hard to distinguish
because of cultural differences,

but everyone will frequently have
these fundamental emotions.

Every time I talk about this in Chinese,

I'll hear people whisper the phrase
"Happiness, anger, sorrow, joy."

(Laughter)

Happiness and joy are the same thing!

So since we speak Chinese,
we can guess those three.

What about the other three?

Surprise. Fear. Disgust.

Everyone regularly
experiences these emotions.

But the intensity and outward
expression of these emotions

will vary from person to person,
and also depending on the situation.

I once had a colleague
who was a developmental psychologist.

He was also a very typical American.

He once asked me,
"Hey, how often do you cry?"

I said, "One or two times a year.

Maybe three."

He said, "Ah! That's so unhealthy!"

(Laughter)

Obviously you don't think so, right?

I said, "So how many times
do you cry in a year?"

He said, "Three times I cry a little,
and five times I cry a lot."

(Laughter)

Is that healthier?

Everyone gets sad, but that's not to say
that whenever someone feels sad,

they necessarily will cry.

The intensity and outward
expression can differ.

I just said, everyone has
these emotions regularly.

Looking at these six emotions,

can you tell me, or rather tell yourself,

when was the last time you had them?

If you say, "I don't remember,"

or you haven't felt them
for a few months or a year,

that doesn't mean you haven't had them;

rather, it means you haven't noticed them.

You ignored them,

or perhaps you suppressed them
or distracted yourself from them.

If we look once more
at the six fundamental emotions,

only one of them is positive: happiness.

Surprise can be good or bad.

The other four are all negative.

Nobody likes negative emotions.

They feel bad.

But they still have
a reason for existence.

They can warn you and let you know

that if you don't make some changes,
there could be danger.

It's just like pain.

Nobody likes pain.

But if I accidentally put my hand
on top of a hot stove

and I didn't feel pain,
I wouldn't know to withdraw my hand.

Recently, there has been a worrying trend
in developed countries:

people are trying very hard
to avoid having negative emotions.

Recently when I was in the United States,
I went into a drugstore.

Their drugstores are a bit like
Watsons here in Taiwan.

They don't just sell medicine there,
but also many daily necessities.

I couldn't help but take
this picture when I was there.

(Laughter)

There was an entire wall
just selling pain killers, pain relief.

What we call OTC, over the counter drugs,
which are very easy to obtain.

If you look at sales data for OTC drugs,
you'll see that for the past few years,

pain killers are always number one.

The question is, Now what?

After you've taken pain killers,
will the problem just go away?

Maybe, but there's also a chance
that the problem will get worse.

It's the same as the feeling of pain.

I used to work as an EMT.

That is, working in an ambulance as
an emergency medical technician.

When we got to the site
of the emergency,

no matter how much pain
someone was experiencing,

we couldn't give them
any painkillers or anesthetics.

If we did that, then they
wouldn't feel pain anymore,

and we might make an error.

We might delay giving first aid
or make a misdiagnosis.

Negative emotions are the same way.

If you try to escape from them
by ignoring or suppressing them,

the problem won't just go away.

It might fester
until it becomes more serious.

Recently in the news,

you hear about people
who explode without warning

and commit some unspeakable action.

One reason for this could be

that they've suppressed warnings
from their emotions.

In fact, negative emotions
are very important.

It's here to stay
and isn't going to be phased out.

Since we don't have a choice,

can we try to look at them
from a different perspective?

They're actually not that scary.

There are times
when they can be very intense,

but they don't last forever.

I once had a patient tell me,
"I'm trying really hard not to cry!"

I asked, "Why?"

He said, "I'm afraid if I cry,
I won't be able to stop."

I said to him, "Don't worry.

That's impossible."

(Laughter)

Have you ever known or heard of someone

who started crying and never stopped?

Emotions don't last forever.

That's the nature of emotions.

So while happiness won't last forever,
neither will sadness.

Emotions make the finer things in life
more clear and distinct.

For example, someone
who has never experienced loss

will have a limited understanding
of what it means to have something.

We innately have so many
different kinds of emotions,

just like the colors
on an artist's palette.

If we use a little more color

and attentively experience each emotion,

maybe, just maybe,

we can create a more colorful,
elegant, and enriching life.

Thank you.

(Applause)