One of the criticisms I’ve had recently concerns my view on optimism. The writer’s opinion was that I dismiss the value of negative emotions and their role in our personal growth. So let me clarify my mission.

I agree that there is value in every emotion! Life is a tapestry made up of all kinds of emotions that add to the richness of our lives. Without the duality of happiness and sadness, neither would have any value. Our culture in the United States however, focuses so heavily on the negative that many people walk around in a perpetual state of numbness, fear and sadness.

Recently I was in a setting where CNN was being broadcast in public a story about the economic crisis was being presented. A woman, who was employed and upon questioning, not directly impacted by anything in the story, began to describe just how “scary ” the whole situation was. It was easy to see her body become tense, her eyes widen and her voice quiver as we spoke. She was genuinely frightened. When I inquired as to what was causing her to feel this way, she couldn’t explain. She said, “I don’t know, it’s just scary.”

I asked her what was happening right now. I asked her to take an inventory of everything going on around her; to notice each detail, to be aware of her breathing, the temperature of the air and my presence in the room. Almost immediately she began to calm down and she thank me for bringing her back to the moment.

If she were facing unemployment or the loss of her home, those feelings might be more explainable, at least initially. In some ways we DO feel our life is threatened when our financial stability is threatened. Too often though, the news and our imagination about events past, present and future put people in this state and keep them there. It becomes a habit that creates stress in the mind and body, and results in illness that is physical.

I don’t deny that there is a full range of emotional responses that one should experience in life. I just advocate that moving through the those emotions that don’t help us move forward to a more powerful, positive state is a more resourceful place to be. It’s perfectly normal and appropriate to be shocked and saddened by a loss of job, but staying in that shocked and saddened state is not the place to be if you want to find a new one. I also firmly believe from experience that life is more joyful in a state of optimism, and isn’t joy what we’d all like anyway?