I am sure that like me, you find it totally normal and inevitable the expression of negative emotions. When someone annoys or irritates us, we shout in anger. When a subordinate is not performing according to expectations, we have no qualms in being critical of his or her performance. When we want to get somewhere and some obstacle blocks our path, we see no difficulty in expressing our impatience, frustration and resentment. Similarly, we often use language such as ?I am afraid?, ?I am concerned? and ?I am worried? without blinking ? after all these expressions represent legitimate expressions of our true feelings at a particular point in time. In management circles, such ability to express oneself is even glorified ? bosses speak complimentarily of the fact that this or that person is able to be self-assertive and can stand his or her own ground. ?At least he?s not a doormat!? they would be happy to point out.

So if someone were to come knocking on your door and say to you that you?ve been WRONG (yes, wrong) all along in expressing these unpleasant or negative emotions, how would you react? With amazement, shock and horror? And that?s exactly how I reacted the other day when I re-read Peter Ouspensky?s famous masterpiece, ?The Fourth Way?, a book I had first come across during my undergraduate years.

For those of us not familiar with Ouspensky?s work, ?The Fourth Way? is a philosophical work published in 1957 which summarizes (and adds to) the teachings of GI Gurdjieff. According to Ouspensky, one of the major obstacles we face in becoming self-aware and gaining self-knowledge is the fact that in general, we have no qualms in expressing a whole range of negative or unpleasant emotions ? including all forms of irritation, frustration, impatience, boredom, judgment, anxiety, worry, suspicion, jealousy, self-pity, anger, indignation, hatred, resentment, and of course, fear. Why? ?It sounds strange,? observes Ouspensky, ?but it is very important to understand that all negative emotions are absolutely useless: they do not serve any useful purposes; they do not make us acquainted with new things or bring us nearer to new things; they do not give us energy; they only waste energy and create unpleasant illusions. They can even destroy physical health.?

Why then do we persist in being critical of others, expressing our anger, venting out our frustrations, manifesting our fears and so on? For a number of reasons: we believe that we are justified in doing so; that such expression is essentially harmless; that it is good to release pent-up energies; that we are not and should not be perceived as doormats and in any case, we don?t have much of a choice: they are mostly inevitable. More importantly, we even go as far as assuming that it?s not our fault if we feel angry, hatred, impatient, and so on ? but it?s the OTHER PARTY?S fault. To quote Ouspensky: ?Almost all our personal negative emotions are based on accusation: somebody else is guilty?. The problem is indeed never in us but out there somewhere, with someone else or caused by circumstances.

When you come to think about it, expressing anger, jealousy, hatred, boredom, anxiety or self-pity is never a sign of strength ? anyone can and does do so. Like a machine indeed. The good news here is that we CAN get rid of this wastage of energy and automatism in us. As the author points out, our ability to express negative emotions is not something innate, some genetic inheritance that we are stuck with for the rest of our lives like the colour of our skin. Instead, it is something that we learned, that we picked up when we were kids by imitating our parents or teacher. We were all born WITHOUT them ? which means that these habits can be unlearnt.

If you realise like I did, how incredibly wasteful can be the expression of unpleasant emotions, what?s the next step? Bottle them up and suppress them down? I wouldn?t advise you: as any psychologist knows, pent-up emotions, if held in check for too long, can play havoc in one?s life. Invariably they explode, often in an even more destructive rage than before. No, the key is to become so aware of them, to get to know and understand them so much, that you will ?smell? them coming from far. And when they are here, you next take the deliberate, fully conscious decision NOT to express them. Let us follow Ouspensky?s wise observation: ?It is not enough to observe them, it is necessary to resist them, because without resisting them one cannot observe them. They happen so quickly, so habitually and so imperceptibly, that one cannot notice them if one does not make sufficient efforts to create obstacles for them.?

Be warned though: this is hard, hard work that requires tremendous alertness of the brain ? but the rewards are enormous as one develops both self-awareness and self-mastery.

Prof E. Charoux [email protected]