162 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
- Installing solar panels
Next, create a list of five to ten activities you do each week and
practice labeling them in terms of their intrinsic or instrumental
emotional properties.
The value of negative emotions can be best understood
in the context of what they motivate you to do (their instru-
mental value), rather than simply how they make you feel.
Remember, emotions are more than a feeling. If you were to
simply tolerate the feeling of a particular negative emotion
(or group of emotions) for the mere sake of doing so, it would
be uncomfortable at best and torturous at worst. There
would be no intrinsic value. However, if you took time to
examine the motivating factor of the emotion, you could
usually overcome the negative and unpleasant feeling by
engaging in some purposeful or goal- directed activity.
To illustrate, let’s examine the emotional experience of
dissatisfaction. If you have ever felt dissatisfied with how
much your anxiety interferes with your life, you are probably
well aware that the feeling itself can lead to a good deal of
discomfort, distress, and displeasure. For that reason, few
people willingly connect with the emotion of anxiety
without trying to control, avoid, or change it. Nonetheless,
dissatisfaction is what drives achievement in your life; this
emotion, then, if fully understood and accepted, might
prompt you to work toward meaningfully reducing your
anxiety by following the tips outlined in this book.
Other theories on the utility of negative emotions are
rooted in evolutionary psychology. Emotions are thought
to have evolved as a way of maximizing our ancestors’ sur-
vival. Anxiety certainly accords well with these theories.