7 “toxic” Emotions That Prevent Us From Achieving Happiness

Toxic emotions are those that veto our quality of life. Thus, dimensions such as envy, anger, frustration, fear or hatred are undoubtedly factors that make it difficult to enjoy optimal and adequate personal well-being.

On the other hand, we are aware that, in the field of psychology and personal growth, there is a term that, perhaps, we use excessively. We refer to “toxicity”: the statement that such people or such behaviors are toxic. Well, sometimes there are ideas that find their best translation in those popular and common terms that you need to know how to contextualize.

There are no “toxic” people. There are people who simply do not know how to build respectful, healthy and satisfying relationships. Thus, when we speak of toxic emotions, we refer, therefore, to emotions that are harmful, that put fences to our well-being, fences to our happiness and walls to our psychological well-being.

The word “toxic” therefore has no scientific validity, but it does have an illustrative value of what is meant: dysfunctional behavior, which causes discomfort, pain or unhappiness.

Toxic emotions to attend to

Toxic emotions are there to be addressed. Neglecting them, avoiding them or even feeding their intensity leads us to states that are as debilitating as they are dangerous. It is important to note that these internal states not only have the power to affect our state of mind. They also mediate our decisions and behaviors.

In this way, a mind inhabited by frustration and anger can shape inappropriate and even harmful decisions for oneself and others.

The same goes for shame or fear, toxic and limiting emotions that trip up every aspect of our life.

Thus, research such as that published in the journal Behavioral Sciences in 2018 shows us that these types of emotions mediate any social process: they affect our ability to learn, work and interact.

Knowing and managing them effectively can allow us to have greater control over ourselves. Let’s see which ones it is.

1. Toxic emotions: shame

They say that, over time, one loses shame  but, in reality, there are those who intensify it to reach unsuspected limits and in almost all areas of their life.

• There are many types of shame: to show ourselves as we are, to wear certain types of clothes, shame to address people who attract us, to ask questions, to entrust ourselves to someone, to show ourselves vulnerable …
• It is clear that in social interaction and in everyday behavior there are limits, there are barriers that we will never cross for moral, conventional or decorum reasons.
• Studies such as the one carried out at the University of Kent, in the United Kingdom, reveal that people with shame are not only afraid of being labeled and judged for their emotions or behaviors.

Often they even hide emotional realities from themselves, which further intensifies the suffering. Therefore, when we are within the field of personal growth, we must be clear: shame limits our identity and our fulfillment.

Shame is related to fear and insecurity, so it never hurts to delve into everything about ourselves that we do not accept or that makes us uncomfortable to work on it.

2. Anxiety

Anxiety will be toxic as long as it surpasses us and crosses that healthy threshold in which people find that impulse or that motivation to give much more of ourselves.

This emotion, experienced at a tight level, always works in our favor. The problem therefore comes when we lose control over it and the quality of our thoughts changes to place them against us.

• The moment one perceives a continuous threat, constant stress or corrosive anxiety, toxicity appears, that is, the negative emotion that invades everything.

• Persistent anxiety, far from prompting us to improve, what it does is discourage us, give us a feeling of fatigue, overload, lack of concentration …

3. Anguish

Anxiety is a time bomb, because multiple negative dimensions are compressed in it: fear, the feeling of threat, negativity, uncertainty, low resistance to frustration, pain …

No one can live eternally in anguish.  It is a way of dying in life and of completely enclosing our possibility of being free, happy to realize ourselves as people.

4. Constant dissatisfaction

Sometimes, dissatisfaction acts as a powerful engine that urges us to change, to improve, to improve …

• However, when dissatisfaction is chronic and meaningless, that discomfort and apathy invade everything.
• Little by little we lose the desire, the spirits, the smile and the motivation.

However, be careful with that feeling that dissatisfaction is chronic, because it is most likely that we are facing a type of depression.

5. Toxic emotions: envy

Envy is not healthy. Experiencing that sensation or emotion constantly throughout life what it does is leave our self-esteem on the ground.

• Envy leads us down the path of suffering. Wanting for ourselves attributes, things or dimensions that do not belong to us or that we are not able to achieve is harmful and is not useful for our psychological well-being.
• Not being able to appreciate the success of others, to respect and celebrate what others are, show or have says a lot about oneself.
• It is important to be able to celebrate ourselves, to love ourselves and also to appreciate what others achieve.

6. Constant fear

If we were looking for a simple definition of happiness it would be this: absence of fear. However, we know that fears serve a specific purpose: they help us survive and alert us to a risk.

However, when there comes a time when everything scares us, when we have the feeling that everything is going to go wrong, that we are going to be stalked, criticized, abandoned or that all change is itself negative, we will be completely limiting our ability to be happy.

7. Frustration

Healthy frustration encourages change, improvement. However, frustrations are other of those toxic emotions that run aground on the edge of fear, lost dreams and surrender.

• We cannot forget that all frustration feeds on failure and disappointment, on an unfulfilled dream, on a missed goal.

• Thus, before we become resentful people, we are able to learn from mistakes and failure to move forward, to apply new strategies, to take control and prioritize ourselves again to achieve success.

To conclude, as we have seen, all these emotions are well known to us. However, all of them can be positive as long as we maintain control over them.

The moment they take the reins of our life and settle into the palace of our mind without us doing anything about it, they will become toxic emotions …