There are two questions here. The first one one, we have to understand in advance that there are no such thing as positive or negative emotion. Sadness is not bad, happy is not awesome. It literally just a human emotion, which we all need to have RELEVANT to the situation we’re dealing with.
If your family member die? You deserve to feel sad.
If someone stole your work? You deserve to feel mad.
Take a look at the emotion wheel below.
What made the emotion positive or not, is not by its category, but by the severity. For example, you’re feeling too sad of grieve to the point you started to blame yourself, loss eating appetite, insomnia or worse, trying to end your life, then that’s when the emotion is considered negative.
So masking your sadness with smile? It depends to whom. If to the world, there’s nothing wrong with it as everyone is struggling at some point in their life, but there is no need to express it everyone. But to our trusted close circle? You are allowed to be vulnerable and express your sadness. Masking it means you’re faking it.
And faking it will leads to disacknowledgment of our beautiful emotion. We have to validate everything we feel, but just to be safe, only with people we trust. If we don’t have one? Then just self-validate. Tell yourself out loud that it’s okay to not be okay 🙂
(I have covered in detail about understanding and regulating our emotion in one of my webinar here)
Second question, helping people is considered an act of altruism, which is the human psychology of behaviour in selfless concern of other’s well-being. Scientifically, it helps to reduce your stress as the rewarding feeling in your brain produced when you make others happy.
Pernah tolong strangers tak? Contohnya dia tengah sesat. Kita rasa seronok bila masalah dia selesai kan? Hati rasa berbunga-bunga dan indah je hidup 🥰.
That’s the reward circuit in your brain. Thus, it’s helpful to reduce the cortisol level of stress in us. However, just be careful to take care of yourself as well, because you too, are important and significant.
It’s okay to take some time to prioritize yourself first before others, to ensure you can be okay and be yourself again. It is called self-care 🙂
Helping others, is just a type of coping mechanism in dealing with stress. Stress itself is not to be made to disappear, but to be managed. Because there is a good and beneficial stress (i.e., Eustress) and there is a bad one (i.e., Distress). Thus, ensure that your stress is in the middle so it can give the best benefit and impact to your well-being, both physical and mental.
There are other coping mechanisms too in dealing with stress, such as relaxation exercise, physical activity etc. You can learn more about stress in one of the episodes from my Sembang Psikologi Secara Santai, or SPSS project here, “Kenali Stress”.
Conclusion here, or the key points:
- it’s okay to feel sad and it is not a sin to feel so. It is just a normal human emotion. Be selective to whom we express it, not because it is bad to express, but to be careful of the society’s stigma.
- Happiness can be gained when we give it to someone, thus, helping people helps us to feel good. But know the limit as well, because we don’t want to turn the kindness into a sacrifice.
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