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Our heroine is sure that all the negative feelings and emotions that we try to get rid of are in fact priceless capital. We are too focused on finding the positive and do not notice the benefits that a negative experience brings. Her point of view is commented by a psychologist.
“I draw inspiration from what is considered negative”
Veronica K., 34
“Sometimes people don’t even admit to themselves that they are burned by anger or envy. When we are hurt, we try to quickly push out this feeling. Do not concentrate, as they say, on the negative. I realized that it is more profitable not to cover up our shortcomings, not to hide from the injuries that each of us pulls from childhood, but to use it to our advantage.
Did someone hit you hard? Betrayed? The best way to punish the offender is to become more successful and happier than this person.
The principle of “do it out of spite” is an excellent fuel that we underestimate. It is believed that these are negative, dark feelings, and we are embarrassed for them. However, they are in each of us, so why not melt them into something really useful?
Life and people will inevitably throw unpleasant events and emotions at us. Instead of pouring energy into experiences, I throw it into the furnace of my success. I’m not afraid of pain. On the contrary, it allows me to move forward, to get to know myself from a new perspective. So if someone sets me up and betrays me, in the end I will thank this person.
A good example of this is my difficult relationship with my mother. I suffered for a very long time, I could not forgive her for the indifference and rigidity that I had to endure in childhood. I went through this in therapy until I finally realized that we were better off just not talking. I crossed it out of my life, and transformed claims and resentments into the energy of deeds. I wanted to prove to myself that my life would be happier no matter what. So I went into business, opened a hairdressing salon, then courses for makeup artists and a drawing studio.
I wasn’t afraid of failure, I just always persevered because anger gave me energy.
Instead of extinguishing negative feelings, it is better to tell yourself — I will prove it to him! Yes, I often literally draw inspiration, recharge from resentment, anger, envy, and I am not ashamed of it. We are taught from childhood that motivation should come solely from good feelings. The problem is that there are not so many good things in life. This is a deficit that everyone is chasing, but there is more than enough bad. But people do not consider evil as a useful resource, but try to get rid of it by all means.
“Achievements“ out of spite ”to someone is a productive path, but with a lot of traps»
Daria Petrovskaya, gestalt therapist
The fact that the heroine uses her anger as fuel is understandable and justified. Aggression is necessary for a person to mobilize vital forces. She is also needed in relationships for the ability to fight back in time, to defend her opinion.
However, more often than not, there are distortions. Excessively violent upholding of one’s own boundaries leads to the impossibility of hearing the other and breaking contact, as happened with the heroine and her mother. To delete from life, which is psychologically similar to the death of a person.
It always confuses me when someone easily declares that he does not have a relationship with someone very significant, like a mother, father or his own children.
After all, these are the figures with which it is impossible to complete the relationship. There are always many points of tension in these connections. The completed relationship phenomenon is a more holistic perception of a person: something good that we are able to talk about or remember with warmth, and something that clearly marks the line.
The heroine says that the motivation «out of spite» helped her achieve a lot, and in this sense, one can sincerely rejoice at her achievements. But does she know how to fully enjoy her own realization, if we remove the “out of spite” component from it? Because in this «out of spite» there is someone else — the one to whom it is intended. And the relationship with him is not terminated, as it might seem. It is always an achievement with an eye to it. Unfinished internal dialogue — «let’s see what you have to say now.»
Therefore, aggression and anger are excellent fuel, but they do not give full freedom of their choices and actions. Reaching someone «out of spite» can be productive, but let’s just say it’s a path full of pitfalls.
Three books on the subject
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