Welcome to the upside of your dark side

Nowadays it seems that positive emotions and kindness are the route to take when facing a problem. No matter what is troubling us, I bet you a bone that some friend or colleague will tell you a variation of: "you should try to feel good and try to not feel bad".

That's sweet of course and most of the time they mean well but in the groundbreaking book The Upside of Your Dark Side, authors and pioneering researchers Tood Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener argue that, sometimes, the parts of our personality that we despise the most are the ones that can eventually save the day.

Its pages are packed with both scientific facts and anecdotes that serve as lessons on how to take advantage of the negative emotions such as:

-- The right dose of anger can be useful when it inspires us to fight against an injustice. Plus, acting with passivity might help perpetuate that uncomfortable situation.

-- Guilt can motivate us to be more socially sensitive and caring citizens. The authors propose an exercise based on ask your employees, students, team members or even kids this simple question: "Is what you are doing helping or hurting this situation?". That might lead to a few seconds of self-reflection and to a better use of feeling a little bit guilty if that person is causing some trouble.

-- Even anxiety, arguably one of the more demonized emotions by society, can bring enormous benefits when approached as being a kind of a sentinel. Anxious people tend to be on high alert for any slight shift in their environment, so they are better at spotting potential problems.

The main idea from the book is that negative emotions can be helpful in surprising ways and being your whole self, meaning that you also embrace your dark side, can be more useful in the long term than not just being your "good" self.