It is not about what we feel. There is no such thing as a bad emotion. The question is what we do with it. Feelings can't justify behavior. Logic does.

When a person says something that we find unpleasant, we can literally feel like they hit us in the stomach. Why that response may seem unfair if not unreasonable, it has an important purpose. And it's a fundamental part of why emotions provided an evolutionary advantage; peer-pressure.

Remember, the whole purpose of our behavior is for collaboration. And the two social processes that enable that cooperation are peer pressure and peer support. Now, while positive reinforcement is good, it doesn't necessarily provide us with a cognitive problem whereas peer pressure does. Hence, the gut punch. And it's purpose can be seen in two cases.

First, the comment is accurate and it bothers us. Accordingly, we feel bad and make behavioral changes accordingly. The second is when the comment is inaccurate and it still bothers us. In that case, we need to make an emotional change. We need to figure out why this person's inaccurate version of reality is an issue for us. The reason lies in over-experiencing shame, although that is a topic for later.

The point in this video is to recognize that the feeling is separate from the behavior. And we should use that feeling to inform the behavior, not determine it. When informing our response is rational, the aforementioned emotional or behavioral change. When determining, it leads to irrational / undesirable behavior in all cases.

So now that you know it needs to be about the response to the feeling, not the feeling itself,
the next lesson will show you how you can gain control over such unpleasant events.