The Villainizing of Mood States

Postmodern Perspectives. . .

The Villainizing of Mood States

Why must we try and stop anxiety or make it go away? Part of what makes the anxious experience unpleasant is the socially constructed idea that we are not supposed to be anxious. Instead of stopping anxiety, another option might be to become its friend and comfortably exist in an anxious state.

The same could be said for anger. Why are we always trying to stop being angry? 

Part of the reason might be because certain mood states have been assigned a negative value by society and cast aside as villainous.

Sure, we will probably always have to concede to social norms regarding the management and control of behaviors that are driven by emotions. We can’t go around punching people in the face because we are angry (we’ll, we can but there will certainly be consequences for that). We can’t stay in our rooms for our entire lives because we are anxious (Well, we could if we won the lottery, like delivery food, and kept up with our Netflix subscription). 

Yes, anxiety is unpleasant and changing it internally may still be a big part of someone’s goal for change. My point is just that we should also be challenging constructed societal norms and expectations in our pursuit of change. There just might be a little space to exist more as we already are, instead of trying to completely change ourselves in order to match expectations of society.