do you believe in negative emotions?  if you do, when you have a negative emotion, what do you do with it? do you try to "let go of it" or feel it more presently to understand it and/or let it transform into something else and/or have it let go of you. i feel horrible for asking a question and giving 3 options but i felt like it was required to give enough context of my predicament. its almost like meditation vs awareness. from the side of meditation that tries to tell you to get your mind "blank". it seems like awareness is simply not having thoughts about what is there.
the funny thing, about the ups and downs, is you're gonna have to answer this differently every time. i could try to give you a permanent answer, but that would only set you up for a crash eventually