It's when we don't allow ourselves to feel our emotions that we lose pieces of ourselves, or look to unhealthy coping mechanisms instead, or become robotic and fake.
Emotions mean we feel. And while feeling may sometimes hurt, it is also very wonderful.
If you choose to feel, to be an emotional being, you have to take the bad with the good. Because the alternative is being numb. Feeling nothing. Being devoid of emotion. So you get all (happiness, bliss, joy, excitement, sadness, disappointment, grief, love, etc.) or nothing.
Emotions help us grow.
Love to learn.
Learn to grow.
Grow to love.
Be emotional.
4 comments:
I think we often learn to stuff our feelings away because others do not know how to respond to our emotions and become uncomfortable; we then equate their discomfort with disapproval and begin hiding our feelings to be more acceptable.
It is a human reaction but, for myself at least, it helps to remember that I am no more responsible for the other person's emotions than they are for mine. After years of being a robot I find that I am now thankful for every emotion I feel, even the uncomfortable ones...no way would I ever go back to being numb or hidden!
Ahhh! I wrote my post before I read yours, but the content is so similar...great minds, I suppose!
And yes, this is all absolutely spot on. Why are we so terrified of emotions, or being emotional? Because it implies loss of control? Of weakness or vulnerability? That's what I used to be frightened of, I think. But you're exactly right when you say we have to experience all of it - the good and the bad.
Without sadness, we can never really know happiness, without anger forgiveness....etc etc.
We do need to be more accepting of ourselves and our feelings and not expect to be able to turn them off with some kind of switch or valve so that we can be perfectly pleasant, perfectly presentable robots.
It's so true that you're not responsible for someone else's emotions and they are not for yours. I'm glad you're no longer emotionally numb. I think emotions are part of human connection and I will gladly take the bad with the good because of that. :-)
Yes, Cheryl, great minds for sure :-) I appreciate all your thought on my posts. It's so good to get a little discussion going. Isn't it amazing how one word can bring about so many things? That's part of what I love about the word of the day challenge - I love facilitating creativity and reading how the same word can make us think of the same things and different things! It's so cool and such a learning process.
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