Emotions… we all have them, we all feel them. There’s a whole spectrum of them, from love on one end to fear on the other. But have you ever really thought about what emotions are? Why do we have them? What are we supposed to do with them? I’ve had some of my own questions come up as I wrote this, especially in the context of what’s been going on in the world lately – hurricanes, earthquakes, a contentious Supreme Court nomination, a divisive political climate, along with what’s going on in my day-to-day personal life. With so many emotions being stirred up, even within the course of a single day, it seems like a really good time talk about them. So let’s just dive in!
When you break it down to the basics, emotions are simply energy, each one with its own vibration. Love and happiness are among the highest vibrations, while fear and depression are among the lowest. Let’s take it a step further and look at how these vibrations manifest on a physical level. When you’re feeling a higher-vibrational emotion like joy, do you feel sluggish and walk around scowling? How about if you’re feeling a lower-vibrational emotion like anger. Do you feel like skipping around and laughing? Probably not. The vibration of the emotion we are feeling tends to manifest in us physically too. Our language even reflects the levels of vibration with phrases like “on cloud 9” or “down in the dumps”.
Emotions are meant to be expressed! Guess who is really good at expressing them… babies! Whatever they are feeling, they just let it out. As we get older, we start holding in, shoving down and hiding how we feel at times. It’s not healthy on an emotional or energetic level! Because emotions are energy, when we don’t express them, that energy stays in the body and gets stuck somewhere in it. Your physical body starts sending you signals, like small aches and pains, to say “hey, there’s something stuck here!”. Release the emotion and the signals will stop. Ignore your body and it will continue trying to get your attention, sending stronger signals, which eventually lead to illness and dis-ease. In all my readings, I’ve never found emotions like love or happiness stuck in someone. It’s the emotions like anger, sadness, worry, guilt, regret, shame, anxiety, etc.
I could list a lot of reasons why we don’t always express how we feel, but I think most, if not all, of it just boils down to fear. Fear of what others will think, fear of being judged, fear of not fitting in with societal beliefs, fear of stigmas, fear of hurting someone’s feelings, fear of being rejected. It’s also something that we learn. Many of us grew up in an environment where emotions were not expressed or expressed in unhealthy ways. We grew up with society’s stigmas about emotions like anger and depression being bad, men not being manly if they express any emotion and women being weak and/or crazy for expressing them. We need to change the conversation and our perspectives! We need to embrace the fact that we have emotions – the “good”, the “bad” and the “ugly”. How we feel is how we feel. Emotions are simply a natural expression. Do you wake up in the morning and think “I’m going to get angry about something today”? I bet you wake up like most people, wanting to be happy and have a nice day, but then you hear something on the news or something happens and suddenly you feel angry about it. It’s ok to feel angry. It’s ok to feel any emotion. That’s the healthier perspective that we need to get to.
When it comes to emotions, the important thing is to find a way to express what you are feeling. I can’t tell you how many people have apologized during a reading because they started crying. Why apologize? It bubbled up and was ready to come out – that’s emotional release! There’s a reason for what you’re feeling. Allow yourself to feel it. Allow others to express what they’re feeling. That doesn’t give anyone free reign to haul off and go on a violent rampage or hurt themselves or others. There are healthy ways to get those (stuck) emotions out: talk to someone you trust; go to a counselor or join a therapy group; journal; find a creative outlet or hobby; music (listen to it, play an instrument or sing it out); physical release (tennis seems perfect for this because you get to whack a ball around!); watch a tear-jerker movie; take it out on a pillow (they’re good for crying into and punching) or even screaming (preferably not in your office, in a crowd, or at someone. Try inside your house or your car). Find things that work for you so you can have that release and feel better.
Finding ways to express how we feel in healthy ways, whether it’s in the moment or something we’ve been holding on to from the past, can seem like a challenge at times. Especially those lower-vibrational emotions! The other day I let loose while driving behind a woman who was paying more attention to her phone than the road. I beeped at her 3 times within half a mile and some colorful words were flying out of my mouth. The anger and impatience came out and then it was over. I admit it wasn’t one of my finer moments. Was there a better way to express that? Probably. Would I do it differently next time? Yes. Even though it felt good to get that out, I didn’t feel good about how I got it out. And that’s part of the process, figuring out ways that you can express various emotions while honoring who you truly are – a being of love. Don’t beat yourself up as you learn to walk what can at times feel like a very fine line. Sometimes we end up yelling or behaving in a way we’re not proud of afterwards. Put it in perspective – you didn’t hold the emotion(s) in, which is good, but how could you express it in a healthier way if there’s a next time? Learn from it and move on.
Whether we like what we are feeling or not, emotions are an important part of our experience. Given all the emotion-invoking things going on in the world around us, now’s as good a time as any to talk about this and make a change for the better! What emotions are easy for you to express and which ones are difficult? How do you express emotions like anger or sadness? What didn’t you express in the past and are still holding on to? How can you start today to express yourself more and in healthy ways?
Stay tuned for Part 2 about the emotional scale and emotions as a guidance system.
