A few weeks ago, I wrote about passion, and commented that if we don’t allow our self to feel we won’t feel the fire of our passion – whatever we do will come from our mind.
How well do you understand, express and manage your emotions?
When do you not allow yourself to feel?
What feelings have you feeling uncomfortable?
When we become aware that we struggle with certain feelings, we can look to understand what triggers them. What emotions do you feel uncomfortable feeling? Anger, fear, disgust, love, joy, sadness, guilt, shame, pride… something else? What feeling do you want to avoid at all costs?
It is what it is. The question is – what is the emotion looking to teach you? And, what can you do to move beyond it?
If you were taught as a child ‘don’t be angry.. sad.. weak..’, you may well shy away from feelings, yet you’re human! It’s easy to reject, judge, suppress our emotions because of what we were taught. And, when we experience grief, rejection, unworthiness, failure, we may be so afraid of losing control we stuff our feelings away, and put on a mask. “I’m fine”. This can become our default position – whether we are aware of it or not. And so, our heart becomes hard.
Often when we react with anger, our feeling is based on our perception of how things ‘should be’ or what is ‘right’. Someone being late can trigger our anger, yet for some cultures being late is the norm. So, it’s good to look at our perceptions to avoid any misunderstandings.
We need our emotions. We want to ask our soul to help us understand and manage them so that we respond rather react. If you feel angry and can accept it as being the consequence of certain experiences, you can then ask yourself, if you were not angry ‘how would you like to be?’ You can transform your anger into inspiration, motivation, passion, joy…whatever you choose!