Tags
Articles, authenticity, Depression, happiness, Health, Life, love, philosophy, psychology, Writing
Feeling What You’re Feeling
Emotions are just emotions. Emotions can range from anger, to sadness, to joy and to love. When we were children we expressed our emotions freely without any judgement from ourselves or others. However when a lot of us became adults, we have developed the habit of suppressing how we really feel because we are concerned or worried about what other people may think of us. We have got into the habit of pleasing other people. Many of us live our lives based on the approval, acceptance, praise and popularity of others. Imagine being in a place of completely and fully loving ourselves and giving ourselves the freedom to fully feel how we are feeling without any fear or judgement from ourselves or others.
The interesting thing about emotions is that when we choose to not express or feel and choose to deny or judge an emotion, we block the rest of the other emotions we are feeling. For example when we are experiencing anxiety in a situation and we judge and resist the anxiety, we in turn disempower ourselves from moving on and transforming that emotion. A more empowering perspective is to love, embrace and feel the emotion we are experiencing, especially negative emotions such as fear, anger, sadness and resentment. It is only by truly loving the emotion and just seeing it as an experience, that we allow ourselves to transform the so-called “negative” experience.
An emotion is just an emotion. It is neither good nor bad. Right nor wrong. It is just an emotion. Emotions come and go. Emotions come from the underlying beliefs we hold about a particular situation. For example if you lost your job in the morning and you responded with anger, frustration, fear and unhappiness, there is a high probability that you could have beliefs such as “this is bad” “I won’t get another job” I am my job” “a job is hard to come by”. However if you choose to hold beliefs such as “this is good” “I will get another job” and “I am not my job”, you would respond with happiness, peace, joy and love.
We have been conditioned from our families, society, friends and work, that it is not okay to feel whatever we are feeling. For example I know of a guy who experienced depression for several years and he only told a couple of people in his life about it. Interestingly enough when he choose to be open and authentic about where he was at in his life, the depression lifted. Depression is essentially about being unhappy or judging our unhappiness. Many people have judgements about people being depressed or experiencing a mental illness. Who made up the rule that everybody “should” be happy. It really is okay to be unhappy. It is only when we learn to truly love and embrace our unhappiness, that we can then move and transform it.
The unhappiness you are experiencing is the truth of that moment.
Don’t judge it.
Don’t compare it.
Don’t resist it.
Don’t fight it.
Don’t try to be happy.
Don’t try to be happy when you are not.
Just love where you are at…
Ultimately we are the people creating the unhappiness because we are holding the beliefs about the thing, person or situation. When we learn about why we are holding those beliefs and how they are serving us, then we have the opportunity to move from that experience and transform the situation.
When we start identifying with our emotions, we start becoming attached to them and as a result we can create more disharmony and unhappiness in our lives. Choose to love what is. If you are angry… say I am experiencing anger now however I am not this anger. It really is okay to feel angry right now….just see what happens…
As always I would love to hear any feedback or comments you may have…
Namaste,
TW
The Truth Warrior 
Excellent. Letting emotions be is the easiest way to live. Your blog reminded me of Rumi’s poem “The Guesthouse”.
LikeLike
Thank you for your comment. I will look for that poem “The Guesthouse”. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
Yes! Love that poem, thanks for the reminder!
LikeLike
Pingback: Day 357 – The Freedom To Practice « A Year Of Living Wisely
In his book ‘The Compassionate Mind’, Paul Gilbert discusses seeing our inner experiences as part of the human condition rather than as personal, isolating and shaming. He also suggests awareness and acceptance of painful thoughts and feelings rather than identifying with them, which is my own approach, and also in line with what you’ve written here. Good post; thanks.
LikeLike
Sounds like a great book. I must check it out. Thank you for sharing. I agree with what you have said. It has been my experience that when I choose to love and accept where ever I am at, that it allows me to move on from there. What we resist persists. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
from The Quo Vadis?’ File III:
Emotions.
Often, emotions stifle the mind, loosen the tongue and harden the heart.
Ω
LikeLike
While I agree with the overall ‘feeling’ (no pun intended) you have tried to capture here it is imperative not to diminish the importance of emotions. Most emotions have an intended and designful structure fundamental to the human experience. Cognitive science should not be alienated or seen as independent from biology, psychology, neurology and philosophy.
You stepped to tackle an extremely complex and equivocal topic which affords us both an intimate awareness of self and the greatest platform for deception of reality.
LikeLike
I have always had that problem of repressing my true feelings. I recently started to meditate and I’m slowly learning to accept what comes up. As you say, emotions are just emotions. They’re not good or bad and the thing is not to judge them. Thanks for the post and have a great day 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks for your honesty. I look forward to reading your blog. Have a fantastic day too 🙂 Namaste. TW
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Hello Sailor and commented:
Sharing……. Love HS xox
LikeLike
Thank you for sharing this. I look forward to following your blog. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
I was talking about this exact matter in therapy on Friday. It was all about learning to sit with and live with your emotions.
I have to disagree with one thing that you said though. As a child, I was judged for expressing emotions and, in fact, I was punished if I did. It’s one of the reasons I have issues with my emotions now. Other people may not have the same experience though.
LikeLike
Thank you for sharing! I have had a similar experience as well:) Namaste. TW
LikeLike
I was judged for my feelings as well, and certain emotions were not at all acceptable in my home. I am now learning to feel, express, and modulate my feelings so that I don’t go to one extreme or the other with them, and I have tried to model this for my children, as well as validating their emotions and allowing them to express their feelings (without hurting others).
Thank you for this fantastic post!
LikeLike
You are very welcome:) Great to hear from you. Thank you for your honest words. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
I really like the idea of loving the emotion, even when it’s negative. I’ve been kicking myself for holding a resentment toward someone and not being able to release it. I think I’ll release my resentment of my resentment. Heh. It is what it is.
On another note, I’ve made it my job in life to validate other people’s emotions when they are sad or angry. I was told all my life that I was wrong for having my emotions, and I will not repeat that same thing with others.
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing your honesty and your kind words. Its great to hear from you. I see in my own life that its all about unconditioning the conditioning:) Namaste. TW
LikeLike
we are concerned or worried about what other people may think of us. We have got into the habit of pleasing other people. Many of us live our lives based on the approval, acceptance, praise and popularity of others what you said here, has always been me. i was brought up to think of others over myself. it has just been recently that i take the plunge and tell who i am. great post!!!
LikeLike
Thanks for your great comments. What I am learning is that, it is ME who needs to approve of me, accept me and praise me before anybody else can:) Namaste. TW
LikeLike
Awesome post! I used to myself wanted approval to be happy.
But until I learned that I have to love myself first and accepted myself for who I am. The good, the bad and the ugly… LOL! is truly when I was free… and truly happy.
Brian Tracy said and I am re-phrasing here “You can’t expect others to love you more than you love yourself….”
Thanks for visiting my blog and the follow***
LikeLike
Great to hear you. I love your comment “But until I learned that I have to love myself first and accepted myself for who I am. The good, the bad and the ugly… LOL! is truly when I was free… and truly happy.” Those words are so true. Thank you. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
This was just what I needed to hear and it’s kind funny too because I only stumbled upon this blog. Amazingly written.
LikeLike
Thanks so much for your kind comment. I am glad you liked it. I look forward to following your blog. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
So true. Beautiful post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you:)
LikeLike
Pingback: Romancing Emotions « Mystiic
This statement really resonated with me: If you are angry… say I am experiencing anger now however I am not this anger. How important it is to separate the emotion from the person. This statement provides the language for doing this. Thank you!
LikeLike
You are very welcome. Thank you for your comment. I know in my own life that it is easy to become identified with the emotion however when I choose to become an observer it usually passes:) Namaste. TW
LikeLike
I so agree with you and as a society we need to take another look at what we are teaching our kids and ourselves for that matter. As adults it is up to us to seek the truth and when we find it teach it, you my friend are doing it very well! Thanks
LikeLike
Thanks for your very inspiring comment. You speak the truth. I look forward to following your blog. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
Well said. Important knowledge on identifying our emotions rather than “becoming” them. I love the advice not to “try” to be happy. Many gems here, a wonderful blog. Thank you, delighted that you decided to follow. Shall follow as well! Linda
LikeLike
Hi Linda. Great to hear from you and thank you for your comments. I look forward to following your blog. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
Yes, it’s really important to respect your feelings, I agree 100%!
LikeLike
Thank you for your comment. You speak the truth. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
Pingback: The Roots of Disharmony – Part 2 – Emotional & Lifestyle Factors | Hands-of-Faith Holistic Healing Centers® Blog
I have a lot of feelings about this subject matter :-/….:-D What I want to say is a combination of two books I have read one is Spiritual Bypassing and the other is We’ve had 100 Years of Psychotherapy And the Worlds Getting Worse. Mainly, my view walks along the arduous line of feeling emotions and validating them. Spiritual Bypassing is the method by which New Age thinkers have told minions to “let go of” and “transcend” their bad feelings. I was worried when I first started reading this blog that I would find another practitioner setting people back into a place of arrested development by telling them they are subpar if they can’t just get over past hurt.
I agree that we have some, sometimes a lot of, choice when it comes to how we react. But the only way to choose to react differently (and not just be suppressing) is to take a deeply compassionate view about the situation. More often than not, that compassion needs to mostly be turned upon ourselves first, and then turn to the offender and look at all the possible reasons they might have hurt us. Then we can feel valid in our hurt, still be compassionate, and also still be strong and wise enough to not keep people in out lives who are painful.
I am sure you have spawned another blog post for me in the next few days, thank you!!
LikeLike
Thanks for your wonderful and heart felt reply. It is great to hear from you:) I love when you said that;
“More often than not, that compassion needs to mostly be turned upon ourselves first, and then turn to the offender and look at all the possible reasons they might have hurt us. Then we can feel valid in our hurt, still be compassionate, and also still be strong and wise enough to not keep people in out lives who are painful.”
I fully agree with you that the first step is having love and compassion for ourselves.
Thank you for sharing.
Namaste,
TW
LikeLike
Excellent information. I run Dialectical Behavioral Therapy groups for teens. A big part of DBT is teaching people to observe rather then judge their emotions. Marsha Linehan, founder of DBT, which is an empirically validated treatment, stresses this non-judgemental approach to emotions. This is very well written.
LikeLike
Thanks so much for your kind comment:) DBT sounds great!! I will check it out. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
Very nice post!
In Rick Hanson’s game changing book, Buddhas Brain, he explains how we create our ego from unrelated past memories, how we feel about ourselves and how others see us. We weave all this together to make an identity.
This ego is the one judging everything, trying to file away how to live so we can be on auto pilot. The ego tries to control our being by bringing thoughts forward constantly.
We can exist without the ego for stretches of time. If we are just present then we need not have to judge anything. Things and people exist without us having to approve or disapprove.
try this. Pleasant and unpleasant, try to experience unpleasant without the ego. That is use mindfulness to observe this feeling. All feelings are impermanent changing constantly. Unpleasant will change if you do not engage it. We can experience without judgment or labels if you want to be free, that is.
We all have the same amount of feelings so nothing shameful exists about experiencing any of them. We are perfect absent of failure and connected by our right hemisphere of the brain. No one can touch our perfection.
The only time you can be happy is now. many emotions are past tense, like shame and guilt. They are about past events. We are not our thoughts or our ego.
Our ego is a golf ball in a giant swimming pool. Infinitesimal compared to the right hemisphere of the brain. See if you let things and people exist if you want to live your life free. The steady mind uncluttered can accomplish miracles.
Marty
LikeLike
Hi Marty. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your words of encouragement. Very true. I will check out the book Buddhas Brain. I look forward to following your blog as well. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
inspiring and wise…thanks for sharing!
LikeLike
You a very welcome:) I am glad you liked it. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
Pingback: Thems Fightin’ Worrds! « butimbeautiful
Pingback: Thems Fightin’ Worrds! | Fast Fails | The Best Fail Channels
Great post, may I re blog it? And thanks for finding me, otherwise I would not have found you.
LikeLike
Yes. You are more than welcome to reblog it. Great to hear from you. Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
we know that suppressing emotions and feelings are not good…further more it drains huge amount of emotional energy…its painful and exhausting to suppress emotions and feelings…yet we are many times constrained to do so…there is no alternative to suppressing….gone through, going through and may will have to go through again……. 😦
LikeLike
Thank you for sharing you true words. Great to hear from you. Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog. I love your name and your blog is uplifting and inspiring.
LikeLike
You are very welcome. Great to hear from you. I look forward to following your blog. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
What you are are saying is so good. We are all brainwashed automatically by our culture. Your words are part of the great information wave being fed by the future.
Great Name.
LikeLike
Thank you for sharing. What you say is true. Namaste. TW
LikeLike
And we can be in action independent of our thinking and feeling?
LikeLike
Hi Paul. Thank you for your comment. I believe everything is possible:) Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
I like this post and also like your photograph at the top!
LikeLike
Hi Mary. Thanks for sharing. I like it too:) Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
Reblogged this on The Edge of the Wedge and commented:
An emotion is just an emotion. It is neither good nor bad. Right nor wrong. It is just an emotion. Emotions come and go. Emotions come from the underlying beliefs we hold about a particular situation.
LikeLike
Hi Paul. Thanks for reblogging my post. Glad you liked it. Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
It is a pleasure – just spreading the Truth! I look forward to more of your insights and wisdom as I find them an easy read yet inspiring and motivating. My contacts on FB, TW and LinkedIN may also benefit. Thank YOU!
LikeLike
Thanks Paul. YOu are more than welcome. Thank you for your words of encouragement. If you have twitter I can add you:) TW
LikeLike
I love love love this. It’s one of those “truths” that I live by — and share w/ my clients in therapy. Emotions are just energy — neither positive nor negative. I use the image of trying to keep a beachball down under water for when we are trying to keep a difficult emotion at bay — when we resist something. There are also the emotions that sweep over us – like anger – that can burn down a whole forest. I teach people, little by little, how to acknowledge ALL our emotions — without denying, pushing away, or getting consumed by any one of them. It’s a lot more “simple” than we think. Allow, allow, allow.
LikeLike
I love your comment Lisa 🙂 Thank you for sharing!! Sounds like you are doing very inspirational and empowering work. Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
Ahhh, well, I do what I can! Like you — following my heart. Sometimes that means I rest, sit down w/ my little ones to play, choose to be kind instead of having a “whoa’s me!” attitude, and enjoying my feet on the grass. Sometimes that means being out in the world and sharing the words that rise up in me. I’m grateful to connect with you. Lisa
LikeLike
Great reminder and very relevant to what’s going on for me these days. 🙂
LikeLike
I am glad that you liked it:) Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
This mean’t so much to me, I wrote a lot like this.. It really inspires me knowing other people have the same outlook that I do. I can’t wait to read more ❤ Namaste ! ~
LikeLike
Hi. Thank you for your comment!! I look forward to following your blog too. Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
Very nice. I am now a follower. You have very great observations. It is great to see so many agree, it provides faith that humankind is not all as bad as many would like to paint it to be. Thanks for being a follower of http://tracksinthedust.com. Look forward to reading more!
LikeLike
Thanks for you kind and inspiring comment:) I look forward to following you too. Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
Hello!Finding happiness in the moment is the way to go. We can’t change the past. The future is an unknown quantity. right now I am happy and that’s the place to be. It takes a while to get that. But knowing other people are doing the same is wonderful. thanks C.
LikeLike
Thank you for your inspiring comment:) ~ TW
LikeLike
Pingback: so far with EMDR « onbeingmindful
An awesome post! 😀
LikeLike
Thank you:) Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
And what a transformation can occur when we not only own our emotions, but then invite God into them. Sometimes that’s exactly when He can show me I’ve been believing a lie behind it and bring in the truth.
LikeLike
Great words Lisa:) Thank you for sharing. Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
Pingback: Change how we react to the negative | Transient Reflections
Judging self and others leaves the mind far from love
LikeLike
I agree 100%. Thank you for sharing. Namaste. ~ TW
LikeLike
Pingback: Some Wise Choices to Reboot Your Happiness « MOTEL168
Pingback: Change how we react to the negative | RJBNet