We often label emotions as either good or bad. We have certain emotions that we welcome such as joy, happiness, contentedness, peace – and those that we consider to be unwelcomed such as sadness, rejection, guilt, anger and so forth. Our attitude towards emotions are influenced by society, culture, our own experiences, and what we were taught about them growing up.
Emotions; however, are neither good nor bad. They just are. When we feel sad about something, we are meant to feel somber. When anger rises, something has most likely irritated us or we feel defensive. When we feel hopeless, perhaps the weight of something needs to be examined. When we feel guilty, perhaps we have made a mistake or perhaps we default there out of habit.
Emotions are meant to be felt. What we do with them after that is our choice. Recognizing the emotion is the first step in allowing a non-judgemental stance towards the feeling. The next step is to ask ourselves “What do I want to do about this emotion? How long will I allow myself to stay there? What action can I take to help process it?”
And sometimes, it requires us to recognize what emotion we are lacking in ourselves and we can then move to being proactive in achieving more of it. If joy is lacking, for example, how can we create more opportunities in our lives to experience it? The same can be said for connection, peace, etc.
Let us try to welcome emotions as a flowing presence; neither good nor bad – just as they are, meant to be felt.
Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@domingoalvarze
love it. it got me thinking about my upbringing. i seen anger, happy, sad
We learn so much about our emotions from our childhoods. It is always a good place to start thinking about what we learned growing up where our feelings are concerned.