A New Way Of Thinking About Our Emotions

A new way of thinking about our emotions is essential if we are ever to have an Emotional Revolution. It is about time the rules about emotions were changed, after all they have been left unchallenged for many, many years. We are beginning to see that the way we deal with our emotions is essential to our mental, physical and spiritual health. I am very enthusiastic about helping people to learn about our emotions in a totally different way to the way society and religion have always taught us. Society and Religion have made us believe that there are 'positive' and 'negative' emotions and that we must do our utmost to try and stay in the lovely, comfortable no problem emotions. So  what do we do with the other uncomfortable, painful, emotions? Repress, or avoid them of course! However, just look at the impossible task Society and Religion has set us.

Here is the list of  Positive Emotions
Happiness
Joy
Peace
Contentment
Love

Here is a list of the other Emotions
Anger         Depression
Hate           Anxiety
Rage          Apathy
Fear           Frustration
Jealousy     Despair
Grief          Guilt
Sadness     Shame
Envy        

It is hopefully obvious to you that there are far more uncomfortable emotions compared to the comfortable ones. So how on earth are we supposed to keep feeling the five 'positive' emotions when we are running from the other 15? It is impossible!

Most of us were born with the ability to feel all of the emotions, painful and comfortable ones, this is because all of the emotions have a function for us. It is my opinion that the dark uncomfortable emotions are our greatest teachers. Each of them has its own special message for us and if we would only listen to the message  or even just part of the message then they will have done their job and they will flow through us. You see the uncomfortable emotions (I refuse to call them negative as they are not, it is our reaction to them which is negative) don't want to stay with us, they just want us to acknowledge them and then they will leave, but will return again when we need them. We have learnt to repress them, to avoid them by taking anti-depressants, over working, taking drugs, drinking alcohol, gambling, over eating etc. This is mainly because other people can't deal with their own emotional pain and so can not deal with being with other people who are also in pain. So, from childhood many of us have learnt not to have them. 'You mustn't be jealous of your sister,' a parent might say, or 'You can't get angry at me, I'm an adult!' 'Don't cry' 'Its wrong to hate people.' The list goes on.

It is almost as though society and religion want us to remain in a constant state of repression. By stitching up the emotions as 'positive' an 'negative' we do not learn how to deal with the negative but only repress them. The ironic thing is, while we continue to do this, we will never experience those lovely emotions we crave to feel. 'Happiness flows when all the emotions flow' - Karla McClaren, Language of Emotions.