No Emotion is Good or Bad
We’ve all been told at one point or another that girls shouldn’t get angry or be irritated. We’re told that the other person wasn’t trying to be mean, or that people came to see us and we should be happy about it. That always made me want to scream when I was younger! I don’t understand why people want to control others’ emotions. Why is it “bad” to feel any other emotions that aren’t happy? I’m tired of the “everything needs to be good, we can’t have anything bad” ideal. We should be able to feel however we feel.
Even when people do it out of love, they actually do it to make things easier for them. When we were kids, we didn’t have any say. We were an extension of our parents. If we didn’t do what they thought was right, we were somehow shaming them. They do this to us as adults too. They’re not necessarily trying to do it, but it still happens. They expect us to act and be a certain way because it’s easier for everyone else. As individuals, we should be taking into account how someone is doing overall instead of expecting them to act a certain way.
In the end, no emotion is good or bad. They are just there and they are natural. It’s fundamentally a part of who we are. For example, I will always hate kale and I don’t like jazz or certain people. However, what matters are the actions we take based on our emotions.
You can:
Cancel plans
Reschedule plans
Refuse to take someone’s call
Text them instead to let them know you want to be left alone
Remove yourself from a situation as needed
There’s nothing wrong with taking the time to be alone or process your emotions. Not everything needs to be sunshine and rainbows. Figure out who you can trust in your life, and let your friends and family know if you are feeling sad or hurt. If you need to talk about things, whether it makes you both uncomfortable or not, you should be able to do it. You have people in your life for a reason.
Your emotions could also be telling you something. For example, maybe you need to make a change or stop playing it safe. If you’re jealous of a friend getting a promotion at work, it can inspire you to make changes in your life to make your work life better. If you’re annoyed about your coworker constantly bragging about their kids, maybe that’s telling you that you wish you spent more time with your kids or you need help figuring out how to help them with whatever they’re going through. Your emotions could be telling you that you might need support and to talk about things with someone.
On the other hand, feeling your emotions doesn’t mean that you can do whatever you want with them. You need to be able to control the actions that come from your emotions. You will always have emotions that don’t feel great, but you should control how you react to them. Angry clean or take a class where you get to hit or break things as part of the classes instead of reacting negatively towards other people.
You shouldn’t:
Yell at people
Break things that belong to other people
Stuff your emotions down
On this podcast, I’ve done a lot of talking about your inner health because we need to be content with ourselves. We are stuck with ourselves and carry these things with us wherever we go. What is inside of us needs to be healthy and happy overall. We may not want to do the inner work all the time, but it is necessary. We all deal with intrusive thoughts. No emotion is good or bad, but what we do with them can be. Remember that you can decide what to do with your emotions.