Emotions are a fundamental aspect of our daily life. Everything we say or do results in an overall positive or negative feeling. Whether it’s enjoyment, admiration, and satisfaction, or embarrassment, guilt, and fear, they all fall on the +/- scale. Our opinions about people and situations are deemed good or bad based on what our emotions are conveying. Our minds can lie to us but our emotions can’t. We can convince ourselves that we’re fine and tell others how happy we are, but we can’t turn off our emotions. They know the truth yet we tend to ignore them. Are we afraid to feel them fully? As if opening the door will unleash all of the pent-up emotions we’ve repressed.
It seems that society has encouraged us to suppress our emotions to some extent. Too much anger, sadness, or even happiness is viewed as abnormal. It’s a condition that needs medicating. There are of course circumstances when additional medical support is needed to maintain a healthy life. But if we never express our emotions fully they’ll only build up and cause inner turmoil. It might be easier not to feel and forget our past pain. Yet that also eliminates the possibility of positive emotions and the chance for future happiness. So why should we try to embody our emotions?