Part two
Feeling and showing emotions isn’t a weakness for me anymore, it’s a strength, and here is why.
Connection:
Being honest about my emotions to the people around me and showing them has brought me closer friendships and connections then I ever felt I had before.
People see into me now and know who I am.
“Into me see”, comes from intimacy, how are we ever going to obtain this if we don’t open up to someone.
I talked to a friend today, and we talked about we have known each other for years, but it was only when I was going through a heartbreak that I really let him see who I am and opened up, and since this he opened up to me as well and today our friendship is built on mutual trust and the feeling that we can be our self with each other.
We didn’t have this before. Before he didn’t feel like I knew him, and I didn’t feel I could be honest with him.
I’m happy today that I was brave enough to be vulnerable with him because in that our friendship grew strong
This is true to all my other friendship and deep connections I have with people in my life. I only got there to built something deep, because I opened up, even when I was feeling down.
Break down your walls:
I know how it feels to put every emotion into a box and you end up building the biggest wall around yourself towards anyone who enters your life, you end up going through life feeling like a robot and numb or worse.
You end up not only walling the bad emotions in like pain anger, but also feelings like joy happiness, and you build your wall up so high that no one can connect with you.
You built up your wall so high, that you don’t know how you are feeling.
I remember so many times in my life where I had a feeling but I didn’t want to face it, so it felt like I couldn’t put my finger on why I was feeling this way, and what the feeling was.
It just felt uncomfortable.
When I felt this, it wouldn’t go away. It would stick with me, this burden in my chest, that I couldn’t get released.
A feeling I was being dragged down by something heavy, and it just grew, until one day I felt depressed, and then that feeling culminated into becoming a depression.
If I had dealt with what the feeling was and dealt with it sooner, I don’t think I would have ended up feeling depressed.
Today I learned how to break down my walls, and if I’m sad, I say I’m sad, and I try and figure out why, and then deal with the reason im sad, and give myself the comfort I need.
If I’m around people and I’m sad, I say I’m sad, and they either talk to be about it, or try and cheer me up.
Sometimes its okay to just say I’m sad, but I don’t really feel like talking about it today, so I just want to do something fun.
When I’ve opened up to my friends about this, we end up doing something fun and at the end of the night I feel better and less alone, then if I had said nothing.
There is strength in anger and pain:
Pain and anger can be a huge motivator to get stuff done.
Anger to me feels like a lot of adrenaline rushing through my body and I feel like I can run faster and work at a higher speed.
You can turn anger into something productive. Anger is only a bad feeling if you use it to hurt someone else or yourself with it.
Same with pain, emotional pain can be a motivator too.
It was in my life.
You know the song believer from imagine dragons?
That song has a lot of truth to it. Pain can build you up and give you strength.
The time I have been most productive and the bravest I’ve ever been, was when I was going through emotional pain or when I was feeling anger.
It gave me drive and made me feel enough was enough, and instead of feeling sorry for myself I rose up and did something about my situation.
It eventually turned anger and pain into feeling pride.
Pride of what I had accomplished despite feeling in a rough state.
Sharing this with people around me in a healthy way, only helped build me up.
Empathy:
If you know how you feel, you can relate to how others feel and empathize with them, and in this, it brings you closer to them, and it creates connection.
If you have this in your life, it can make you a better leader, a better co-worker, a better friend, wife/husband and so much more.
Creativity:
I’ve never been so creative then If I was feeling a certain emotion, if it was pain, happiness, or anger. My writing or any work I put into drawing always ended up a million times better because I let my emotions unfold on paper.
It has helped my creativity immensely and brings my work to life.
Knowing your emotions gives you clarity of who you are and what you need:
If you know how you feel and deal with those emotions when they arrive, you give yourself emotional first aid and once a situation again arises you know better how to handle that emotion. Instead of burying it, you learn how to deal with a strong emotion, so you can walk stronger through life and the challenges it throws at you.
You learn more about yourself and what you need.
If you burrowed them, you rob yourself from that clarity.
Emotions is like a compass into yourself, knowing how you feel and why you feel this way teaches you a lot more about yourself so that you feel you know yourself at a deeper level.
Emotions are a part of life.
When you feel in love, when you cry seeing your new-born the first time, feeling pain when you lose a person you loved, or feeling angry when you lost control of a situation. Its all part of life, and it makes you human. We all have emotions, but for some reason openly talking about how we feel is taboo.
What I wish that we, as a society would teach everyone is emotional control.
Instead of having to hide how we feel, get used to talking about them instead and learn how to deal with strong emotions if they become too much.
I learned hiding mine wasn’t a gain to society or people around me, instead I robbed myself and everyone else from who I was and what I had to give.
I had to learn how to apply emotional first aid to myself, when things got tough.
Next part and last one is coming up next and its about what I wish for the future and my last thoughts on emotions. Stay tuned…
Missfaylyn 