Emotions can be divided into two categories; good or bad. Traditionally, love, happiness, excitement and hope are seen as positive. Whereas sadness, anger, fear and jealousy are seen as negative. However, what decides which emotions are good or bad? Don’t we all experience different emotions in different ways?
I was raised to believe that feeling sad or angry was bad, even if I had a valid reason. This mindset made it difficult to deal with what I felt, when I did experience such emotions because I felt guilty and blamed myself for feeling ‘bad’, which made me feel worse.
Lately, I’ve started viewing my emotions as guidance. When I feel sad without an obvious reason, I don’t label my emotion as bad because the truth is, there is a reason I feel the way I do – likely something from the past that I haven’t allowed myself to heal from. Everytime you feel an emotion that you perceive ‘bad’, dig deep and try to understand what it’s trying to tell you and what part of yourself it’s hinting at you to heal. None of your emotions are wrong. Remember, you can’t heal what you don’t feel. If you let yourself feel without judgement and think about why you feel the way you do, you’ll learn about yourself and become stronger overtime.
Suppressing emotions such as sadness or anger has shown to cause a range of ailments and diseases in the body. Although these emotions aren’t exactly bad, they can be harmful if not dealt with correctly. Therefore, letting yourself feel what you do in the present moment will prevent it from building up. Everything you suppress today will just come out tomorrow whether you like it or not. It’s better to acknowledge and accept what you feel and instead try to understand where it comes from and what you can learn from it. When you approach your ‘negative’ emotions in such a manner, they’ll stop bothering you as much.
Emotions like happiness and excitement are viewed positively because when you feel that way you’re in alignment with the universe which makes it easier to attract emotions, situations and people that are on a similar frequency. However, ignoring your ‘negative’ emotions and forcing yourself to be happy is not helpful – when you feel ‘good’ you should let yourself feel good and when you feel ‘bad’ you should let yourself feel what you do and then release it. It’s important to note that there’s a difference between feeling your emotions and dwelling on them. Feeling angry or guilty is okay but not making an effort to learn from them is not. Let your emotions visit you, let them teach you and then let them leave.