Dealing with Emotions

A long time ago I learned the truth about emotions. They are not right or wrong, they just ARE.. Feelings are real and they need to be dealt with by the feeler (feelee?) not by the hords of people who assume they know what they are or how to handle them. Yes there are professionals who have been educated and if used properly can help you, the feelee, deal with them. BUT they can not deal with them for you. And if they do their jobs properly they will not tell you how to deal with them.

The thing about emotions is that if you have them (or admit to having them) someone is going to tell you, you are wrong to have them. Having an emotion, even a negative one is not necessarily a bad thing. It's how you deal with them. If you by chance vent on your own personal blog about having an emotion and how it affects you and where you think it came from is not a bad thing. And accepting that there will be those who want to tell you to get over it, or ignore it or blame yourself is one of the realities of doing so. Sure you want everyone to say hey life is good, you are wonderful and of course you are right.. but that would be wrong.

See emotions just ARE.. you can not change the fact that you feel and sometimes feel deeply. You can of course try and ignore them, pretend that you don't feel. That is not the way to deal with them, that is the way to watch yourself eventually crash and burn. Suppressing emotion destroys and yet if asked most people would suggest just that. Suck it up, get over it, you are too emotional, it's really your fault and you are feeling guilty.. you smile too much, you must be faking it.. blah blah blah..

What one must learn to do is accept their feelings and emotions, allow that there will be times you have to express them in one way or another and consider the least hurtful way of doing so.. then consider yourself first.. Take into account what is the best way to deal with your emotion and don't let anyone or anything take that away from you.

Have courage.. face yourself squarely and deal with your emotions.. know that voicing them will attract detractors, that someone will feel the need to point out your faults.. and that's ok, they may just be right and then again they may not have a single clue of which you speak.. but need to voice their feelings.. and that's ok too. Because after all Feelings just ARE.. they are not right or wrong it's the way you deal with them that matters.

Standing in your own space and venting is not bad.. hurling accusations at someone with the intent of being hurtful is. Of course when you vent there will always be those who apply your feelings as accusations and need to take umbrage.. gather their troops and shoot their slings and arrows.. that is a price you will have to pay.

Don't be afraid to feel, don't let those who don't understand control your feelings. I spent a lifetime believing that there was something wrong with me because I felt, deeply. I was TOO emotional.. except that is the way God made me so it couldn't be bad.. I had to learn first how to deal with my emotions and feelings and second to accept that there were those who would always and I mean always try to control them. That is not my problem, that would be theirs. I can not control their feelings, that is not my job in life.. nor can they control mine unless I allow them to.

All that being said, I am who I am and I have learned that those who love me always will and those who don't never did. I also need to remind myself that I have absolutely no reason to judge anyone else's feelings. I am flawed, I am not perfect and yet most of the time I can look at myself in the mirror and the other times, well those I am still working on.

Shauni