All Emotions are Important by Rebecca Sy

Let’s say a dude named John had an argument with his mom today and of course, he feels angry, upset and maybe even sad.

His friend notices this and confronts him. 

John is one of those people who constantly say “I’m fine”. 

His friend then says, “Are you sure? You seem kind of out of it today. Do you want to talk about it?

John then replies, “No, don’t worry I’m fine” and he starts to laugh awkwardly 

But later that day, he feels more upset and stressed, and then finds a wall to punch, which doesn’t help.

Yet whenever someone asks how he’s doing, he continues to say he’s completely fine. 

Does this sound familiar?

Why do we try so hard to hide our negative feelings? Are we afraid? Afraid to be vulnerable?

Afraid to look weak? Afraid to not “fit in”?

In this day and age, we are taught that being positive and happy is good while being depressed and angry is bad.

Perhaps this is a result of the constant circulation of super extraordinary photos and videos on social media.

Most of the time, all we see are happy families, rich celebrities, people smiling and eating at lavish restaurants with

massive infinity pools.

But what we don’t see is perhaps the depressed and vulnerable sides of people.

Why? Because currently, we link vulnerability with weakness. We are taught that being sad and angry is unacceptable. But, this is what makes us human. 

All emotions are a necessary part of life. Not just happiness.

What’s most important is how we react and respond to these emotions that determine how we live our lives.

It is not the emotion itself. 

Think about it. Let’s say you are really stressed and anxious.

Okay, why? Well, you’ve got a lot of assignments to do and tests coming up in just a few days.

The stress and anxiousness is the trigger that tells you to start studying, review, and finish your work.

It signifies that there is something either wrong or imbalanced in your life and something must change.

As a result, you must take action to rebalance your life and alleviate whatever is causing that imbalance or negative feeling.

If there wasn’t any emotional reaction, you probably wouldn’t be getting very far with your schoolwork or studying.

Perhaps the reason you are feeling stressed and anxious is that you haven’t started studying, you don’t understand the topic

you are being tested on, and/or you have minimally begun your assignments. Do you ever find that after you have had consistent study sessions, understand the content, and get a good start to your assignments that you start to feel better and less stressed and anxious? Yup, that is your emotions telling you that you are creating “change and rebalance” by studying and it is starting to take effect. In other words, they are telling you “keep up the great work!”

Likewise, if you’re feeling good and happy, your life is most likely in balance and harmony, so you want to try to maintain that. 

Ignoring our “negative” emotions does not lead to any form of happiness.

We may get a short energy high from feeling as though we have no problems, but that’s about it.

We are only denying our problems and continuing down this path of denial only exacerbates

these problems further, as they bottle up inside of us.

This is why we should accept all of our emotions.

Because when we do this, we can fully address our problems, learn, and grow from them.