Emotional Intelligence: It’s Time to Listen to Our Feelings

When we are faced with a challenging situation, the way in which we welcome emotions could determine how much anxiety we experience in our lives.

In our society showing emotions is not always encouraged. Men especially are taught to stay stoic or to ’man up’, when they face a difficult situation or difficult emotions in general. Instead of taking stock of negative feelings that arise in the moment, some of us have learned to push them aside, in the hope that things will calm down naturally. When this happens the suppressed emotions can stay in our subconscious mind and body, which could cause depression and anxiety in the long run.

Let’s think about feelings of joy, anger or shame. Aren’t they supposed to last no more than a few minutes typically? In contrast, depression and anxiety could last weeks, months or even years. The difference is that depression is not an emotion, it is the symptom of unresolved negative emotion within us. In this respect, it makes sense to process the emotions properly when they first occur, rather than having to deal with the long term impacts of anxiety or depression.

Once we start labelling our emotions and letting them flow naturally through our mind and body, a true healing can and will start to occur.

What you need to know is that suffering is just the refusal to accept what is. Why would we not try to accept the emotions as they come to us? It isn’t about changing how we feel, it’s about listening. What are the emotions trying to tell us?

The most natural and direct way to get rid of a negative emotion is to express it physically and constructively. When you’re feeling sad, allow yourself to cry. When facing anger, pound, kick, hit or yell! If you’re experiencing fear, let your body shiver the emotion away. Allow your body to do its thing!

While you remove the negative energy, try refrain from feeding negative thoughts. Just believe what is true. The process will need to be combined with lots of self-love, understanding and acceptance of your features that make you a human being.

Often the reason we prevent ourselves from experiencing some of our negative feelings, stems from a deep-rooted fear of falling into a depressive state or mentality. At the end of the day whatever emotion you encounter, it’s good to remember that it is just a feeling. And feelings are meant to arrive, evolve and vanish. Feelings will not kill you. Preventing them can.

When we become better at differentiating and identifying our emotions, the intense distress becomes less problematic. The key is to let ourselves feel.

Then let our emotions go with love.