Owning your emotions sounds kind of weird but it simply means that you refuse to allow someone else to dictate how you feel. While this is an understanding the people who have been in abusive situations need to learn, everyone needs this on some level.
When you are being controlled and manipulated by your emotions, your life is not your own. When you deny the emotions you have, you are asking for trouble.
All of us have emotions that we don’t acknowledge for one reason or another. I went for years not really having my own opinions on anything because everyone else seemed to create my opinions for me.
Breaking out of being complacent would mean that I risked rejection and it was easier to live with my unexpressed frustration and anger than someone else’s expressed rejection and potential abandonment. I did break free of that, but I still have trouble expressing my opinions and feelings. It takes practice.
Sadly, if we don’t acknowledge how we feel, put a name to the feelings, and accept that they are our response to something whether it is right or wrong, those issues swirl around in a poison gyre in the center of our hearts until all of them are one mass of negative feelings that we can’t identify.
Admitting we are mad or sad or whatever gives the mind a chance to analyze the emotion. It asks why, when, what, and how. When all of the information available is considered, we can usually either come up with a solution or let the feeling go. It’s a much healthier option.
This article on the Daily Om is a more in depth look at suppressed emotions and how to handle them.
photo credit: Lau Lau Chan
