don’t resist your feelings, give in to them

Have you been feeling anxious, confused, scared or uncertain? Or how about clever, confident, powerful, and content? Regardless of what emotion you’re currently experiencing from the wide and colorful spectrum, know that it’s absolutely okay to experience that emotion. We’re all humans and we’re allowed to feel however we feel–good, bad or neutral. 

It’s perfectly okay to feel great. And it’s perfectly okay to feel miserable. When it comes to emotions, there’s no right or wrong. The names are just labels that we give to our emotions in order to identify them; obsessing over them and judging ourselves is futile. 

One unfortunate disadvantage of the digital world that we all inhabit is the emergence of toxic positivity. Even when things are not great and it feels as if the world is crumbling around us, we don’t let others see our reality. We hide behind filters and captions and gloss over our negative emotions, and soon putting out our fake, eternal optimistic selves at display becomes a habit. 

However, it’s wise to combat this urge and instead embrace our emotions and spend time with them. As we unpack them and choose curiosity and compassion over denial and judgment, we get in a better position to figure out their root causes and eventually release them. Sweeping your feelings under the rug serves no one; in fact, it only robs you of your power and integrity, and keeps you from becoming your most virtuous self. 

Don’t resist your feelings and emotions, just take a deep dive and give in to them all the way. That’s the only way to overpower them and release them for good. As Melody Beattie writes, “The more you give in to whatever you’re feeling, the less it will hurt and the more quickly it’ll disappear. The more specific you can be about the event or person that’s triggering the emotion, the more you’ll help yourself slide gracefully through the emotional burst.”

The main goal is to acknowledge the positive or negative emotional bursts and work towards dissolving them so that we reach our innate ground state and are able to restore the calm, balance and centredness within us. 

Here’s the bottom line: The only way to master our emotions is to first give in to them. Unless we take absolute responsibility for how we feel and experience our emotions fully without letting them overpower us, we’ll never be able to clear out our emotions and realign with the peace, happiness and tranquility within us.