You Have to Feel In Order to Heal

 

Hi everyone! For this week I want to talk about how we can express our emotions in a healthy way and how to acknowledge them. No one seems to ever want to talk about feeling negative emotions such as sadness, fear, and anger because they feel like they shouldn’t be feeling these emotions. When someone asks “How are you today?”, no one ever says what they’re really because it’s not socially accepted. Well I’m here to tell you that feeling negative emotions is completely normal and you are allowed to feel them. It’s normal and completely human. What would not be normal would be feeling extremely happy all the time. You can’t have the yin without the yang. It’s a balance. Again, feeling negative emotions is extremely normal but how do we express them in a healthy way?

Well the first step is acknowledging that we’re feeling the negative emotion. Ignoring or trying to conceal that we’re feeling sad, mad, etc. will just make us feel worse and make us explode. After me and my ex boyfriend broke up, I tried to conceal to everyone that I wasn’t feeling sad or simply didn’t care. It worked for a while, but it came to the point where I couldn’t do it anymore and I ended up feeling worse than when we first broke up. I wouldn’t leave my room for days at a time and started pushing people away. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to acknowledge that you’re sad or whatever it may be, but bottling it in will make you feel worse in the end. You have to let yourself feel in order to heal. 

After I began to feel the emotions I had concealed after the break up, I didn’t know how to express them. I would constantly lash out around those around me. I would drink an insane amount of alcohol to forget about the pain. I even began putting myself in risky situations in order to try to cope with what I was feeling. It just made me feel more sad and more angry. It was then that I decided to make the right decision and started seeing a therapist. She gave me many ideas that I can use in order to start expressing my feelings in a healthy way and how to start to heal from them. She first suggested that I start doing something that I love. For me, this one was easy so I began doing yoga. Any form of physical movement whether it be exercise, dance, etc. can be a really good way to let out any emotion you’re feeling. Another thing she suggested was journaling. She explained that when you’re feeling sad or anxious or whatever, write it down. It’s a release that allows you to put your thoughts out into the world without actually telling the whole world about it. 

Although these things have managed to help me when I’m feeling down, there are still days and nights where I feel sad. And you know what? That’s perfectly normal. There’s no cure to fixing a broken heart or whatever it is that you’re going through, but allowing yourself to feel negative emotions is a sign that you’re healing. Dwelling on them isn’t good either because you’ll find yourself back in that hole again, but doing the things you love and being around the people you love will show you how great life can be. Remember to look after yourself because at the end of the day, the most important person in your life is you. Thanks for reading and remember to feel!