We often assume our emotions are something that happen to us and define us. By doing this, our emotions have control over us while we tend to feel more and more out of control.
We may have a lot of emotional baggage, but we don’t have to carry it around forever. In this post I’m going to share myths about your emotions that are holding you back from emotional freedom. If you’re ready to move on and feel free, then this one is for you.
Myth #1 – My Emotions Will Hurt Me
Truth: Resisting or suppressing your emotions will hurt you
Our emotions are meant to be felt, every single one of them. Without our emotions we’d dead inside. Liken to apathetic Zombies walking around like scenes from the hit show Walking Dead.
Any time we resist ‘what is’ or ‘what wants to happen’ we’re met with signals and warning signs. This resistance you implement is what we typically call ‘stress’.
What are some warning signals and signs of stress? Increased blood pressure, chronic inflammation, joint degradation, skin disorders, trouble sleeping, anxiety, irritation, short fuse, and much more.
These signals are telling you that your resistance or suppression of emotions are taking your body and mind out of balance, aka homeostasis.
The solution? Practice allowing your emotions to just be. Practice feeling them on a daily basis. Start with less meaningful emotions to you.
As you start to feel safer experiencing your emotions, start practicing with some of your stronger emotions.
Over time, you’ll start to realize the truth that your emotions can’t hurt you. In fact, on the other side of feeling an comfortable emotion is relief.
This can be confirmed by noticing the immediate release of certain stress signals you may have been experiencing such as a pressure in your head or chest for example.
Myth #2 – My Emotions are To Be Controlled
Truth: Your emotions are to be observed
There is some overlap here with myth #1.
Any time we attempt to resist or suppress our emotions we’re attempting to control them.
This control, however, is nothing but an illusion. If we suppress or bury an emotion in an attempt to not feel it, it then buries itself into the depths of our subconscious.
The unattended emotions seep out into our daily lives as unwelcomed actions, mental illness, physical illness, and a sense of being out of control or not understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Myth #3 – Expressing My Emotions Means Acting On Them
Truth: Expressing your emotions means feeling/experiencing them
In my experience, this seems to be a common limiting belief people hold.
The belief that ‘in order to express my emotions I must act of them’.
For example, “I must tell them how I feel when I’m resentful”, “I must throw things or scream when I’m angry”, “I must cry when I’m sad” etc.
Take a moment now to observe whether this limiting belief has held any truth for you up until now.
Typically, when thinking that expressing our emotions means acting on them, we try not to feel certain emotions out of fear for how we may act if we do.
Acting or speaking in the midst of heightened emotions such as anger or resentment typically don’t end well. We’re not thinking with clarity and wisdom.
If this has been you, here’s the great news, you’re not obligated to act of any of your emotions once you allow them to be felt.
Think of ‘expressing’ being synonymous with ‘feeling’. This will help with forming a new, more liberating belief.
To practice this, I suggest you start by sitting alone with your emotions. Allow them to be felt without obligation to act upon them. Allow them to come, be felt, and go on their own time.
Myth #4 – My Emotions Tell Me What’s True
Truth: Your emotions tell you what you’re thinking and believing
One of my favourite quotes comes from George Pransky, a pioneer in teaching the Three Principles of MInd, Consciousness and Thought:
flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Feelings are a barometer of our thoughts at any given time
George Pransky, The Relationship Handbook
What does he mean? The temperature of our feelings (how intense they are) are a direct reflection of our thoughts in the moment.
In summary; if we think something sad, we feel sad. If we think something happy, we feel happy.
Truth, or facts, don’t elicit an emotional response in and of themselves. Everything in this world inherently means nothing until we make it mean something.
What we think or believe about what may or may not be true is what stirs our emotions, not a truth itself.
Therefore, our emotions hold no absolute truth within them. They merely add colour to our thinking and feeling to our life.
They’re not indicators of what’s true, they’re indicators of what we’re thinking.
