“Expressing emotions doesn’t make you weak, it makes you real.” - Anonymous
Spot 10 emotions in the grid below!
The answers are given at the end of the post!
The words that you have spotted are few of the basic emotions that we experience in our everyday life.
What are Emotions?
STORY TIME: Ellie is a sweet and beautiful little girl living in the midst of a lovely island called Mala. One Sunday morning, she stepped out of her house to play but returned home soon, disappointed upon not finding any of her friends outside. Her loving mum greeted her and handed over some freshly baked lemon tarts and blueberry cupcakes, which were truly delightful. Later, that day she sneaked into the pantry to have more tart and swung the door shut locking herself in by mistake, she was trembling and calling for mum. A few minutes later her mum heard her and got her out. She held Ellie in her arms and put her to sleep by reading her a bedtime story.
Within this very short story we could notice little Ellie experiencing several emotions – happiness from the beautiful environment around her, sadness and disappointment upon not finding her friends, excitement from the tarts and cupcake, fear when she was locked inside and comfort from her mum.
In simple terms, emotions refer to feelings that generally have both physiological and cognitive elements and that influence behaviour. Our experiences evoke different kinds of emotions in our everyday life. These emotions can be termed as our reactions towards certain stimuli in our immediate surroundings.
Acknowledging our Emotions
“Boys don’t cry”, “you shouldn’t laugh so loudly”, “why are you getting angry, you’re overreacting”, “stop it! Don’t get so hyper” BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!
We hear such statements often, wherein people tend to try and make us suppress our emotions. This leads to difficulty in emotional expression and fear of speaking our hearts out, which is truly unhealthy for our mental health. We must choose to have the freedom of expressing our emotions and letting our feelings out in any way possible for the holistic development of our minds and bodies.
At the end of the day, we are in control of our emotions. And the TRUTH is – boys do cry, we must laugh our hearts out, we should show our disapproval in the form of anger towards something or someone till the time we are not hurting anyone, we must get excited and happy when we want to. All of this is perfectly normal so we must not hand over the control of our emotions into someone else’s hands.
Why is it Important to Express Emotions in a Healthy Manner?
Imagine yourself having a small disagreement with a friend or loved one. You feel either very sad or angry due to something that they said to you but you choose to suppress your emotions and put up a fake smile and go about your day pretending like nothing happened. We all have done that multiple times in our lives for several reasons. It may be because we do not want to hurt a friend or that we do not want the “drama” in our lives. We choose to throw our emotions inside a closet without acknowledging, processing, or communicating about our feelings and emotions.
Now if the same thing happens again and again, what do you think will happen? After throwing in our emotions inside the closet multiple times, it eventually gets filled up and overflows. And all our feelings and emotions just get spurt out like lava blasting off of a volcano.
It is important for our mind to not leave emotions unacknowledged and to show happiness when we are happy or sadness when we are not happy. It is highly important to keep clearing out the closet from time-to-time and the best tool to do so is communication.
The biggest reason for multiple friendships and relationships to end is lack of emotional expression and lack of communication. So close your eyes today and clear out some stuff from the closet!
Strategies that can Help Express our Emotions
Whenever you feel that you are unable to understand yourself, sit in a quiet place and process the emotions that you feel, acknowledge those emotions and be gentle with yourself since it is okay to feel overwhelming emotions.
Self-care is the best practice which can help every individual to experience and express emotions in a healthy manner. Self-care practices help us in our emotional development through activities like practicing mindfulness, journaling, exercising and many more. It helps us process our true emotions and feelings.
Being around people who acknowledge your emotions in a positive manner and are kind to you when you express yourself helps you grow as an individual and have healthy emotions.
Conclusion
Emotions are complex and are hard to understand and express at times. But we need to understand its importance and impact on our mental well-being. Think of your emotions and feelings as your friends and do not push them away when they come to you but in fact embrace them because emotions are a part of you.
And always remember – your body inhabits a life within you, you must not make that life feel numb but let it be free to feel the way it does!
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*Answers to the Grid - HAPPY, SAD, ANGER, FEAR, SURPRISE, DISGUST, EXCITE, SHAME, PRIDE, AMUSEMENT
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