WHY YOUR FEELINGS MATTER MORE THAN YOU THINK.
If you consider, for a moment, a brand-new baby, you'll notice that if they feel any kind of discomfort, they will very loudly let you know with ear-splitting, window-shattering shrills. Crying comes as naturally to them as breathing. When they become a little older, they start laughing, and they may become angry at every "no" they receive.
Emotion is our body's first language. It is a bodily reaction that offers us a message, little translators between the body and the brain.
Perhaps we feel hurt and need someone to pay attention and help us. Our eyes tear up, we feel a lump in our throat, and our heart feels like it's splitting in two. The body is yelling, "I WANT TO CRY!"
The problem many of us face is that, for whatever reason, expressing sadness, anger, frustration, or fear wasn't welcomed when we were little. So, we learn ways of suppressing those emotions, locking them in a little box, burying them alive, where they wait, growing stronger, smarter, and more persistent until they find a way to express themselves.
There is a well-known saying: "What the mind suppresses, the body expresses." For example, someone who has lost a much-loved parent and never allowed themselves to express their grief might suddenly experience physical symptoms such as chest tightness, stomach pain, shortness of breath, muscle aches, or migraines.
Many of us never develop the vocabulary to connect what we feel in our bodies to our emotions, especially if feeling anything other than joy was unwelcome in our upbringing. Something as simple as a feelings wheel can be hugely beneficial. We might read through it until a word jumps out at us. We don't quite know why, but it just seems to fit.
Once we know what we're feeling, we can start figuring out where we feel it. We might notice anger in our arms, clenched fists, hot face, or shallow breathing. Over time, we begin to recognise these physical signals sooner and realise that we're becoming angry before the emotion takes over.
The next step is validation. Being kind and supportive toward ourselves during these moments can be transformative. It might sound something like: "Of course you're angry. Anyone would be. This was important to you, and it was taken from you."
After validating the emotion, we express it. This is often the tricky part. Allowing the body to do what it's been asking for. Maybe that's crying, shouting, kicking, punching a pillow, or releasing energy in another safe way. The key is to do it without hurting, scaring, or harming yourself or others. You might be surprised at how good it feels to beat the cr@p out of a pillow and let a big, beautiful storm of emotion move through you.
The final step is to ask the emotion what it wants to tell you.
Our emotions are messengers, and they often carry valuable information. Perhaps we feel cheated, invalidated, or overlooked. Perhaps something unfair is happening that needs our attention. There is another well-known saying: "The body knows what the mind doesn't yet understand." Once we learn to speak "body," we gain access to a deeper understanding of ourselves and our needs.
This is emotional intelligence, a term that is often misunderstood as meaning control over emotions. I've got news for you: you cannot control your emotions, only how you respond to them.