Jo Ellen Fletcher, M.A., LMFT
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Our War on Feelings.

10/27/2017

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Feelings and emotions are energetic states that do not magically dissipate when they are ignored. 

Much of our unnecessary emotional pain is the uncomfortable pressure that comes from not releasing emotional energy. 

When we do not attend to our feelings they accumulate inside us and create a mounting anxiety that we commonly dismiss as stress.

Stress is a detrimental physiological reaction to noxious external stimuli such as noise, pollution, commuting, long work hours, and "hustle and bustle." 
Stress is also the painful internal pressure of accumulated emotional energy.

Grieving is the most effective stress release mechanism that human being have. 
Grieving is a safe, healthy release valve of our internal pressure cookers of emotion. 
A good cry, talking with a friend, partner or professional can be used as a relief value.

We suffer many dire consequences when we are unwilling to feel.
The price of emotional repression is a constant wasteful expenditure of energy that leaves many of us depressed and silent. As time goes on, we sink into perpetual apathy. 
When this occurs we forfeit our destiny of growing into the vitally expressive and life-celebratory beings we were born to be.

Our war on feelings forces our emotions to turn against us. 
Much of our unnecessary suffering occurs by the ghosts of our murdered emotions wafting into our consciousness and haunting us as in hurtful thinking. Denied emotions taint our thoughts with fearful worry, our self doubt, and angry self criticism.

We also risk "acting out" our emotions unconsciously when we are unwilling to feel them. 
Sarcasm, critical and negative thinking, habitual lateness and "forgotten" commitments are common unconscious expression of anger.  Ironically, these passive-aggressive behaviors leave us in greater emotional pain because they cause others to distrust and dislike us.

Nowhere, not in our most private moments, nor in the company of our closest friends do we feel safe to explore our feelings.  Anger, depression, envy, sadness, fear distrust are all integral to life as bread and flowers and streets.  Yet these feelings commonly evoke shame and dread in many of us the moment they arise, and we have been taught they are bad, weak or inappropriate and we suppress them.

Those who dare to express feelings that are nothing but positive, are increasingly seen as pitiful and not evolved for not being able to choose the more exalted states.  What a terrible abandonment of self, of a natural human condition and how we loose the opportunity to show compassion to another, to a friend.
We get cut off from human kindness, from compassion from love. 
We loose the measure of joy at its fullest, 
We overlook the sacraments of empathy so pain is not locked inside of us and transformed into anxiety, worry and self-loathing for showing up as a human being.

Instead of balking at the idea of expressing feelings, lean into expressing and witnessing your own emotional states.















The Tao of Fully Feeling - Walker


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    Author:
    Jo Ellen Fletcher, M.A.
    Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist


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