Acknowledging All Feelings

Our emotions can often be overwhelming.  Although we may try to maintain positive thoughts all the time, we are human and are therefore prone to a wide range of emotions and feelings.  When we feel positive emotions like love, happiness, and gratitude the world seems at peace.  What do we do when we feel more negative emotions like anger, frustration and sadness?  Suppressing or ignoring those negative emotions is not going to make them go away.  Although it may be more difficult than acknowledging a positive feeling, acknowledging ALL of our emotions is exactly what we should do.

The first step of this process is to identify your feeling or emotion.  Being present in the moment and being aware of what your mind and body are telling you is key here.  Sometimes identifying an emotion can be tricky.  For example, your initial reaction to a situation may have been anger but you are really feeling more hurt than angry.  Taking a quiet moment to reflect on exactly what you are feeling and to identify it is the first step.

Your next goal is to acknowledge your feelings.  You do not have to think about taking action or how you think you SHOULD be feeling, just accept that in this exact present moment “I am feeling upset/sad/frustrated/hurt/intimidated/confused, etc.”  Acknowledge and breathe.

Sharing and expressing your feelings is an important next step.  You can share them by simply writing them down or express them by crying,  yelling, etc.   You can share your feelings with a friend.  Sharing  your feelings means you’ve successfully indentified and acknowledged them, are comfortable enough with them in your body and to now share them with the universe.

Now that you’ve mentally identified and acknowledged your feelings and physically expressed or shared them it’s time to let them go.  Holding  on to negative emotions will only attract more negativity to you.  Part of the process of letting go may mean that you come up with a plan to take action to work positively towards remedying the situation that brought on the initial negative emotion or you may just mentally say,  “Thank you sadness/frustration/hurt/anger for letting me experience you but it’s time to go now.”

Take a DEEP breath and let it go.

Claire Affleck
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