Emotions and Feelings are something that we all experience and they are what makes us humans over machines. They being such an integral part of ourselves, our social systems have somehow forgotten to teach us what they are and how do we handle them.

Emotions are physiological experiences of feelings. Feelings are our sensation based perception. So, if our heart is pumping fast, we are breathing fast, we have sweaty palms, our body feels tensed up (physiological experience- emotion) will lead us to understand that we are probably (feeling) anxious. But these same physiological arousals can be seen in someone who is scared. Here our perception of the situation gains importance.

Difficulty in managing one’s emotions and feelings arises when we are allowed to feel one way and not the other way. We may be approved to feel happy but disregarded if we feel sad. Due to this pressure of not feeling sad, we keep on suppressing this emotion with the fear of being abandoned. This suppression keeps on building up and reaches a point where it spills out or further goes deeper and deeper making us feel numb.

As we are not allowed to express a particular emotion, our system gets bewildered. After a certain period of time, any small trigger can get us rolling, as our brakes to be in control are malfunctioning. Others around may feel that we have turned extra sensitive and they further tell us to control our emotions and feelings. This further creates more confusion within our system

It places us in a difficult spot when we are not allowed to express what we truly feel and by not feeling this we are going against ourselves and by feeling it we are going against others.

The way we can manage these emotions is to be authentic to ourselves over pleasing others, which is no easy task with the conditioning and the societal norms around us. We need to find healthy ways to feel and experience our emotions, to manage them, and settle us down. Trying to do this alone can be difficult, so one should seek out help, making them feel supported and assisted when wanting to bring this new change.