Last update: October 16, 2019
Emotions have a voice, they speak to us and reveal how we feel. Emotions make us understand in every moment what we need. What happens if we don't pay attention to them? If we ignore them? We can turn off their voices, but not their needs.
We live surrounded by haste, by the desire to move quickly to other things, by "do not worry", by "what you have to do is ...", by "ignoring it", "forget it", "try not to think about it" ... All emotions have an adaptive function, if we don't listen to them they stay there and will come back with more force when they need to come out again. And often, this will happen at inopportune moments.
For example, sadness is telling us that we need to stop and be alone, which is why we don't want to go out and see people. Joy, on the other hand, pushes us to go out and socialize. Sorrow is warning us of possible dangers to our body, while fear keeps us alert and protects us.
By learning to listen to them and not to run away from them, we will be able to understand what emotions are warning us about. In this way, we will be able to discover a hidden or needy part of us that we have never been able to satisfy.
What happens when we silence emotions?
All emotions, in the right measure, are adequate and functional. The problem arises when they reach limits that are not tolerable for the person or when they prevent them from following their path. This happens when we don't pay attention to them, when we try to minimize or evade them.
As we said before, emotions have a voice. So what happens when we silence functional emotions? Let's turn off their voices, but doing so will certainly not eliminate the problem that triggered them. If we learn to listen to them, we will be able to know what they are telling us, allowing them to fulfill their function and to leave room for subsequent emotions.
Escaping from emotions means silencing them, hiding them or containing them with the sole objective of making them pass quickly in order to always be happy and content, living life to the full. It is a very dangerous practice since it "forces" us to wear masks. We wear them because we feel obliged, very often by ourselves, to paint emotions on our faces that are very different from those we actually feel.
Stop and feel, close our eyes and listen, give us what emotions tell us we need, reflect with ourselves, give ourselves a minute of solitude as sadness suggests - or evaluate options for not falling into the void, as the fear. These are things that we will never be able to know if we try in every way to silence our emotions, even resorting to anxiolytics or antidepressants.
To prevent them from emerging in an explosion that could endanger us, the advice is to listen to our emotions to prevent them from appearing even stronger than before. A force that could become uncontrollable for us, to the point of forcing us to resort to external help.
Learn to listen to emotions
Living in harmony means opening up our feelings. We live in societies in which we adapt to the role of social beings. But before that we are whole beings, who need a well-formed and stable personal structure that adapts to the external environment.
Emotions are part of us, but they are not "ours". They come and go, some stay a little longer while others only accompany us at certain times. Whether it's good or bad, emotions aren't eternal. Emotion by definition has a limited duration; on the contrary, we would speak of emotional states and not emotions.
From time to time, we should ask ourselves how we feel and what emotions we are feeling at that particular moment. This will help us understand what is happening to us and connect with our emotions. By ceasing to flee from them, we will achieve a balance where we can build our well-being. A balance based on the idea that no emotion is harmful in itself, but that, simply, his voice tells something related to what is happening to us.
