Have you noticed the rise in people demonizing emotion?
It can be subtle, “Let’s be rational about this.”
It can be straightforward, “Oh, don’t be so emotional.”
It’s so normalized that many of us don’t really think about this. But if you are interested in mental health, this is a huge red flag.
Ask yourself this: suppose you have poured time and energy into a job, a project, a relationship, or cause, and it doesn’t work out. Should you shrug coldly and announce, “On to the next thing” and move on without a thought?
No! We are not robots (or Vulcans). Passion is essential to our humanity.
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| Mr Spock at his console |
We should feel anger when there is injustice. We should feel sadness at loss. And it’s perfectly natural to feel frustration when there are obstacles.
So why are there emotion deniers? Some people are afraid of emotion because they link it to behaviour.
But here’s the thing: we choose our behaviour.
This is why we feel anger when there is injustice but we don’t set cars on fire or hurt others.
We feel sadness and cry, and that’s okay, even if it resonates with the empathetic people who see it.
As for frustration, we feel it and choose to express it in sensible terms.
Emotions are essential because they give us information.
Here’s an unpopular opinion: many of the people who tell us not to feel emotions know very well that there is injustice, loss and more but they don’t want to deal with it.
Abusers are typically emotion-deniers. They weaponise 'logic' because they're messing us about.
Emotions are essential for giving us information about our thoughts and our environment.
So feel what you feel. See why you feel it. It won’t always be 100% accurate but that’s okay. You have a brain, so you’ll figure it out.
Emotions rock!
Note: picture in the public domain courtesy of NBC Television
