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Emotions don’t just shape how you react and interact with others.
Have you ever woken up on the wrong side of the bed, and suddenly, things never seem to go right? You may feel too sensitive to people, or you can’t seem to make the right decisions.
In essence, it’s not only the emotions that regulate your day. Thus, this doesn’t make it right to blame a bad day entirely on a single emotion. However, being in the wrong headspace plays a part, and people only end up in one in the absence of proper emotional expression.
Emotions shape life more than you realize.
may seem inconsequential compared to logic and cognition. After all, emotions often have the bad reputation of making people irrational or “soft.” They’re never credited for the right decisions people make and are usually to blame when things go south. But if you examine life a little more, you’ll realize how emotions are deeply embedded in everything people do. In fact, they help shape life.
Why Is It Important to Cope with Emotions?
In Rebecca Hendricks’ Hound Dogged, readers are taken on a journey of self-discovery and emotion between friends and how these aspects go hand in hand.
Through the band’s friendship and growth, the book shows how emotions dubbed as weaknesses or negative are often primary catalysts of success. Following a group of friends as they go through their band’s formation, readers are exposed to their ups and downs, triumphs and losses. They experience how emotions become the very foundation of the characters, the pillars that hold them together or tear them apart.
If anything, the book only solidifies and presents the importance of proper emotional expression. As readers see how buried and unresolved emotions cause chaos and conflicts, they realize the consequential role emotions play in connections and everyday life. They’re powerful enough to make or break your day and influence how you perceive the world around you.
It’s important to understand and cope with emotions simply because they make life better. By having emotions intact, people can navigate even life’s worst in a more purposeful way. One way to cope with them is through emotional expression.
What Is Emotional Expression?
People are hardwired to feel. Their bodies are predisposed to function according to their emotions, though their influence may seem subtle and often unrecognized. Emotional expression is merely the acknowledgment and articulation of these emotions. It’s the recognition that since they have a consequential role in life, they’re meant and supposed to be embraced and felt.
However, when it comes to “negative” feelings such as anger, sadness, and fear, people may often presume they have to conceal them. This is when unresolved issues begin to manifest.
The importance of emotional expression revolves around emotional awareness. This means people have to recognize and act on what they’re feeling, regardless of whether they are good or bad. When people choose to bury their emotions, they aren’t allowing themselves to feel—a fundamental human function—fully. While this can hinder anything harmful from possibly happening, it isn’t beneficial for anyone.
Think of unprocessed or unexpressed emotions as extra baggage you must carry throughout the day. The more you stop acting on these feelings, the heavier you will feel. Now, imagine this being applied throughout your whole life. How buried would you be in your emotions?
This is why emotional expression is vital.
Never Hold Back from Expressing
Emotion is as natural to humans as breathing. It may not always have to be recognized, or it may not always be felt, but it’s always happening as people live. Hence, emotional expression not only ensures people are living life properly but also helps them perceive it a bit more positively, which will reflect in the decisions they’ll be making. Recognizing them is one thing, but feeling and expressing them is another.
People only become healthy when they learn to let go and express feelings adequately. It’s human to feel things and deal with them.
Emotional expression doesn’t always have to be something evident and outward. You don’t always have to tell someone about it to be recognized. You don’t have to open a door or yell for it to be felt. Instead, you can process and express your emotions in as simple ways as embracing what you’re feeling and understanding why you are how you are currently.
Embracing what you’re feeling has a lot of benefits. These may not be immediate but are enduring and consequential to your well-being. If you’re interested in reading more of what Rebecca Hendricks conveys about the importance of emotional expression, check out her book!
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