Learn to Manage Your Emotions

“They tried to bury us, but we were seeds.”

This quote summarizes very well what we mostly do with the negatives emotions we experience. We try to forget them, erase them, throw them behind our backs.

However, we will not achieve that result. In most cases, it will just send those emotions to a closed space inside us, a dome, in which some of these negative feelings will concentrate and grow.

Our emotions, desires, and needs will join in that space and will feed on each other. Until one day: the day when they no longer fit in that space and we may end up “exploding” when we least expect.

Maybe that sounds familiar to you. We all had moments when, without understanding why, suddenly become full of anger and end up having excessive reactions, without realizing why. Usually, those moments are triggered by small things that in themselves do not explain such strong reactions.

Why do we “explode”?

Because, if we investigate it, that is not a reaction to that specific situation, is the result of an accumulation of negative emotions that — at that moment — found a way to get out, to escape from the dome where we tried to confine them.

Like a glass full of water in which one last drop makes the glass overflow, our body and mind end up finding this explosive way to “download” everything that we have been accumulating.

Can we change this?

Although this process usually has negative results and creates mainly unpleasant situations, if we become aware of how it works, we can start to change it.

If we know that negative emotions can accumulate and grow in this way, then — if we start gradually releasing those emotions — we can prevent them from accumulating until they become dangerous.

That requires not ignoring what we feel, not rejecting the feelings of anger and fear that often dominate us.

We should not fear what we feel. We should not be afraid to be afraid. We can accept what we feel, it’s a vital part of who we are.

Learning to deal with our emotions begins by accepting what we are feeling and becoming aware of it.

If we are afraid, we have to accept it, not ignore it. We have the right to feel fear and sadness, those emotions are part of us. We should accept it as something natural and not try to hide those feelings.

Accept your emotions

As soon as we become aware of what we are feeling, we take a step forward. We are no longer simply overwhelmed by emotions.

We are no longer just the person that is dominated by fear, anger, or sadness. We become the one who realizes the emotion he is feeling, the one who accepts and observes it.

In this way, we create a space between us and the emotions — and is this space that will give us a new freedom of choice.

It’s this space that we create — by observation and acceptance — that will allow us to be more aware of ourselves.

This awareness gives us the possibility to start managing our emotions in different ways, which will be an essential aspect of our journey to build a more calm and balanced life.

If we accept who we are, we will discover new possibilities for our lives. Becoming aware of our emotions and recognizing they are an essential part of us is a vital step in that process.

“They tried to bury us, but we were seeds” is a quote from the poet Dinos Christianopoulos, that in the 1970s was sidelined by the Greek literary community because he was gay.