Emotional Hierarchy
We live in a society that places feeling certain emotions on a pedestal while demonizes the feeling of other emotions. Our society tells us that there are emotions that we should feel, or that are acceptable to feel and there are other emotions that are not acceptable and that we should not feel. Society goes even further to state that certain genders, ages, and cultures are allowed to experience certain emotions and that depending on these factors we should not feel or express certain emotions.
I am here to tell you all emotions, all of them, even the ones you would rather bury deep down or avoid completely, all emotions are worthy of being felt. No matter your gender, culture, age, no matter what all emotions are worth feeling, recognizing, processing, and then lovingly being released. Emotions are all the same, no emotion is better or worse than any other emotion until we make an emotion better or worse. If we choose to believe the misinformation we are fed by society about some feelings being more acceptable than others we are choosing to subscribe to the belief that emotional hierarchies exist, and in doing so we are engaging in placing our feelings on this hierarchy. We have the power to choose to feel and acknowledge all our full spectrum of emotions and we have the power to negate our emotions. Honouring all emotions is a choice.
Emotions are messages sent to us from our bodies about what is happening in our surroundings. Emotions are not meant to be held onto and grasped at, they are meant to be acknowledged, experienced, and released. When we try to avoid certain emotions they are likely to manifest within the physical body creating pain, tension, and stress. In holding onto these emotions we begin to form behaviour patterns that will cause us to react in ways that are likely to elicit the surfacing of the emotion time and time again until we allow ourselves to feel the emotion, recognize the emotion, and lovingly release the emotion. If we refuse to acknowledge emotions when they try to surface they will get bigger and bigger or cause us so much pain and discomfort that we can no longer ignore them or push them away. When we continue to deny emotions the right to be felt and experienced we open the door for these emotions to run havoc on our lives and relationships.
We can avoid feelings becoming so large they dictate our daily life by first acknowledging all feelings are valid and worth feeling, no feeling is better or worse than any other feeling, and we needn’t attach to any feeling we are simply meant to experience feelings and watch them pass by as we wait for the next feeling wave to wash over us.
One of the dangers in delineating some feelings as better and others as worse is it creates the need or desire to cling to those feelings we deem ‘good.’ This clinging robs us of being in the present moment and truly experiencing our lives to the fullest. When we practice non-attachment to our feelings we can welcome in all feelings and all experiences and truly live. In welcoming in the full spectrum of emotions we can live life in the present and be our best and truest selves.
So much as you can welcome every emotion into your life, sit with them, be curious about them, why are they arising and what can you learn from their presence. Notice emotions and allow them to move through you and notice the sensations as they do. It takes time to be able to sit with emotions and allow them to travel by without attaching. Be gentle with yourself on your journey, and know you never have to walk your path alone.
