Emotions: Friends or Enemies?

What are emotions? What is their purpose? How can we deal with them in a healthy way?

Emotions are like a thermometer. They tell us about our current state, whether we're centered, balanced, or not, whether we're seeing a situation from a positive perspective that makes us feel empowered and good about ourselves, or not. They show us where our focus is. Whether we're aligned with our heart or not. They reflect our state of mind. They help us become aware of how close or far we are to our true Self.

We can see a relationship between our emotional state and the weather. When it's sunny, these are positive days, making us want to get out of the house, socialize with others, share, and have fun. This is exactly what happens when we're in a more positive emotional state. We feel joyful, confident, connect with others, and come out of our shell.

But when the days are cloudy and rainy, they're more negative, heavy, we feel like wanting to stay home, withdrawn, and more emotionally deprived. The same happens when we're more negative. It's as if emotional clouds disconnected us from our inner sun, and we lost our connection with others, with ourselves, because we've distanced ourselves from our center. Our confidence fades, and we need to withdrawn to return to ourselves, to nourish ourselves emotionally. Returning to our inner home, to nestle with our Self, to listen to our heart.

Each emotion informs us where our attention is, where our focus goes. If we're happy, we're appreciating the moment, the now, satisfied with the life we ​​have. If we're nostalgic, we're focused on the past and paying attention to what once was, to what's no longer present. We can feel this as a loss of an important moment. Passion is when we feel motivated, when something awakens us, gives us life, excites us, gives us focus and direction. Depression is when there's a loss of passion, enthusiasm, focus, and direction. It arises from an accumulation of emotions that haven't been released and brought to awareness. The person lacks life goals and focus and becomes paralyzed, feeling adrift. Anxiety comes from wanting dreams to materialize quickly, from not accepting the slowness and natural process of things, from wanting to live tomorrow in the present moment. Fear comes from feeling insecure and lacking confidence in certain situations or in ourselves, from not having the ability to overcome certain situations. It arises when we feel threatened and in danger, and this may be real or not. We're stepping into unfamiliar ground, unable to define the situation. It arises from the need to proceed with caution. Envy occurs when we focus on others rather than ourselves, when we compare ourselves to others, overvaluing them, and failing to recognize our own worth. Resentment occurs when we accumulate pain and suffering toward someone or a situation. It arises when we fail to see the love present in a given situation or someone's behavior toward us, when a person hasn't behaved according to our expectations.

Gratitude is when we appreciate and value what we receive, recognizing its importance.

Below is an example of how life acts on us through our emotions when it wants us to change direction or attitude.

Anger is the first instinctive reaction we have when an obstacle arises in the direction we're going, and is triggered by something that isn't happening as we want. What's happening isn't according to our will, and we have difficulty accepting it. It arises from wanting to control situations and believing that our will is right. It's when something happens that stops us, and the energy we use to act in a certain direction becomes blocked and needs to be released and dissipated to bring us to a complete stop. Frustration follows anger, aiming to weaken it. It arises from failed attempts when we don't accept the halt, when there's resistance, and we repeatedly try to go in the same direction. Sadness comes before acceptance. It indicates that the situation is beyond our control, that we cannot control the course of events. We feel loss, defeat in relation to a situation. We cannot find a solution. It arises when the goal we set for ourselves is not achieved and we stop creating resistance to change. Acceptance is when we make inner peace with a given situation and accept changing course, changing our behavior. We surrender to a greater will.

All these emotions that arise are based on thoughts, beliefs, etc., we have about life. When negative, they show us that a perspective is not aligned with us, with our Self, with our heart. And this prevents us from flowing with life. It causes us to create resistance.

Emotional deprivation exists when we're emotionally unbalanced, when we lack positive emotions that make us feel good about ourselves. When this happens, we tend to seek emotional nourishment in others and we demand more than they can give us. It creates dependence on others, as if we were a child who still depends on their mother, and doesn't know how to feed himself.

Gaining emotional maturity means learning to nourish ourselves emotionally, taking responsibility for our emotional needs.

To do this, we need to understand what emotion we're missing at that moment and find a way to feel it. Depending on the type of emotion we're missing, we're lacking of, we'll find a way to fill ourselves with that emotion by dedicating ourselves to something, whether it's work or an activity, that brings it to us. And for each of us, this emotion is nourished differently. If we feel depressed, we need to discover our passion in life by looking at the topics that excite us, that spark our interest. For some, it might be living with animals, adopting one, or volunteering with animal welfare organizations. For others, it might be physical activity, being in nature, or even starting their own business.

If we feel sad, we need to find activities that make us happy, that make us laugh, such as watching a comedy, playing with children, doing a silly dance, or doing something that awakens our most spontaneous, playful, and childlike side.

Knowing how to manage emotions is a learning process. The key isn't avoiding them when they're negative, because you need to experience them too. The key is to face them and act on them as soon as they arise, become aware of what they're trying to tell us, understand what thoughts feed them, and transform them.

Emotions can be our greatest enemies when they become excessive, because we lose all control over them and they begin to dominate our lives, enslaving us. In this way, we lose our personal power. The important thing is to go to the source and understand the thoughts that trigger these emotions.

But they can also be our greatest friends because they show us at every moment whether we're being true to ourselves, whether we're having positive or negative thoughts, whether they strengthen or weaken us, whether we're exercising personal power or not.

By taking responsibility for our emotions and knowing how to nourish ourselves emotionally correctly, we gain a better quality of life, a greater well-being with ourselves, and develop better, more balanced relationships with others.