You know,
Our emotions are frequently inconvenient.
Maybe suddenly we feel very angry or very scared and we don't want to feel that way.
So it can be tempting to,
Especially in the case of anger,
To just push it down.
Or in the case of grief as well,
To push it down and maybe distract ourselves.
The trouble is this practice hurts ourselves because whatever we push down will eventually pop up with extra force.
So if we push anger down,
What we're setting up in the future is an experience of rage,
Just a sudden experience of rage.
So the question is,
How do we manage ourselves really?
Because it's also not good to act out.
You know,
If you're feeling anger,
It's better not to punch somebody in the nose because you'll end up in jail.
So how do we manage our emotions?
Well actually it's not management so much as we learn to observe them and to just be with them without taking reactive action.
But again,
I'm wanting to talk about repression.
So one of the things that if we repress,
What happens is we actually become more numb and less intelligent overall because more and more of our energy and self is made unavailable to us by this act of inner repression.
So what this means is that this material,
These emotions,
They don't go away.
They just start operating in our unconscious.
So our thoughts will actually end up being contaminated by them.
So if we have not dealt with rage,
What will happen is our thoughts in our life will carry more intolerance and judgment than if we had gone to the trouble to allow the feelings of anger or rage or grief without buying into the storyline of whatever the storyline is.
If we just feel them and maybe draw or talk to somebody about it or you know,
One of the things I used to do was I would get in the car sometimes and just close all the windows and scream just to get it out of me.
Whatever works,
But it's just important to,
If you get the intellectual understanding that repression of emotions as well as acting out are both not helpful.
And there's another way of gently allowing the emotions,
Feeling them,
Expressing them in a constructive way.
And actually as you do that,
Your overall intelligence gets higher.
Certainly your emotional IQ gets higher.
Your ability to just function in the world is higher because more of the aspects of your personality are made available for the expression and use in your life.
