“There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.”
-Carl Jung
How we use our emotions in life can be a great source of happiness or the plight of misery. Learning emotional independence and maturity; knowing specifically what you’re feeling and how to responsibly express it, is essential to true inner peace and happiness.
All of us are hostage to our emotions in one way or another. Some people are confined and constrained by their fear of the intensity of such emotions as inadequacy, sadness, hurt, and rejection. For these people, emotions are like land mines; they tiptoe through life trying to avoid dangerous feelings. Other people can never express their potential because the emotions they experience, such as fear, inadequacy, and doubt, keep them from ever taking action, let alone risk. Many folks are victims of repetitive kidnapping by their emotions. Strong emo- tions will hit them, like a series of waves, and carry them away from whatever train of thought or activity they were engaged in. Some people are slaves to other people’s emotions. Many, in their efforts to relieve the pain of unpleasant emo- tions, or reach a pleasurable state, will become slaves to alcohol and drugs. An- other kind of price many of us pay for the unpleasant emotions we endure is the clinically proven fact that people suffer psychological and physical illnesses by chronically holding such emotions as: fear, humiliation, worry, pressure, anger, inadequacy, helplessness, and so on.
Most people don’t even realize that it is possible, or desirable, to appreciate and enjoy all of their emotions. Even fewer realize that the key to emotional choice to learning from and using emotions to achieve life goals, is in the appropriate identification and expression of such emotions! Remember, that no matter how un- pleasant an emotion seems to be, it is actually worth having a signal. What the signal is about, what that emotion is trying to tell you, is the key; the key that unlocks the door to discovering your needs and the value of expressing those needs.
