Straight and True Feelings
We have all had the experience of someone expressing feelings in a sideways fashion. Most of us have done so ourselves. Far fewer of us have actually experienced feelings being expressed in a straight, healthy fashion. When people are able to connect with their true feelings and express them in a straight, healthy fashion, no one including our self or anything of importance gets hurt.
The reason no one, our self or anything of importance gets hurt is because feelings are nothing more than a defense mechanism designed to protect us. They are not designed to hurt or destroy ourselves or others around us. Yet every day we have first-hand experience of people getting hurt from feelings being expressed in a sideways fashion rather than a straight, healthy manner.
When we are angry and are able to express our anger straightforwardly, we may not even need to raise our voice to be heard. We are heard in such a way that others know not to push that issue. When the feeling is expressed in a straight, healthy fashion, everyone is respected and the response is not larger than the situation demands.
For most people, it’s a foreign idea to even consider the idea of having feelings expressed in a straight, healthy fashion and not getting hurt. At a young age we were taught to hide our true feelings, so our brains developed a way to hide those true feelings. As the true feelings get triggered, a part of the brain called the insular cortex attempts to hide the true feelings by getting busy. It creates distractions or has the feelings come out sideways, because the energy is more than the insular cortex can control.
When we are able to get emotionally honest with ourselves and connect with our true feelings, meaning the feelings we have been taught to hide, the feelings get expressed in a respectful way. The feelings are able to be felt and dealt with in an honest way such that the person expressing them is being heard and feels honored in the process. When we express our feelings, feel them, and allow them to be honored, there is no need to become defensive and attack others. When this occurs, no one gets hurt. We don’t punch walls, destroy belongings, or make rash decisions that create negative impacts. The feelings associated with that experience no longer reside within us, needing to be reset.
Most of us have never seen or experienced this type of an expression and release of feelings because we have been taught to hide and minimize any feelings. The process of being taught to hide our feelings may have a positive short-term payoff, but it creates a poor long-term payoff because the feelings are unresolved.
To create the positive long-term payoff that most of us desire requires that we dig deeper into ourselves emotionally and connect with our deeper emotional truth. Then we can express our feelings in a straight, healthy fashion. When we connect and embrace these deeper feelings, we connect and embrace ourselves on the deeper emotional level. This shows us that we matter, because the core and essence of who we are resides in these deeper true feelings.
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