Have you ever noticed how much we tend to talk about emotions in terms of energy? You might say, “I was burning with rage” or “I was so happy, I felt lit up all over!”

There’s a good reason for that — emotions are actually energy. And that’s why it’s so very important to express them.

Energy can’t exist in a void; it has to go somewhere. When you suppress your emotions, that energy sits in your body and rots, causing your body to start to deteriorate. Not expressing yourself, not letting your emotions out causes you to become isolated, and there’s no growth in isolation.

How exhausting it is to keep yourself secret!

If you’re feeling tired, fatigued, maybe even numb, it may be because you’re not expressing your emotions.

And it’s easy to say that … but I also understand that to some people, just feeling emotions, much less expressing them, is scary as hell! If you feel that way, you’re right — emotions can be overwhelming and frightening. But the only emotions that you can truly feel and heal are the ones you let yourself express.

To feel emotions, you have to feel vulnerability.

And vulnerability can be very difficult, especially if you’ve been hurt before or emotionally abused. And a fear of expressing your emotions can be paralyzing if you’re shy or you’ve been traumatized before. If you were in a situation where it wasn’t OK to express your feelings, know this: you can give yourself permission to heal. After all, it’s your body, your emotions, and your life. And your healing depends on your willingness to feel. It’s going to take you overcoming your fear, and that means that you’ll have to be brave.

Of course, you don’t have to do this alone … but you also don’t have to rely on someone else.

You can Google ways of overcoming fear and use the advice of other people, or you can reach out to a life coach or therapist to help you. But once you are ready and willing to express yourself, you can start by writing it down on paper. This can be just as powerful for the healing process as speaking directly to the person who’s hurt you, scared you, or traumatized you.

Follow this process as you write:

I am so angry because …

I hate when …

I am fed up with …

I am filled with rage when …

I feel so disappointed that …

I feel so sad when …

The thing that hurts me is …

I am afraid that …

It scares me when …

I am sorry that …

Please forgive me for …

I regret that ..

I forgive you for …

I hope that …

Thank you for …

I appreciate you because …

I love you because …

What you do next is up to you.

You don’t have to give the person what you wrote for the healing to take place, but if you want to, then you can experience another level of healing.

Ultimately, it’s about peace — but not necessarily “feeling good”.

When you express yourself, you’ll feel a sense of peace. The self-awareness of your emotions will move you from self-imprisonment to emotional freedom.

Unfortunately, emotions are (sadly) disapproved of in our current society. It’s not OK to feel bad. We’re obsessed with the idea of feeling good and happy all the time, and we resist feeling bad, but look where we are as humans! Half of humanity takes a pill for one thing or another, all in the service of feeling better.

It’s more than OK not to feel good.

Everything in the Universe is based on contrast. Therefore, negative emotions are just as necessary as positive ones. Without negative emotions, we could never know the delight of the positive ones! So stop shying away from your negative emotions, accept them. Make them OK, break the pattern and your old ways of thinking.

Heal yourself — and as you heal yourself, you’ll heal the world.

You don’t have to go it alone. If you’re ready to start the sacred journey of healing yourself, I’m here to help. Find out how you can work with me here.