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Dealing With Emotions

This weekend, I have had to re-learn an old lesson. That lesson is not to suppress an emotion.

In the past, whenever I had negative feelings or felt bad about something, my immediate reaction is to pretend they don't exist or hope that the feeling will go away. Or I put up a brave front and be a MAN about it, not talk about it or learn how to confront the emotion.

I learn that by suppressing the emotion, when they come out (which they eventually will), comes up ten times...no, thousands of times more explosive than they should have been.

I know what you guys out there are thinking already...it's 'Oh Shit' thing?

No, everything's fine...

But reflecting back on it has forced me to come face-to-face with reality. That my tendency to run away from negative emotions is still here and that I have not learned this lesson well.

It is not to say that you have to explode at everything but in Zen teaching, they teach you to confront the emotion, respect the feeling and maybe, let it out. And then it will pass. Running away from the words that needed to be said and feelings that needed to be felt does not help in any way at all. It only makes matters worse.

I thought I learned this lesson but DARN!! :-)

Here I am, relearning this thing. Respecting an emotion and looking it in the face and then dealing with it.

All in a day's....well...work.
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