Feeling the Bad Feelings

Today I received an insight. Why am I running away from the emotions that are usually considered bad?

I had been feeling despair and emptiness. Why have I not allowed myself to feel them before?

Unconsciously, we are so afraid of our volatile or tantrum-like emotions. We think that experiencing them will be the end of us. We believe that experiencing or expressing them will render us an inconvenient human. But it's not so. Experiencing these feelings will temporarily put us through discomfort, yes. But it will also free us. It creates space for new experiences.

All of our emotions - the good and bad, all want us to experience them. Today was one such day. Now although I have been present with the most abstract of my emotions, I realized that I didn't sit with the most basic of them.

When we selectively choose to experience our emotions, we can't the extent of our wholeness. When we suppress the painful emotions, we also suppress the joyful and easeful ones. 

I had put away experiencing the most obvious bad feelings. Unhappiness, despair, insecurities, emptiness, loneliness.

Sometimes all we need is to go back to the basics. Sometimes we are just unhappy. And there's nothing more to it.