Often people put feelings and emotions in the same basket.

Now while they are certainly similar, there are some distinguishing differences you really should know if you’re serious about living a happy life full of positive relationships.

Put simply:Feelings are how you feel in the moment. Emotions are past unresolved feelings.

To put that into context: Someone accidentally spills coffee on your lap.

In the moment you feel upset, perhaps even a little annoyed.

If you express that upset, perhaps shed a few tears, it disappears.

If, on the other hand, you suppress the feeling, it gets stored in the body, so that the next time something happens like this, the emotion comes right back up again.

This time though, it’s not just the upset at the current situation, it’s a whole host of emotion from the last situation piled on top of this situation.

Refuse to express again, and the next time that emotion gets stronger, and so forth.

You see, as children we cried and it was ok.

We fell over and it was ok to get upset.

Then as we started to get a little older we were taught that ‘Big boys don’t cry’ and ‘Expressing yourself isn’t acceptable behaviour,’ and so we started to suppress our feelings in order to fit in.

The problem is, just like a beach ball that gets pushed under water, eventually it has to come up, and usually with a big splash.

So by the time you become an adult you’ve got so much unexpressed emotion, that it either makes you sick or spills out of you in not so lovely ways.

If there’s one thing I want you to take from this week’s blog, is that it’s ok to express your feelings.

It’s NOT, however, ok to direct them at another person.

That’s where the misunderstanding often comes.

If someone triggers you into anger, leave the person and go and hit a pillow, scream under water or take out your aggression on a boxing bag.

If you need to cry, wallow, sulk, do it!

It’s these physical releases we’re not giving ourselves.

Yet with the physical release comes clarity and understanding of oneself and of the situation, so we know how best to deal with life, not from a place of reaction, but from a place of love and understanding.

It’s in expressing our feelings that we are also given insight into the lessons that situation was designed to teach us.

Sure, expressing means being vulnerable.

But humans feel, and if you don’t it’s because it’s been conditioned out of you.

Giving yourself permission to feel and express anger and sadness and all the other negative emotions, will clear the way for you to experience more joy and happiness.

Please note: When someone triggers you, irritates you or otherwise, there is a learning in it for you.

See the irritation as a gift where that person is reflecting an unresolved emotion you have held deep inside that needs healing.

If you have some unresolved emotions you’d like help working through, check out the One-on-One Intensive, where I can help you empty out all that is not serving you.