Everybody experiences positive and negative feelings from time to time. You. Me. Your boss. Your classmate. Your child. Your therapist… Nobody is immune. Some of the more common (main) feelings include anger, happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise, and fear. But emotions can run the gamut from excitement, joy, dejected, disappointed, elated, furious, worried, confused, to agitated, and more.

When you experience negative, strong or intense emotions on a regular basis, it can start to feel like you are no longer in control of when or where they show up or are expressed. All you know is that the minute that someone or something triggers you to feel sad, angry, nervous, or afraid, You. Go. OFF!

Now you may have assumed that if you experience negative emotions regularly then the key is to learn to suppress them. You couldn’t be more wrong! One of the things you have to understand is that your feelings/emotions are important human experiences.

Think of your feelings as important pieces of information that let you know that something is either going really well or really badly internally (e.g., in your mind/thoughts) or externally (in the world around you like at school, work, in your relationships, etc.).

So for example, if you learn that you’re receiving a raise at work of $10/hour you may feel ecstatic. If on the other hand you learn that you’ve just been fired, you may feel devastated. Now you’re probably asking yourself, “Okay. I know what my emotions are and why they matter, but why shouldn’t I suppress them?”

Emotions as smoke detectors

I once heard of feelings/emotions being compared to a smoke detector in your house. Question: Why do we have smoke detectors in our homes? Answer: To ensure that we pass our home inspections.

The answer is to ensure that if there’s a fire (or deadly smoke) inside of the house the detector can let you know ahead of time so you can address the source of the smoke/fire or get out of the house before it burns down with you in it.

I don’t know about you, but my smoke detector alarm can be annoyingly loud and grating. It can be very tempting to grab a baseball bat and beat it until it quiets down. But I don’t do that? Why not? Because I recognize that if my smoke detector is going off then I should probably walk around my house to see what’s the source of the problem.

If you are getting angry, sad, worried, disgusted, depressed, frustrated, or disappointed on a regular basis then you need to remember this.

If emotions are like smoke detectors, your getting emotional is a sign that you need to “walk around your house” (so to speak) to determine where the “smoke” is and how to address it.

Don’t let the “house” of your life burn down because you ignored every indicator that something was wrong. Your emotions matter.

What are your negative emotions trying to tell you? Are there things in your life that you need to change (or people you need to let go of)??? Let’s talk!