How To Channel Your Sadness & Anger Into Freedom

Do you ever feel so stressed and busy and tired that you feel like you want to scream and curl up into a tiny ball and cry? I know that feeling well because I’ve always been the ‘strong’ one … the woman who keeps ‘pushing on’ and doesn’t often allow herself to curl into a ball and tell everyone and everything to go away. Feeling this way leaves me feeling vulnerable and fragile … but surprisingly when I allow myself to actually feel my emotion, something magical happens. I feel lighter and, once the heavy feelings have lifted, I feel clearer.

Unfortunately in our western culture are taught to ‘suck it up!’ and be independent from day dot. As children we are taught to ‘stop crying’ and get on with it … boys especially are encouraged not to express emotion and ‘harden up son’. So, from a very, very young age we learn that the best way to live and love is to hold in emotion, push it down and pretend we are ok.

News flash: pushing emotion down is unhealthy and dangerous. When we don’t allow our emotions to bubble up and out they get trapped in our nervous system and we wind up feeling tired, irritated, grumpy, fed up and depressed. I can definitely relate to these feelings and know that most of you reading this will too.

So, what’s the alternative to pushing down emotion? Well the alternative sounds simple, but is actually quite challenging because most of us have never truly allowed our emotion to flow. Next time you feel an emotion bubbling up, instead of ignoring it, allow it to unfold. When you feel the tears and sadness welling up, let them flow. When you feel angry, put your hands over your mouth and scream it out. There’s lots of different ways to express and release our emotions … some people choose to scream them out, or run them off, or dance them out, or breathe them out, or get into bed and cry them out (that’s my personal favourite), or f*ck them out with sex. It doesn’t matter how you express the emotion, it just matters that you let it all out.

When we let out our emotions (ALL of them) and feel truly them, we feel lighter, happier and more alive. We let go of the heaviness of the past and the heaviness of our sadness and anger and instead we experience more freedom, clarity and peace.