Every feeling has a function - let's talk about 'em.

Emotions are a fundamental part of the human experience, we're supposed to feel things and if we don't - if we push them down, stuff them away or ignore their signals for attention, we can end up suffering the very plight we tried to avoid (feeling our feelings) with thrice the intensity and about half of the capacity to deal with them.

Imagine your emotions as guests at your front door, sure you've not invited them, but they're there, they've got a bit on their mind and they're visiting you specifically - not Carol down the road (aka it's you they're looking for and you that needs to answer). So it really is as good as time as any to acknowledge you can hear one of them knocking, rather than engaging in the river of denial and feigning a spell of audible impairment.

Curiosity about their visit, is essential.

Now, the feelings wheel will tell you we have about 120 emotional variants, but because we don't think blogs need to be that long nor that exploratory, we'll just look at few of 'em, to get started on opening up the more agreeable "what do you want?" approach, when they're on the porch:

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Sadness

This tends to be the one we enjoy running in the opposite direction of, no sad feels, no bad vibes. We generally don't like to acknowledge the blue-er moments of our humanity, and yet they're often some of the most important. Sadness is by design, a reflective emotion that helps with processing, it asks and allows us to slow down, sit with the loss, and heal. When we're sad, we can also express this with tears (whether you're in the camp of liking them or not, they help) with their natural painkilling concoction of endorphins and oxytocin. Want to feel less sad? Be sad first.

Happiness

This is basically asking you to pay attention to what made you feel this way - and do MORE of it. "This made me feel great!" - great, you should probably do that more often then. This is the signifier for proactive action in the direction of your joy. Follow it.

The important caveat to happiness - is that often people pursue this so intensely (believing it's the sole demonstration of well-being and "normality") that they avoid the purpose (and therefore acceptance) of allllllll the other emotions. Happiness is, and can often be a by product of being inclusive of all feelings, not simply centric to just one. A quick gander at the Inside Out films will bring this all the way home as a circular common sense moment, and worth a watch if you haven't already.

Anger

OOooooooooh - we LOVE an action emotion - yes we do! Anger - healthy gorgeous expressive anger is by design showing up to say "abso-f**king-lutely not!!!!" - it's a boundary setter, a line drawer, an axe to a wooden bridge you don't want someone to cross. Anger is a protective emotion, that can propel us forward, when we need to be propelled towards safety with positive intentions that enable our self esteem. Shouting at someone who nearly hit you with their Lime bike? Totally fair hun, you want both your legs in tact and they need to learn to look both ways and practice breaking.

Anxiety

Everyone hates this one, and look - we get it, it's not nice to feel worried, especially when it's generalised, because then there's not one threat, there's 19 of them and one of 'em's your Mother. Anxiety though, is there to let you know there's a sense of danger, something is to be avoided and it's urging you to consider your safety. Now not all anxiety is right or relevant, like being scared of pine furniture or rain when it tilts to the left. But it CAN give you valuable information as to what your tolerance threshold is, and where it might be helpfully challenged so you can cope with carpentry and a bit of drizzle doesn't ruin your Tuesday.

Guilt

Guilt is saying "I messed up" so you know that you can, and need - to make amends. It's a reparative emotion, that demonstrates you have morals and values you like to meet and uphold for yourself - and show/share with others. When we breach these, when we step outside of our character, or notice we've hurt someone, or something that we love, guilt gets to the door to let us know "you know what, you need to check in on yourself with that one". It's lovingly guiding you towards being and feeling good, by your own standards.

Disgust

It's the sassiest of the emotions when you see the facials side by side for a comparison (a quick Google in the right direction will help you here). But disgust shows up, believe it or not, to protect us from things we might need to actively reject, or avoid. It's another indicator of our moral limits. Disgust from an evolutionary point of view maintains survival, things that look poisonous, infectious, problematic or corrupt - all generate this innate emotion to intuitively assert a distance between you - and it, the thing you're disgusted by.

She's sassy, and she's a bit of a saviour, we all hail a bitta' disgust when she's on the clock.

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Ultimately, emotions help us to process things, they give us a filtration system which if we listen to, can enhance our intuition and with that, develop our ability to problem solve. That's right, you cannot think yourself out of every circumstance, we have to quite literally put the feelers out there to get some intel on what is happening and what we can (and want) to do about it. Logic has a gorgeous place in the ecosystem that is our mind, but it can't be clocking in to every shift, attempting to resolve every task.

Every feeling has a meaning, be curious with them.