The GOOD, The BAD And The WHOLE Emotional State Of You – Lillian Ogbogoh

We have been taught that as women it is unladylike to give into our baser emotions.  I am talking about emotions like jealousy, rage and anger are not something we should do while riding the positivity wave which requires that we wake up each day wanting to high five the sky. All this “positivity” constantly reminds us we are goddesses who make the world shine with rainbow-colored kisses. We should never pause to entertain a negative thought let alone feeling a negative emotion while riding our unicorns with stars in our hair and eating our non-dairy chia puddings… We are currently in a culture of 24/7, nonstop positivity which is being exacerbated by social media in my personal opinion. Pick any social media site, it is filled with one mantra or another for us to be positive or showing people living their best lives. Negative emotions are touted as a sign of weakness and inadequacy.

Goddess, newsflash! Even Aphrodite has off days. Forget off days. She experiences full on green-eyed monster moments. What do you think led to the Trojan war? If you remember the clash of the Titans *The original, not the remake, never the remake 🙂 *. Queen Cassiopeia compares Andromeda’s beauty to that of Goddess Thetis herself, and a full blown jealousy hissy fit takes place, bring the wrath of the Kraken. So, if the Goddesses of lore can experience these emotions, why do you think that you are exempt from these emotions?  Ladies, are we on the same page yet? We all feel these emotions, anger, fear, jealousy, sadness, pessimism, anxiety, guilt. You are not alone, and no, you are not weak or inadequate, you, my dear are just a whole being, we are not designed to be happy 24/7 just as we are not designed to be on the go all the time.  When we are tired, it is our body’s way of saying it needs to rest. When we experience any of these emotions instead of seeing them as negative, how about we look at them as indicators or our own GPS that is pointing us in the direction of what is going on for us and where we are selling ourselves short.

Are you ready for this to pull the covers back on what your internal GPS is telling you? Let’s look at jealousy. Someone once said that “Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own.” ~Unknown… You know that feeling when you click through Instagram, Facebook or having that conversation with that friend who shares with you, her grand news, she is getting married, bought a new house, moving out of the country whatever the news may be, you suddenly feel this tinge within you, as you feel inadequate against her/his achievements.  Here is the truth, you are not alone, just google jealous and the number of blogs on managing jealousy is staggering. So, what is your internal GPS telling you?

Look within:

The issue with jealousy as an emotion is that you are so busy looking at how great others’ lives are going that you begin to discount what is good and wonderful about your world.  All of a sudden these other people are living the Sak’s 5th Avenue life while you have consigned yourself to Payless.  So where are you discounting your fantastic life? Even if it is work in progress, where are you making progress? Like the old adage about other people’s grass and all that jazz. Their grass might be greener because they are watering it. So the question here is where are you starving your god/goddess self of some watering? Where are you neglecting your own life?

Feel your feelings:

With any of these so called bad emotions, they are a barometer of things going on within you and the easiest way to deal with this is not to avoid or pretend like it does not matter because all it will do is fester into a nasty pus filled bag of worms.  🙁  See – not a pretty picture here. Now I am not asking you to wallow in the emotion, rather to consciously face the emotion you are feeling and discover the root of it, asking a few questions of yourself.

Are you that feeling?

Look at what triggered the feelings and ask did you respond with the right magnitude? Or did your Diva come out speaking for you?

Are you playing the victim? Looking to be rescued by that Prince/Princess

You are asking these questions to get clear with you about what you are feeling, as you would find that once you start really inspecting the feelings the root cause will present itself and you can deal with it.

Let it go:

If you are a parent, that phrase will fill you with dread. As you wait for the onset of the Disney song being played on a continuous loop. Aside from the song being used as a form of torture, Elsa has it right as she bursts into song, complete with the attitude the cold does not bother her a bit…. To let it go you are going to have to take some conscious steps here – as it is all too easy to say let it go when you are in the midst of a full-blown anger session and someone says to let it go you are more likely to get more incensed. Elsa’s words are for all of us because holding on to these emotions longer than they are useful for us, they start to consume us and rob us of our magnificence, our self- belief and then we find ourselves in a very vicious cycle of self-fulling negative prophecies.  There are precise actions to take to letting it go:  Change your physical state. When you find yourself in that funky emotional state, move! I’m not asking you to walk up a snow-filled mountain but if that is your thing, enjoy. Whatever moves you, you will find that just simply moving your body forces your brain into rewiring mode. Find something to make you laugh – be it giggling babies or odd cats or that friend you find yourself creating the most hilarious scenarios with. Hey! I’m talking to you! 🙂  Your brain can only actively hold one thought so when you’re focused on happy thoughts you cannot be upset.

So to wrap this all up, your emotions – good or bad –  are all yours in its glorious technicolor form,  and your job is to accept them,  feel them – every single one – to embrace your whole you.

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