I wear my emotions on my face, it’s a curse and a gift. It’s a curse because I have very little control over it, it happens in a split second and often by the time I get rid of the expression or slight tone in my voice it’s already been noticed. It makes people ask about my emotions a lot, which in turn, has gotten me to talk about my emotions a lot more. It made me realize how important it is to air out our emotions on a regular bases.

It also made me realize that some of my emotions are stupid. I’m not going to lie about that. Not every emotion needs to be spoken or written or told, some of our emotions seem to come out of nowhere and defy our common sense, but paying close attention to our emotions and which ones keep swinging around help us determine which emotions we need to be ignoring and which ones mean something.

Hint: If it happens over and over again, no matter how stupid it seems, you should figure out what is causing it at it’s root. It’s probably more important than it seems.

Likewise, if you have a really pressing emotion at 11pm, but you sleep on it and realize that it means little more than nothing in the morning? It’s farther proof that our emotions don’t always present themselves as important as they are and that they shouldn’t always be taken seriously.

So how do you sort them out?

It’s been proven that two of the best ways to think about something is to either write or speak it. Something about putting words out into this world helps us define what is going on inside of us. I personally do better with writing them down, but once I’ve written them down, they need to be shared, because emotions are often directed towards other people, or at least impacted by them. You have to share with them to get past the problem, and you have to get past the problem to ever find peace.

Our emotions are the base of our being, without them there wouldn’t be much of anything to love, or hate, or enjoy, but they’re tricky things. They aren’t always honest, they can be all consuming, and they also can be manipulated by others. I’ve talked about not dismissing your emotions before, but I’ve often needed to go a step beyond that. I’ve needed to get them out of me, to get them spoken, to get them understood properly by those I love. It keeps me from seeming irrational, because with things of this nature I think about them before I say them, and it helps people understand what I’m going through. It helps my loved ones understand me better. It helps those angry at me understand. And it helps me process them, own up to them when they are mistaken, and generally feel seen.