Feel Good Friday – Embrace Your Emotions

I think Whitney Houston says it best in her hit song “I Get So Emotional Baby”

Show of hands, how many think of themselves as emotional?  Too emotional?  How many times have we tried to downplay how we’re feeling?  Put on the happy face and pretend we’re not REALLY feeling the opposite.   How many times have we felt embarrassed or even a bit ashamed because we weren’t fitting into what we thought people wanted us to act or feel.

Yep.  Me too.

And we need to STOP pretending and just get real about how we feel.  Good, bad and ugly.

In honour of Mental Health Week, our Feel Good Friday is all about naming your emotions and getting real about how we feel.

These are times of extreme anxiety and isolation, so feeling worried and lonely just makes sense. Good mental health doesn’t mean feeling happy all the time. By embracing your emotions – whether they are feel good or challenging or difficult – it’s all part of being human.

Research shows that expressing when you’re upset or feeling down is more effective than pushing down those feelings. Go ahead and feel what you feel. Even if its hard or uncomfortable, it may not always be pretty, but it can do you good.

Having a specific label for what we’re feeling seems to change the activity in our brains, it helps us to feel calmer and understand what we are going through. Naming our feelings can help reduce the intensity of our negative emotions.

If anger, sadness, or fear are causing you distress, and these feelings last for a long time, are very intense and/or are interfering with your ability to function, please seek help. CMHA Lambton Kent is here for you, please reach out to our Mental Health First Response Team, available 24/7:

Chatham: 1-866-299-7447

Sarnia: 1-800-307-4319

Categorised in: Afternoons Fridays

This post was written by Carrie Buchanan