The Importance of Expressing Emotions, with Eckhart Tolle

There are quite a few people who do not express emotions fully or don't express them at all. Perhaps even more so in northern countries. The further north you go, the less they express their emotions. That's how it seems to be. Maybe it's too cold to express your emotions. Now. The practice I describe of observing your emotions, allowing them to be. For somebody who habitually does not express emotions, it is not usually the best way to try and observe his or her emotions. Because they may not even know what the emotions they are having. They may be so much pushed down. So particularly for those people who have been suppressing emotions, it is very helpful to express the emotions, if possible, without injuring anybody or yourself. To allow yourself to express emotions and witness that at the same time, the expression itself would not free you. Because emotions, if they are not observed and not witnessed, tend to renew themselves through renewed thinking. Because there is this vicious circle between emotion and thought processes. So the expression alone is not enough, because you would simply be stuck with it and express the anger, because the anger dissipates somewhat as you express it. But if you are not conscious of the relationship between your thought processes and the anger, the thought processes will create renewed anger. And so you would be going to the same or other therapists and hitting the pillows for 20 or 30 years, not realizing that through your thought processes you're continuously recreating emotion and you're identifying so much. So without the presence, expression is better than repression. Repression can make you ill. But to become. To transcend it is essential to be alert and present and watch it as an energy field, so that through the watching it becomes depersonalized so that you don't feel, you're not totally stuck in it. And then you can express it. Hit something not a person, if possible, the pillow, if it's anger or screaming and feels good, perhaps, and feel the raw energy of it like fire, and feel it wow. And if you allow it completely and express, can even very quickly turn around and then you can do something useful, that you have enormous energy. And suddenly it gets turned around in his dust. It's no longer. It can shift from anger to just being intense energy. Okay, now I'm going to clean my room. Not angry, angry anymore, simply with energy. You could also clean your room still being angry, but that's not good cleaning, because you would be cleaning on the material level and on an energetic level, you would be polluting your room. And so to become free for a while, some people need to express fully. And then a time comes when there's enough presence and you have expressed it, then you can gradually more and more work on the inner level and bring presence to it on the inner. Not that you ever hold it down. If it wants to and needs to express itself, you may do something. Maybe you can transform it into physical movement, vigorous movement, or whatever it is, and watch, but always be there as a witness. At some point you find that you have a choice. The emotion arises. You can express it or not express it, and it can simply be transformed or transmuted. Through bringing presence to it, you will know in the moment whether it needs to express itself or not. If you have never or rarely expressed emotion, then by all means allow yourself to express it without indulging and without personalizing it, recognizing it as energy. No more just as energy. And watch.