It’s ok to feel angry, It’s ok to feel sad, It’s ok to feel happy

Today we’re all waking up feeling different to each other. The spectrum of emotions that we have as humans is quite special. It’s one of the reasons it’s believed we have been so successful as a species. Our social function which is all intertwined with language, emotions and ability to communicate them (although some struggle to read and express emotions more than others), it takes practise so lets keep practising today.

‘Feelings’ are a strange and fascinating thing, especially for scientists. There is so much research around what feelings are… they’re not a physical thing, they’re hard to measure, its partly nuerons in the brain sort of, its hormones… its complex.

What actually is it you’re ‘feeling?’… its not any of your five main senses, even the feeling of pain is quite subjective. The brain is simply amazing. We’re amazing creatures. We need to pay attention to our feelings and let them have the space they need, every feeling is there for a reason.

Today… lets all try not to supress our feelings. Lets try and ‘see’ them, to really FEEL them.

If you have children you’ve probably seen the Disney Pixar film ‘Inside Out’ if you haven’t try and watch it, or rewatch it. Its a great lesson for us all that every emotion is needed to keep us balanced. It presents this is in a really clever, simple way to understand.

Fear is needed to keep us safe, anger is needed to display our dislike of something, anxiety is needed to keep us alert, happiness is needed for feeling good, but, so is sadness, sadness invites help from others. Not help like ‘oh come on cheer up’… it invokes change, it suggests something isn’t right. That’s why babies instinctively cry… this is the physical expression of sadness, it says to a carer… I need something, please don’t ignore me.

No matter what someone is feeling we don’t need to transform that emotion, we don’t need to always try to make them happy, (usually the default thing) we just need to be attentive to it but let it ride out. It’s there for a reason.

I think it’s important to note that something like anger (usually derived as a ‘negative’ emotion) is ok, but violence is not. An emotion or feeling is very different to the action you take because of that emotion. This is where things can get so confusing for alot of people and why we try to cover ‘negative’ feelings but celebrate the ‘positive vibes’.

It’s a bit of a problem with the western culture I think. We’re always encouraged to be ‘positive’, think ‘positive’… negativity is bad for business, nobody likes a ‘negative’ person. It’s a totally wrong message to push. Especially when so many of these businesses and people peddling this idea will ironically be celebrating this mental health week and getting loads of exposure from it… until its old news again next week and they switch to the latest trend to push … usually something ‘positive’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at happy. Happy is really important, but more important I think but underrated is the idea of ‘contentment’.

The point is all emotions and feelings are equally important and we need to know this and accept it. It can be just as bad when a friend is genuinely happy about something they’ve done and you try to suppress that too.

If anyone reading this (congratulations for sticking with it) and thinking its kind of ironic of me, the man with the #mrsmileyman character who’s mission is to make everyone smile, when I’m talking about peddling positive vibes… well… there is a reason behind it, if you want the full story on that its a separate conversation… feel free to contact me, or maybe I’ll stick it in a book one day.

Peace, love and touchy feely sort of feelings,

Mr Arteest x

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#itsoktofeelhappy