I spent most of my life as a slave to my emotions. I would get angry or sad on a whim. It was frustrating and damaging.
It’s extremely difficult to be successful when your mood changes on a dime. I tanked a few jobs and pushed some great people out of my life because of emotional whiplash.
So, I am definitely far from a master of my emotions. I still get emotionally overwhelmed, especially when I am in a new situation.
That being said, I don’t hate or resent my emotions. In a weird way I respect them. While I don’t allow them to dictate my life, I do listen to what their saying.
I no longer drown in emotions, but simply let them wash over me. I find that being an artist, I draw most of my energy from my emotions and past experiences.
I strive for all of my work to have emotional context. I want people to feel the raw emotions that I channel during the process of writing and sketching.
The biggest reasons I do this is to connect and heal. It’s emotional closure. Plus I want other people to know their not alone.
None of us are perfect, but I think we can take negative aspects of our life and use them as a catalyst.
So, this whole process left me with a couple questions.
Do other people use their emotions in a healthy way?
Do we put to much stock in emotions?
I personally believe emotions are a vital part of being a human being, but I’d love to here from you.
Hope your all having a great day, and I can’t wait to hear your opinions on the subject. — Jesse
One Regular Dad 
Emotions can be overwhelming. It’s how we cope though as long as we don’t let them drown us. I am an empath. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what I’m feeling and what I am picking up on others.
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They really can, but I think being aware of that can be a big help.
Thanks for sharing.
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I agree that emotions are essential, but there are times when we put too much stock in them in the sense of thinking that they represent literal truth about the world.
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Yeah I agree, thanks for sharing.
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Yesterday’s poem
Reflections of a tattered soul,
reveal broken parts,
of a sum-less whole.
A familiar stare,
bears down on me.
A twisted version,
an absurd facsimile.
Halfway inside,
on a broken track.
A disorted dopelganger,
tries to drag me back.
A soliloquy of grief,
plays out before me.
Tangled emotions,
create a burred story.
The experience brings a haze,
and fogs my perception.
A trip down a maze,
of intense introspection.
Following your primal emotion backwards powers PTSD
This scary emotion leads you back to your negative childhood abuse
This poem would not be considered uplifting actually negatively haunting
I healed letting the primal trauma emotions fade without attention, not giving it attention
Matthew Ricard sees emotions different especially trauma emotions
“Usually we identify with our emotions completely.
When we are overcome by anxiety or by a fit of anger, we are at one with that feeling.
It is omnipresent in our mind, leaving no room for other mental states such as inner peace or patience, or to consider reasoning that might calm our discomfort.
However, if at that moment we are still capable of a little presence of mind—a capability that we can be trained to develop—we can stop identifying with our anger.
The mind is, in fact, capable of examining what is happening within it.
All we need to do is observe our emotions in the same way we would observe an external event taking place in front of us.
The part of our mind that is aware of the anger is just simply aware—it is not angry.
In other words, awareness is not affected by the emotion it is observing.
When we understand that, we can step back, realize that this emotion has no solidity, and allow enough space for it to dissolve by itself.
By doing so, we avoid two extremes, each as bad as the other: repressing our emotion, which would then remain in a dark corner of our consciousness like a time bomb; or letting the emotion explode at the expense of those around us and of our own inner peace.
Not identifying with emotions is a fundamental antidote that is applicable to all kinds of emotions, in all circumstances.”
Do other people use their emotions in a healthy way? Yes people can use and do use emotions in a healthy way.
We do not incubate negative emotions or we get stuck. Grief can grow into depression into suicide if you want to live emotions like that.
Do we put to much stock in emotions? Way to much. I would love to see a poem where you take a step back and observe an emotion. See a separation from what the mind is contemplating rather than identifying with it
I do not identify with my fathers physical or emotional abuse or any of the emotions attached to it. These emotions do not make me human they make me suffer
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The great thing about poetry is we all see it differently.
There is no one answer.
This was written to purposely promote introspection. If anything for me it represents the cleaning out of ones emotional closet.
That’s an overly analytical and logical approach to viewing it.
How I view life at this second might differ from how I viewed life moments ago.
How I view life is not the same as how you view life.
Emotions only have power over you if you let them, bottom line.
So it may not be uplifting to you, but it may be to someone else.
The thing about poetry is you take what you want from it and nothing more.
Plus my mental health. My PTSD, anxiety, depression etc. And my addiction are only slivers of the whole me.
And I will admit most of my writing is dark,
But I think Johnny Cash said it best;
“I wear the black for the torn and beaten down.”
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