All emotions are true and valid. But that doesn’t mean all emotions are brewed from rational perspective on reality. And all emotions should be accepted. But that doesn’t mean accepted indefinitely. These key statements are understand by few and lived by even fewer. 

There’s a large portion of people who sway too far in both extremes – on one end, people view their feelings and emotions as true AND form the conclusion they are justified due to their reasoning which can be inaccurately judged as logical when in reality they may be distorting reality, facts, someone else’s actions, or simply distorting their own morals and character judgement believing their emotions are brewed from their authentic, moral higher ground when sometimes their own viewpoint on their morals/character is foggy. And on this side, people may take the TRUE statement that emotions should be accepted in the present moment and then conclude emotions should be stagnant, not change, and your emotions now SHOULD BE and must be your emotions in the future – no matter how negative, unproductive, or silly those emotions may be. Still in this side, people may have all sorts of emotions and not work to change them in a positive direction; they may sulk in their sorrow or frustration or anger or whatever and use their emotions to justify how miserable they are, or worse justify negative actions towards others or biases, prejudices, etc. What these people fail to realize is emotions are valid in the moment, but they can change. That’s a universal, natural fact. That’s why 1 year olds are smiling one minute and angry the next; we as humans are designed to change our emotions. So they should NOT be accepted indefinitely. We should all work to change negative emotions into positive emotions, to change anger into groundedness, to turn nervousness into excitement, etc etc. 

And the opposite of “those people” outlined above are those that believe all emotions are not true or acceptable, and those that view all “negative” emotions negatively all the time. These people do not allow space for their authentic emotions to come out – sadness can be destructive and is always negative IN THE LONG RUN. But in the short run, sadness can yield positive benefits such as self reflection, mourning, & physical healing. The people ALWAYS fighting their emotions and “negative” feelings actually lose against them in the long run because they fail to realize the art of the battle is you can not defeat them on your own clock. You need to pounce at the right time and unleash your fury. It’s like a rip tide. If you fight against a rip tide, you will lose. Point black period; it doesn’t matter how tough you are. That’s why it’s advised to move parallel to shore until you get out of the rip tide, then swim to shore. At times in life, you need to just do all you can to keep your head above water – even if progress is not seen; at some point it will be time for progress to be seen. At some point you will be ready and in the right mental space to defeat whatever you are going through, and in turn turn your emotions around.

So recognize this art. Accept all emotions as true in the present moment, and analyze logically how they got there. And when the time is right, sometime in the future, knock the shit out of the negative emotions and replace them with positive ones.