How To Expand Your Emotional Vocabulary

A lot changes as we grow up. The people in our lives have rules about how we "should" express our emotions, so as we get older, we learn to control or avoid our feelings in order to fit in. Sometimes even without our conscious awareness, we move from expressing our emotions to silencing them.

So what happens to those painful, unexpressed, stuffed or unacknowledged feelings? Many of us hope they will disappear. The problem is that they don’'t go anywhere. They're patient. They just wait, latent, for another opportunity to express themselves. In fact, they usually grow bigger and more intense—and then they either unexpectedly erupt in our interactions with others or remain stagnant and make us sick. Either way, not expressing emotion will cause stress in your life.

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This adapted excerpt was taken from Talk Rx: Five Steps to Honest Conversations That Create Connection, Health, and Happiness by Neha Sangwan, M.D.