We don´t like to be vulnerable. We don´t like to be at the mercy of pain and sadness or any other intense emotion that runs through our body. We like to be in control of what we feel and experience, to defend ourselves whenever we are hurt, to appear strong and powerful.
So we run from our pain, whenever we sense it coming. We try to outsmart our suffering by avoiding it as best as we can. What we don´t actually realize is that running away from our feelings is actually what causes us to suffer.

Suffering is either experiencing something we don´t want to or not experiencing something we would like to experience. In essence, we always want to feel happy and often our mind makes us believe that through avoiding painful experience, we can make them disappear.

Unfortunately, that is a fallacy as it is just the other way round. Suppressed feelings and emotions do never disappear or dissolve, they simply transform into pain. When it comes to dealing with emotions, our mind´s reactions are not what is most helpful. Your mind will always try to protect you of any harm you could experience, but in doing so, it often does more harm than good. Your mind has kept a record of every time you experienced pain and tries its best to keep you from ever experiencing these hurts again. These memories do have their place and sometimes they are helpful. If you don´t put your hand into burning flames, it serves you.

But does it serve you equally to swallow your truth and not express yourself because of the pain it meant to do so?
No.

Does it serve you to suppress your sadness so you won´t be ridiculed for your tears? No.

Does it serve you to distance yourself from every intense emotion, so life will never kick you down again? No!

Whatever your mind may tell you about the dangers of transparency and vulnerability, it speaks of complete ignorance.
Your mind´s way is judgment and separation.
To find harmony with what you feel, to heal up past wounds, to come into alignment with your true Self, is not what it´s equipped to do. Let your thoughts be there, but do not submit to them. Instead, open up to whatever you´re feeling. That´s the heart´s way.
The heart is not afraid of any emotion, however painful it may be.
Your heart vibrates at the frequency of love at all times and where love is allowed to shine, all separation falls apart.
Your heart does not know better or worse, it does not separate into positive or negative emotions. It simply is and vibrates love and through its love all that is not love melts into love.

The more vulnerable you are towards your emotions, the more detached you actually become from them. They become nothing more than energies running through your body, specific and unique flavors of the Infinite with no other purpose than to be welcomed, felt and expressed in love.
You don´t label them into categories of good and bad, joyful or hurtful anymore as you are connected to the joy and peace that lies at the bottom of them all.

Shutting down from feeling will not make you suffer less, it will just make you feel less alive. And it comes at a tremendous costs: inauthenticity, stuckness, constriction, disempowerment, depression. In relationships with others, the fear of being hurt or diminshed will overshadow our need for true connection. We will tend to prioritise being right and being stronger instead of the blessing it means to truly meet another human being. We will blame, criticize and hurt those that are close to us out of fear that they might do it to us.
And at the end, we will suffer more and more, feeling more and more deprived and less and less alive.

Don´t let this be your destiny. Choose love instead of fear and live from the heart. Now and every moment of your life!

Author's Bio: 

Benedikt Dommes is a pioneer in the field of bliss coaching, an expert in inner peace, and a gifted author, mainly in the field of spirituality and self-development. His first language is German, but he is equally at ease with English and French.
To learn more about his work, go to his website www.benediktdommes.com or email him directly at info@benediktdommes.com