THE BIGGER PICTURE: Our ability to feel is truly awe-inspiring. More so, how we feel has a real impact on our life.
The feeling of joy inspires in us the ability to run out and have fun, connect with people and do things that fulfil us. Shock and grief, on the other hand, paralyse us, leaving us angry, confused, without direction and often unmotivated to carry on with life itself.
Our feelings are profound, appearing to be deeply powerful. At the same time, they are the part of ourselves we comprehend the least.
Some say it is our emotions that make us truly human. What is certain is that they are an absolute and integral part of ourselves. We can never really suppress or ignore them. They emerge in one way or another: heart disease, over eating, compulsive behaviours, even paranoia.
Still, dealing with our feelings is a struggle for many people today - one not helped by the amount of misinformation circulating, or attention to "behavioural management" without insight into the role of our emotions in creating those behaviours.
While we are expected to either "overcome" our feelings or "run with them", there is very little assistance to actually feeling things and growing from them. Still, just as we have within us the power to feel, we also have an inherent ability to process and heal.
The key to understanding this lies in remembering who we are and what is fundamentally true about humans.
First and foremost, we are deeply social beings. We need each other. We have never succeeded in isolation and, in fact, die when deprived of even the most basic interaction and physical affection.
To be connected to other humans - enveloped in a deeply reliable love - is both natural and healthy, and a state of being that we must gain access to to survive and develop.
We inherently exist in solidarity with each other, not separated or divided. We know this because we have such intense feelings for one another. They come from deep inside us and inspire life itself. We are meant to love each other, above all else.
And so, only by pulling each other closer - opening our hearts and asking for people to just be with us while we feel scared, lonely or devastated - can we ensure our complete mental health, and that of the society in which we live.
We are deeply intelligent beings. Some argue that we are not, that we are immature, naive and self-destructive. While this may accurately describe the impact of our hurts, it is not a true statement about who we are.
Indeed, we can be overwhelmed by our distresses, and so hurt, frighten and prevent each other from moving in close to give us a hand.
Similarly, we can become hopeless, frightened and lost in the struggles, and so fail to reach out and insist on loving each other in those places that are most deeply hurt. As such, we can form the habit of accommodating injustice: becoming so confused that we no longer see it before us, struggling to listen, feeling victimised when others try to tell us how it hurts them, looking to us for unity and assistance.
And yet, we can recover from even the most frightening and painful disappointments. We can face our struggles.
As it turns out, when we let each other into our hearts and get support where we are devastated, we don't stay stuck in blaming and abusing but move forward and look towards the recovery of connectedness.
This is how we know that a more genuine nature is within us. And so, a deep intelligence must be at work.
Ironically, the path back to complete connectedness and empowerment is actually quite simple. Don't be taken unawares, however. Real courage and commitment are needed to succeed.
It lies in understanding these basic facts: A human being has a voice, and is meant to use it. Living things really matter to us, and we are meant to respond. Everything that has made real sense to us has truly reached us in our hearts. We have an ability to think, and so choose a different direction from the one we have followed in the past.
The healing of our emotions lies in our basic ability to tell our stories and feeling every bit of what we have been through. To do this, we must ask people to be with us, trust in their love, and notice that we are not alone.
This is a position of both responsibility and love. It demands that we take charge and gives us the opportunity to become empowered. This is quite different from the familiar, "waiting for someone to notice we're hurt and come after us as an indication of their love".
All of our deep traumas began by someone taking our power away and treating us like we are less intelligent than we are.
And, all of our healing will begin with claiming that power back and showing our intelligence.
Shalini Sinha works as a life coach and counsellor and presents the intercultural programme Mono on RTÉ television. She is also a presenter with The Health Squad, on RTÉ 1.