If we are to live with emotions, we must live in harmony. To form a symbiotic relationship, to be the bird cleaning the alligator’s teeth. To look compassionately inwards as a child seeking the guidance of their parent. To know as the storm rages within us, all we have to do is seek shelter until it passes.
Emotions are not our enemies. Our emotions are here to teach us about who we are and what’s important to us. We’re not meant to fight with them, ignore them, or let them dictate our decisions. They’re our forever housemate who only wants the home to thrive as much as you do. Being kind to, working with, and helping each other is how you create a bond between yourself and the emotions inside you.
Emotions are complex beings that need intentional, focused curiosity to even begin to understand. They can not be brushed aside or stuffed down without consequence. If you want to feel less powerless to the comings and goings of your emotions, learning to interact with them in your own way can help.
In this blog, I’d like to share some recent examples of how I’ve overcome intense emotions through understanding them. My goal is to show you that you’re not at the whim of your feelings – wishing and hoping the bad ones stay away. I want you to find peace and gain a greater understanding of your own being through your emotions.
As always, I don’t have all the answers, but I hope my expedition to try finding them in my life inspires you to start the search in your own.
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Class Is In Session
You walk into the lecture hall and see you are the first to arrive. There is only the professor standing at the front of the class, with their back turned towards you. You find your seat as they begin writing on the board. After a few moments, you read the words they’ve written: Emotions Are Teachers. As you sit there, wondering what that means, the professor finally turns around and you’re seated in front of yourself.
“Welcome to your first lesson on your emotions. We have a lot to cover.”
There are no exams in this class, it’s all lessons. As you learn about each of your emotions, you expand your knowledge of how they feel, where you sense them, what’s triggering them, why they started in the first place, how they want to be expressed outwardly, and what they’re trying to teach you. The lessons never end, they just become shorter and fewer and farther in-between as you discover more about yourself.
Each time you experience an intense emotion, it’s time for another lesson. They follow a discussion format between you and the teacher as you try to uncover all the intricacies of these feelings. First you learn to acknowledge the emotion, to label it as a separate being, then you learn to prevent its impulses, finally you can focus on the underlying meanings.
Back and forth you go between you and your emotions, staying curious the whole time. You aren’t there to fight with them, you want to learn from them. Do this by asking yourself questions that lead to the true meaning of this feeling.
What am I feeling? What caused it? Where do I feel it most? Why is this moment triggering my emotions?
Get to the root, find what this moment says about your true self and the person you want to be. Your emotions can teach you any number of things about yourself. I’ve discovered how I view friendships, why I stress at work, how to control my anger, where I haven’t been prioritizing myself, and so much more. I truly believe you can do the same if you just take the time to sit with your emotions.
You don’t need to find the quickest way through them, you need to understand them. Doing everything you can to tuck them away will only bring them back later. Work with them now, or if the moment doesn’t allow deep thought, as soon as you can. Feel them, notice their impulses, and tame those while you take some time to discover something about yourself.
This inner lecture hall should be your safe haven or as Marcus Aurelius called it, the inner citadel. It’s a place you can return to anytime something triggers a strong reaction in your body. Use this as a place to sit in peace while the storm of the world rages outside you. Learn from what you’re feeling.
Personal Examples
While writing this, I had one of these emotional moments. This immense desire to reach out to my ex filled my mind and clouded my thoughts. I couldn’t focus on writing, I kept getting up to do something else, kept trying to ignore the emotion, and distract myself from the thoughts.
In the past few months, I’ve been developing the ability to acknowledge my emotions, understand their impulses, and prevent their expression. As I fought this desire and its pleas to reach out, I asked myself, “Why am I feeling this desire? Why do I keep wanting to go back to her?”
I won’t share all the content of the thoughts stemming from that moment, but what I learned: My childhood taught me to always forgive, to always go back to the people you love. No matter what they did, you forgive them and you love them. That pattern is still playing out in my life, clearly, that’s why I keep feeling desire for something I know is unhealthy.
Your emotions are trying to teach you something. You feel this flurry within you and you try to run, but storms roll in fast. Not to use a cliche, but you gotta be like the bison that walks straight into the storm because it knows on the other side, it’s dry. Don’t run from the emotions, be there for them, acknowledge them, and listen to what they have to tell you.
As another example, I was recently texting my friend about reading. I shared how I typically read 5-10 books at once. I do this because I love reading but get bored of one book, so I switch to another. All the books I read are drastically different from one another, so I’m able to distinguish all the information. My friend responded in a way that lead to my feeling some intense emotions. To place a simple term on them, I felt angry.
Step one was to put my phone away. I’ve learned my impulse to immediately respond in this state of anger is not healthy and usually leads to more anger. From there, I let my thoughts consider what this anger was trying to show me. I gave myself time to rationalize the situation before I decided how I wanted to proceed. In my pondering, here’s what I found:
My anger taught me what friendship looks like to me – supportive, encouraging, inquisitive, and accepting. When I’m with a friend, or anyone for that matter, I’m not there to judge, throw shame, or tell them their methods are incorrect. My aim is to be curious, to understand how they think and act, and add my own perspectives when appropriate. When I read this text, I felt angry and disheartened because I want to have mutual support in my friendships and accept each others lifestyles without judgement.
This moment also reaffirmed my confidence in my processes, in both reading multiple books at once and also in building habits in general. My method for reading is productive and produces the results that I desire, else I would not be doing it. With all my habits, my goal is to be constantly observing and adjusting as a way to produce the results that are right for me. So when my friend told me my method was unproductive, of course my ego wanted to fight back.
These two examples are a single hair on the head of my emotional teachings. With more time spent compassionately in the ebbs and flows of my mind, I’m discovering loads of information about who I am, what’s important to me, and where my time and energy should be invested.
Final Thoughts
A lot of people believe Stoics experience no emotion, when in reality, it’s the opposite. A Stoic experiences all the same emotions as any other person, but they’ve learned to acknowledge them, understand them, and use them to their advantage. A Stoic does not fall victim to the impulses of the body, but feels every emotion and chooses to act virtuously despite them.
If you’re someone who experiences intense feelings of anxiety, irritability, sadness, or any other emotion, you’re not alone. I’ve dealt with a lot of complex emotions, the past few years being some of the most hectic thus far. If you’re like me, you’ve felt these emotions and wished nothing more than to just stop feeling them. Maybe you understood why you were feeling them, but couldn’t find a way out.
Of course I can’t guarantee my methods will help you see the same results I’ve seen in my life, but I encourage you to try. The pivotal moment for me was after reading a book on anxious attachment and doing the meditative exercise. I sat with myself and imagined meeting my childhood self to talk about their feelings. After that moment, every time I felt an intense emotion, I tried to get to the root of it.
Emotions to me aren’t something I need to escape from. In the past few months I’ve learned to accept the fact that I was feeling a certain way then make it my priority to not act out of that emotion. The impulses of my emotions do not help me feel better, they only lead to more of the same feelings. Once I was in control of my actions, I had the space to dive into the emotions and discover what they were trying to share.
With every day, I learn more and more about who I am, what’s important to me, and where I need work. Any time I feel an intense emotion, followed by lots of rumination, I know there is something within waiting to be discovered. It’s not always possible to deep dive into my subconscious in the heat of the moment, in which case I focus on staying calm and acting through default settings, until I have the time to go to another lesson on my emotions.
Your emotions are never going away, so you can either fight them or learn to work with them. I’ve learned how helpful it is to learn from them and I can’t help but think everyone would find the same if they just gave themselves the space to hear what their feelings are trying to say.
May 3, 2026
