In U.S. culture, for example, women are frequently encouraged to hide anger while men are often taught that it’s not masculine to feel and express sadness or fear. The truth is that all emotions are healthy for everyone and along with feeling joy and happiness there are times in our lives that it is normal and healthy to feel anger, sadness, and fear.

Part of being human is feeling a broad range of emotions. Certainly, it is important to learn modes of emotional expression that respect others and nourish ourselves. What is not healthy are constant attempts to suppress our feelings. When we repress one emotion, we also suppress our ability to feel all other emotions to some extent. Consequently, freeing up your expression of a buried emotion will allow you to feel more happiness, joy, love and other emotions in your life.

If you are someone who believes that certain emotions you feel are dangerous, I recommend you try some gentle exercises for getting in touch with these feelings since, as most of us have experienced, trying to run away from our feelings without ever taking the time to be present to them is actually impossible. I outline several exercises for getting in touch with buried feelings in The Uterine Health Companion. One of my favorite ways is to make some space in your life to simply breathe deeply into your body, setting your intent to get in touch with a feeling you may have designated as too overwhelming or uncomfortable to feel or express. Let yourself breathe in and out of your mouth and begin to dive in to feeling this feeling in the present moment, knowing that at any time you can give yourself permission to stop if the experience becomes too much. Generally, our fear of feeling repressed emotions is usually more intense than the actual feelings once we create a safe, conscious space in which to explore them.

Do this breathing process multiple times to really allow yourself to tap into the richness of your feelings. Consider making an agreement to make your emotions your friends and see how that shifts things for you. You may also want to journal about your emotions, using stream of conscious writing to examine what would happen if you simply let yourself feel any feelings that might be buried deep inside.