Emotional struggles can be quite complicated and defining negative feelings is sometimes difficult.

Joan Rhule, counselling psychologist attached to Family Life Ministries in Kingston, describes an emotion as a feeling that causes psychological arousal, is a display of an expressive behaviour, a smile or a grimace. An expression of feelings is dependent, to a large extent, on one's personality and one's emotional intelligence.

If you are an extrovert, you may feel quite comfortable to openly talk about your emotions. But, if you are an introvert, you may feel uncomfortable talking about your feelings.

We are all created unique. Some people speak about their innermost feelings, while many struggle to utter a word.

While some people might want to believe that the buried emotions or feelings will just disappear or be forgotten, unfortunately, this is not so. Buried feelings do not fade away. They often work their way back to the surface where they explode like a bomb or erupt like a volcano.

Bottled up emotions

Bottling up one's emotions has the potential to produce personality disorders, depression, hypertension, diabetes, phobias, addictive behaviour patterns, confusion, aggression, nightmares and more.

Still, while it is dangerous to bottle up your feelings, it is equally dangerous to let emotions erupt uncontrollably.

By exploding, you hurt those around you and yourself. Blind, emotional release can also cause lacerated feelings that can take a long time to heal, create external and internal damage, lock down communication, and create emotional barriers.

So, what do you need to do? Working through your emotions in a timely and rational way can help you to develop emotional control.

You can develop emotional skills that help you to achieve resilience in the face of threatening circumstances. Managing your emotions helps you to proactively work through perceived threats.

Next time you have a negative emotion, name the feeling - not the causes. Engage coping strategies, which will lead to good mental health and healthy relationships.

Here are a few ways in which feelings can be expressed positively:

· Pray.
· Find someone to talk with.
· Let go of anger.
· Think rationally.
· Avoid blaming others or yourself.
· Initiate positive thoughts or contacts.
· Think about the potential impact before you let it all out.
· Minimise the significance of the threat by believing in your abilities.

Information provided by counselling psychologist Joan Rhule. Email missjay_pat@yahoo.com