I was listening to a podcast by Lewis Howes the other day, in what he coined "his favorite podcast to this date". He was in conversation with Dr. Edith Eger - a holocaust survivor. A few of her statements stuck with me:
"We either vent it or depress it."
"The opposite of depression is expression."
She also said, "what comes out of your body does not make you ill, what stays in does."
To create a more tangible representation of what she is saying, I will take something profound and make a riot of it - bring in the FART.
Farts are a gassy by-product of eating and digesting something that our stomach doesn't agree with.
Think about when you keep a fart in - when maybe you decide this isn't the right time and place to let one off. Often, as a result of keeping it in for long enough, the fart will turn to trapped wind in your belly - causing discomfort, maybe a bellyache, and well ultimately, all the more urge to want to release what we are trying to keep in (an ABSOLUTE STINKER).
I'm sure this is not new news to anyone, but what I am trying to get at here is that... Well...
A fart can be like a bad feeling.
Keep it in, and it causes us pain - release it, and yes the feeling/smell may linger for a little, cause a reaction from the people around us, but oftentimes it'll make you smile and you'll almost always feel better for having gotten it out of your system - compared to having kept it in.
The point Dr. Edith Egar tries to get at is that what you keep in will often damage you more, than when you release it.
Whether it be met with any reaction from a funny face, to a smile, to a hug, to an embrace - if we could just release a few words about our troubles, to those around us - just as we can fart in front of those we feel comfortable with - then what's been troubling us will no longer be caged in like a prisoner or bubbling like gas.
I hope you all release your bad feelings, thoughts, or beliefs like they are farts.
Smile about it, crack a laugh, and talk it through.
The world will be a better place for you if you did - after all, bad feelings don't smell as bad as farts do they?
Release them!