Should I Express My Emotions?

Questioner: Acharya Ji, as we know that as a human being, we all struggle with a lot of emotions, for example, pain, suffering, aggression, happiness. So it’s like we want to express ourselves but sometimes we don’t. We think that we should express or we should not express. So, I wanted to ask that whether is there any fine line between expressing and non-expressing our emotions, our aggression.

If we consider an example of two greatest living legend in cricket, M.S. Dhoni sir and Virat Kohli sir, both have a different personality trait, as Virat Kohli sir is very much expressive in case of his pressure and aggression handling. On the other hand, M.S. Dhoni sir is very calm and composed. The thing is, the opponent’s team, they are afraid of both of them. And both of them are equally loved and respected by the people of India as well as their opponent team. So, how to differentiate or how to make sure that what should be our action or whether should we express or not express and how we should compose ourselves in that. That was my question.

Acharya Prashant: Say, these emotions that arise within, what is their effect on you? And when I say that, it must be obvious that you and these emotions are separate entities. Therefore, emotions will have an effect on you. And thereby it is also implied that the arousal of emotions is not necessarily something that happens by your consent. Emotions, even thoughts just come up on their own. They are very much a bodily thing and a situational thing. The body, by way of evolution, is programmed to react to external conditions, stimuli in a certain way. And that’s what leads to these emotions. It’s just that when we are not clear about our identity, when we do not know who we really are, then we start calling these emotions as our emotions. Whereas the fact is that emotions are quite alien to us. They do not belong really to the same place you come from. Just that they have a great impact on who you really are.