It was a beautiful Sunday morning; the sun was shining, the air was warm and I felt an undeniable urge to take a walk. I pulled up some uplifting, spiritual music on my smart phone and off I went. Not far down the road I realized the music was wrong, it wasn’t what I wanted so I turned it off and walked in silence. Soon, the silence made me twitchy. I needed something, so I put on a beautiful rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon-Finale and carried on.

Barely half a mile into my walk I quite unexpectedly burst into tears. These were not quiet tears, but soul-wrenching sobs that came from deep within me. Oddly enough, I had no idea why I was crying. I stood in the middle of the road, tears streaming, nose running (and me without a tissue), wondering what on earth was happening.

Bless those quiet Sunday mornings with no traffic on our road for if someone had stopped they might have concluded that I was having a nervous breakdown. I was beginning to wonder myself. When I was able, I determined to carry on with my walk even if I did have to resort to wiping my nose on my sleeve.

As I walked I did some soul searching, trying to find the cause of my meltdown. After a while the answers came. Years of pushing my emotions down deep, telling myself I shouldn’t feel this way or that, or that it wasn’t convenient to feel this way now, had taken their toll until finally, on this sunny morning, they had erupted to the surface.

With each step the truth distilled upon my heart: We are meant to feel. We are meant to experience all emotions, the good, the bad, the sometimes ugly. There is no wrong or right emotion, only our actions in response to the emotion can be judged good or bad.

I learned that day that suppressed emotion enslaves us. We may think we can shove it away and be free of it, but it is only when we acknowledge what we feel, and allow ourselves to truly feel it, that we can then let it go. So feel free to feel, then rejoice when you can let it go. (And always keep a tissue in your pocket for melt-down emergencies!)