If you look around, how many actions do you see, in your relationships, communities, and in the world, are based on an emotion? Think of emotions like anger, vengeance, ridicule and disrespect – are they not what make people react with violence? While most people agree that this is wrong, we still must respect and understand how these emotions surfaced, how to lessen them, and how to release them. Just because we’re not supposed to become violent due to our anger, doesn’t give someone else the right to make us angry. Taking responsibility for both what you feel and what you are contributing to in others, is the way towards peace. And it starts by simple respect and acknowledgment.

On the other side, is becoming smitten, in love, aroused, or genuinely entertained – these too are fleeting emotions, that shouldn’t govern our actions either, although they may look harmless. Also here, we must practice respect and awareness, with honest dialogues.

How do we then deal with our emotions and what do they mean? According to Karla McLaren, anger for example, is often a way to deal with fear, in an attempt to defend ourselves. I have noticed, that most of my emotions are perceived in my body, like a heaviness or lightness, like a laughter or a sadness, a frustration or a sense of flow. All of them thus, must be released through our bodies, which is why movement is so essential. Dance it out! is my preferred way. Or simply to breathe through them, even outside in nature. I like describing emotions with the metaphor of a wave – some big and scary, some small and hardly noticeable, and some with a strong rip-current. Letting them pass through us, takes us back into a centred state of peace. The state, from which we should make decisions and carry out our actions.

Which emotions did you evoke in another person? What did this lead to? Which emotions do you feel are the result of others interacting (or refusing to) with you?