Many people raised with emotional neglect learn to see their feelings as weak, sappy, or useless.

In truth, every emotion has a purpose, even uncomfortable ones like fear, anger, and sadness.

Emotions are a built-in survival system, and they fuel the connections that make life meaningful.

"Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think." –Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroscientist and author of My Stroke of Insight.

Stupid, sappy, mushy, melodramatic, insipid, tiresome, wimpy, lame. These are all words that I have heard people use to describe their own emotions.

As a psychologist, I see in our society a poor tolerance for something that’s a deeply personal, biological part of who we are as humans: our emotions. Indeed, if you grew up in one of the many, many households where emotion was discouraged or poorly tolerated (childhood emotional neglect), you may now, as an adult, have a negative connotation to feelings of all kinds. You may see emotions as a sign of weakness.

You may hide your feelings from yourself and others, even the people you care about the most. You may regard the expression or sharing of feelings as maudlin, illogical, or just plain useless. You may have no idea what you feel or why, because you have buried your emotions so deeply, even from yourself.

This is childhood emotional neglect, and it is not about anything your parents did to you. Instead, it’s about what didn’t happen for you, the acceptance of your feelings that you needed and did not get. Most........

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