Op Ed: EmoClean

I think we can all agree that it’s hard to cope with the demands of life sometimes. Stress, anxiety, depression, uncertainty, anger, sadness, fear… these are things that we all deal with at some time or another, but expressing them is often seen as weak, illogical, undisciplined, feminine… not to mention unprofessional and outright unacceptable. Who wants to see another person’s emotions in public? Get a room! This is America! We don’t do emotions in public. We bottle them up and throw them in the cellar like a vintage wine. Just let those babies age for like ten or twenty or ninety years or so. Keep bottling your wine, France. We’ve taken it to the next level; we bottle emotions. It’s a little trick that we got from the Puritans, called repression.

What are emotions anyway? Apparently they’re little cracks and lapses in our strength, endurance and willpower. Emotions are almost synonymous with femininity and weakness (and the link between femininity and weakness is a topic all of its own). Imagine seeing a guy on a bench crying. How would you react? “What the hell? Is that dude crying?” It’s shocking to see people, especially men, crying in public. Now imagine seeing a guy pissed off and yelling about something. Not quite so surprising, but still not acceptable (apparently anger is more understandable than sadness?).

Emotions are not diseases or ailments to be treated with medication. Emotions are not the flu. They are a feedback system that tells us how well our mind and body are working together. Repressing this feedback leads to outbursts, which reinforces the desire to repress the feedback; it’s a vicious circle.

We embrace mental and physical performance, but emotions are thoroughly repressed. Math, science, logic… physical appearance, ability and skill… all these things are highly valued in our society, but what about things like balance, empathy and self-awareness? Not only are those things not valued, they are considered a liability to efficiency, the all-driving force of capitalism. Emotions have no end products. They’re only valuable to one person, the person who is having them. You can’t sell them. How am I going to make money selling my emotions? Ask the struggling artists of the world how easy it is to market emotions.

But there is value in emotion, though that value is actually invaluable. Emotions are monetarily worthless, while they’re personally priceless. The irony is that we popularly believe that repressing emotions allows us to be more efficient when the truth is completely the opposite; learning to experience emotions usefully by viewing them as accessories to the mind and body permits otherwise unobtainable levels of efficiency and satisfaction.

Repressed emotions affect the quality of life. Do you ever do things and have no idea why? Do you ever feel like you’re not in control? Do your emotions sometimes explode? This is most likely a result of repression. Emotional baggage fills up, and all those dirty pairs of underwear come bursting out. The underwear are always dirty. That’s how it works. That’s what you get for jamming dirty underwear in your baggage though. Try doing some laundry once in awhile.

When is the last time that you cried? How many times have you ever cried, ever? Compare that to how many times you have ever felt like crying, and you can begin to understand how many skid-marked undies you have in your baggage. Do your laundry. Get in touch with your emotions. It may be hard at first, but like anything else, the more that you practice, the easier it is.

You don’t have to do all your laundry in one day. Take your time. Do one load at a time. If those stains won’t come out, use some emotional Oxy Clean. Easy listening music could work. Hug your mom. Eat chocolate. Watch Chocolat. Go to your emotional wine cellar and pop some bottles. Get wasted. Bring a friend if you don’t like to drink alone. Make it a party if you want. Whatever you have to do to vent those emotions, it will be worth the effort, I assure you.