Can joy, fear, anger, sadness and contentment live together?

Can the human heart legitimately hold many and various strong emotions?

How can we reconcile the horrors of what is happening in Syria with having fun at Christmas? 

Can we enjoy our Christmas lunch when 3000 people in the UK are sleeping rough?

How can we accept the sometimes painful and difficult deaths of parents and delight in the arrival of a friend's new grandson?

The outrageous outpourings from the president of the USA cause one kind of emotional response in me, while the excellent work being done by many American citizens, in the fields of conservation, environmental protection, medical research, social inclusion and welfare cause another.

Kahlil Gibran, in his book The Prophet has a section on joy and sorrow in which he said 'when one of these is at your board, the other is asleep on your bed'.

In their book Joy, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama discuss just this question.

Diamonds are just lumps of carbon and look like chips of rough glass until they are polished with facets at many angles. Can we accept that all facets of our emotions, polished and clean, make us the amazingly complex and interesting people that we are? 

I am reminded of the scathing comment made by Dorothy Parker, the poet and critic about a Katharine Hepburn performance: " She runs the full gamut of her emotions from A to B.”

I would like my friends to be able to express all their emotions from A to Z.

I don't want my friends to be jolly all the time. I like jolly, but too much of it gets on my nerves. I want my friends to seethe about injustice and to fight it. I don't want people who can't cry and express their sadness. Problems only come when we can't move through these emotions appropriately.

I have worked with many clients who suffer from depression. There are many reasons for depression: repressed anger, repressed sadness, repressed grief, sometimes even repressed joy. If we could all accept in ourselves, and others, that all out emotions are valid, it is only our behaviour which requires work.

Maybe we need to learn (as always) from children. They will play very happily until someone offends them in some way. They get hurt or upset, then there is howling, rage and tears. They may run to Mummy who comforts them, but after a moment they rush back into the fray as if nothing happened. Children move through their emotions in a very natural way, and without shame or judgement. If we could only hold on to this truth of childhood: all our emotions are valid and we can move through them with grace and ease.

It was said in joke that a friend of mine could only be happy when all the world was fed, sheltered and had civil rights; he is much less joyless now! The inequalities in the world will be with us forever. We must do what we can to help and having done that, we must get on with making the best of our own lives and spreading peace and joy in the world.

Frankie x