Emotions and Entitlement

These are the messages I have received recently "I get to feel this way", David Lund. "Don't beat yourself up for having feelings", Alex Den Broeder.  "Your entitled to feel that way", Elvira Meluci (that's my wise mum!).  I have been taking care of my body with excellent food and 6 days a week of strenuous exercise. I am being purposeful about this, making my wellness a priority. As I decended the stairs today, my quadricep muscles were screaming loudly at me and I was answering them with some moaning and groaning. My mom, who lives with me and my boys, asked with concern "what's wrong, are you ok?".  When I told her the reason for the complaining, she stated "your entitled to feel that way". Click!  The body aches and it is perfectly ok to acknowledge this, to logically equate it with a cause.  What about when the soul aches, cries out for justice, longs for acknowledgement of its suffering?  Do emotions and their expression really have to be stuffed down, ignored, placated?  How is happy and upbeat allowed but dark nights of the soul forbidden from view?  The full range of human emotion, the bleeding the laughing the crying, they all come to me, spend time with me, and I am starting to appreciate the freedom of expression that is mine to claim. Today, on a really cool piece of cardio equipment, I did a simulated boxing ring fight...at one point, the screen told me "you are bleeding". Yes, I am bleeding, and then I get all stitched up, the scars are a badge of honour and I am forged in the fire, the fight.  Stronger and more resilient because emotions won't kill me but ignoring  them just might.