"You keep saying this thing:  processing emotions.  What exactly does that mean?" 

I love reader questions!  And this is such a great one. 

When we're processing emotions, we're not navel-gazing for no reason.  

We're getting out the gunk so the healing can come.  

We undergo difficult circumstances, traumatic experiences, stressful situations and we're left with emotions we don't know what to do with.   

We put those leftovers away in the dark of our hearts--feelings like abandonment, anger, grief, shame, guilt--and they fester and grow and make a mess in our lives.  

We end up with sideways symptoms like anxiety, depression, addictions, relationship problems.  When we see those things happening, we've probably got emotions to process.  

Here are 3 do's for processing emotions: