By Samantha McKenzie

Emotions are a part of every human being. They are the fine arts of the human soul, the lighthouse that guides the ships to shore and the part of us that distinguishes the truth from the lie.

We are women. We are beautiful complex human beings. This has both fascinated and perplexed mankind from the beginning of time. We’ve been described as enigmas by the ancient and sorcerers by the mystics. No, we are not crazy nor are we from another planet.

Truthfully, we are just the other gender that feels comfortable and quite natural expressing our emotions. Often. Almost always. Without any prelude. We just emote.

We can care so deeply about everything and everyone, that when something hurts us or the ones we love, we display our feelings in very dramatic ways. Sometimes even in traumatic ways. On the contrary, we care so deeply about everything and everyone that when we love, we are loyal to a flaw and display unwavering sunshine that makes the flowers bow to us. This is our paradox.

But let’s face it. Over the past few decades, our emotions have earned a bad reputation. Let’s just say, the data has been skewed and we are in need of some serious recalibrating.

There’s probably a host of reasons why, but for the sake of time, I’ll start with stress. And lots of it. There’s been an acutely intense increase in the amount of pressure we have endured for the past 50 years. It’s almost unnatural. And while women are resilient, strong and incredible individuals, I don’t believe it was ever intended for us to carry so much upon our shoulders. Stress from work, home, family, community, responsibilities, you name it. Mentally and physically, it’s taking a toll on us. To further add to this crisis, we are also barraged with media intake and information overload. We are seduced by people’s lives – real or fake, we can be found watching, listening, absorbing, comparing and reflecting on the others. It’s left our emotional state in a frenzy.

The truth is our depth of emotions is what makes us so powerful. When used for good, our emotions have given us access to our third eye, that sixth sense, discerning spirit and gut feeling (i.e. superpower). When we are in tuned with our emotional self we can sense and steer clear of danger,  and ward off evil. We sense the sweeter things too, like sincerity and genuineness and goodness.

We need to refine our power. It’s time we did an inventory of our emotions. Are we acting mad when we really are just sad and disappointed? Are we feigning happiness when we really are just indifferent? Are we melancholy more often than not? Is the hurt lasting longer than it used to? Are we still closed off to love? Are we hypersensitive? Scared?…

Let’s begin a rebranding of our emotions. How about we use hurt and disappointment as teaching tools instead of crutches. Or stomp out pangs of jealousy with compliments and affirmations. Let’s agree to retool that powerful part of us. I’m for letting go and spending more time on the emotions that bring cheer and laughter and joy. Let’s choose to master maturity and plug into the new and improved, slightly favorable and definitely more attractive you.

Next year’s highly anticipated movies, “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” and “Fatal Attraction” parts 2 and 3 gross: $0.