# Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions ## The Difference between ‘Nipping in the Bud’ and Suppressing a Feeling?
| What is the answer to the haietmoba? ... if I find that I am not feeling good or so, I can’t always find out why it is so, and soon the picture of my feeling bad tends to get very complex ... should I: a) suppress all this complex thinking and focus on the moment and try to feel good this moment; b) find out exactly what is preventing me from feeling bad however complex it is.
| I ask myself ‘the question’ over and over again while playing a fancy trick with myself ... if I’m feeling a bad feeling of some kind (which is a lot of the time), I don’t try and change it or avoid it or nothing, I let it come in and do its thing and try and enjoy it somehow. ... Am I on the right track here, or should I be approaching emotional issues differently? I don’t want to walk down the wrong path here. I want to live in actuality and not head down anywhere else like enlightenment or depression. For a few years I was trying to become spiritually enlightened and ended up severely depressed. I don’t want to go near that road again.
| When Richard advises people to ‘minimise’ the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activate the felicitous feelings what does he really mean by ‘minimise’? Feelings can be ‘minimised’ by brute force, e.g. repression, denial, avoidance and distraction but what is the sensible way to do it? ... Who can vouch for this method with 100% sincerity?
| I don’t think I really understand the difference between nipping it in the bud and repressing it. Many emotions recur automatically unless I take action to either dismiss them or redirect my attention elsewhere. I am not comfortable with this because it seems akin to repression, but I don’t know any other way to dispense with the feelings.
| I realize that ‘nipping it in the bud’ could be interpreted as either suppression ...
| Quite simply... What is meant by ‘not suppressing or expressing’ emotion? I understand that the method of actualism does not encourage to stop feeling – but to use its method of inquiring into how one is experiencing this moment. By not suppressing or expressing emotion – are you talking about ‘strong’ emotions? Are you talking of the extremes only? Love and trust and sorrow and malice? Just what is meant by ‘not expressing’ emotion anyway? I’m not prepared to completely ‘lock myself’ up ... So, we can nip the obvious emotions in the bud, investigate them and they begin to decrease in strength. But guarding oneself against expressing emotion subtly is what I mean by ‘locking up.’
| That’s a touchstone in seeing whether or not a particular feeling, belief or habitual response is deleted/ eliminated or merely transcended/ repressed/ denied/ avoided/ covered up. When at this stage is doesn’t even require a ‘nipping in the bud’ as ‘the problem’ is simply gone, the ‘nipping in the bud’ is a form of attrition ... eventually the beast and its accompanying beauty die out.
| I’ve got to get back to being happy and harmless. I can’t say I’m there yet ... I don’t think my lows are quite as low as they used to be or my depressions are quite as depressed as they used to be. I think I pull myself out of it a lot faster.
| I have had people tell me that they hope my ‘childish view’ on life lasts (insinuating that I should grow up) and one even wished me ill when I did not agree with his sorrowful view on life. Tall Poppy Syndrome is it called? I think I see what you mean Peter.
| What is the difference between ‘nipping it in the bud’, and suppressing a feeling?
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