We live in a world where there are uplifting quotes and explanations of why life happens the way it does all around us. On Facebook, people are posting pictures that explain the emotion of life. On Pinterest, people are posting pictures with the definition of what someone believes to be true love. Lately, there has been a growing trend of people sharing open letters of struggles they have been through in their lives.

For any emotion, there are seven different responses of different people telling you how you should feel. Maybe you still miss him because you are meant to get back together, or because you are scared of the unknown in the future, or because you haven’t chosen to be happy. I promise that for everything you are going through, there are many responses ready to tell you how you should feel.

Somehow we have become a society that likes to tell people how they feel, why they feel that way, and how that should deal with those feelings. Social media like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumbler, and so many more. They have all become places where people sell you tickets for the emotional roller coaster that only you will have to ride.

These open letters that tell you why you feel a certain way are great to help you put the feelings that you have long had into words. Maybe seeing that someone else has been cheated on or betrayed makes you feel less alone in your pain. Or maybe the writer is able to bring a humor to the feelings that you haven’t yet been able to reach. For all those reasons open letters are wonderful, helpful, and important.

But they shouldn’t be a way of telling yourself that you deserve to feel the way that you are feeling.

Within this world of people trying to explain to you how you feel there has become a sense that emotions must be earned. That the heartbreak that you are feeling, that betrayal, must be solidified by feeling in the way that the quotes on Pinterest would have you do so.

I hear so many friends say, as they are texting guys that they are talking to, that they aren’t sure they deserve to feel a certain way. As if the emotions that they have, one, have to be approved upon by someone else who has a given set of criteria to judge your pain. Or that, two, the absence of someone else’s approval would allow those natural feelings to just disappear from your mind.

I find that many people read the open letters that are posted all over Facebook to prove to themselves that they deserve to have the feelings that they do. To further some ludicrous idea that every emotion felt by someone because of cheating is defined by one person. Or that your friend betraying you is defined by someone else and only then are those feelings justified.

I feel like someone needs to reach out amongst this and remind you of your experiences and your right to feel how you want to feel. No one needs to tell you that pain exists for it to be felt.

I am not bashing any open letters. I have read many that have put my emotions into better words than I could have and made me feel like I had a friend in the fight. I have had friends share open letters that were so genuinely truthful that they were able to touch people.

But as these open letters grow more and more popular and as Pinterest and Facebook become more cluttered with motivational ideas, we need to be reminded that our emotions are defined by us only. And you need no one else’s permission to feel heartbroken, angry, or lonely.