When I think about emotions, I think of them as these forces I'm a passive conduit for. I'd just live my life and boom - an emotion would flow through me like a river and reveal to me the secrets of how I feel about something, and if I choose to let it out, it'll reveal it to others as well. To put it simply, emotions were something effortless and passively experienced.
Now, I think now it's important to point out the irony, which is that I don't feel much.
Perhaps the view above is equivalent to assuming your body would one day take control and perform a double backflip. No training required, just trusting a divine intervention would come and grace you.
So, I posit emotions are not mysterious flows you passively experience, but a muscle. It gets stronger with rigorous use and weakens from disuse.
Emotion is an active, chosen stance you commit to. This makes it vulnerable to shame and guilt. Oh, but wouldn't that then have emotions intimately tied to agency, autonomy, self-determined selfhood? The very works trauma might throw a wrench in?
So, from this viewpoint, emotions definitely would take commitment and effort. They're not vibrations you receive from the cosmos, but something you actively choose and then express to others. This might make them then seem more like a faked performance, but... could it be that it's only if you are estranged from your sense of autonomy, your deliberate choices? Your selfhood? If doing something out of choice doesn't feel authentic, maybe it's not because it's somehow fake to choose your reactions. Maybe it demonstrates your relationship to your sense of agency and selfhood.
From this viewpoint, chosen emotional expression is no more fake than art is.
If you choose to smile at a beautiful morning and feel something pulling you back, poisoning your attempt with doubt that you are faking it, are you sure it's not shame talking? Shame that binds itself to any choice you make, making them seem hollow and invalid. It would make sense shame would rear its ugly head the strongest when it comes to emotional expression, especially the kind that truly comes from you. A personal choice is the deepest expression of your selfhood, and the aspect of choice is what makes it truly vulnerable to shame and guilt. In choosing them, you are claiming full ownership over them, and oh boy, oh man, that's when the demons strike.
I think the view that emotions are something that merely emanates from hidden crevices of the soul and are then passively received is a view that is well-defended against shame and guilt. If you don't choose it, if they're out of your control, then you can't help them and you are absolved of responsibility and guilt. If the passive view of emotion is the prevailing one, there's no need for shame either, but this view comes with the cost of agency and the gifts it bears.
To avoid any miscommunications, let me clarify that there are emotions we don't choose. Some feelings truly just crash over us and live out their own life, and when that happens, it's only our behavior that we can control. However, the fact I sense I must clarify this speaks of a need for absolution from responsibility, which then speaks of strained relationship to agency and self-determination. Responsibility does not have to be this chink on your armor people can stick their weapons through. Responsibility should be felt like the substance that makes your choices personally meaningful rather than an excuse people use to attack you with. Responsibility should be a badge that proclaims, not with shamefaced reservation, but with cheer and pride, Yes, this is mine.