For most people, it's not possible to suppress all emotions all of the time. You have control over some of the intensity, duration, and what you do with it, and you can train yourself to react differently to situations if you know they are coming.
Some people never feel anything, and they're called psychopaths.
Some people delude themselves into thinking they can control their emotions more than they actually can.

I think it may be useful to suppress emotions that would otherwise make you do stupid things (suicide, self-harm, harming others, addiction, etc.) but by and large, it's much more useful to process your emotions and grow as a result, rather than suppress them and stay stagnant in your personal growth.

Interesting topic. Before the neuro-scientists (I hope they exist here and do answer some of these questions) jump in, here are my thoughts

I believe we are all experiencing some sort of emotion at all times. Similar to personality traits, I think we experience each emotion as a spectrum or range of possible feelings. Also, we can (typically are) be feeling multiple emotions at the same time to some degree.

I think you are talking about controlling the expression of emotion. Whether this over-expression comes across as crying hysterically or screaming at somebody in public, or it is an internal over-ride of productive thought (externally one may appear calm but internally they are in chaos).

I view it as a good thing to be able to somewhat control one's emotions so you feel what you want. Obviously we can never completely master this, but we can make progress. I have found similar to @Thesailor123 that "control" of my emotions seems to just be a removal of the extremes. As I gain control, I am less often ecstatically happy, but almost never depressed. I would also point out, that I am naturally fairly stoic, so this is easy for me to work on. For those with more manic personalities, I would imagine this would be very difficult.

However, Thesailor123 seemed to go beyond that to suggest that they are actually "not feeling" anything. This may be relatively possible (compared to the hurricane of emotion that many people seem to live with, you or I may seem emotionless), but I am not sure there is anyone existing with no emotion at all - I am really struggling to consider what that would even look like...would that person ever get out of bed? Why?

My personal belief is that we can control and decided whether or not to feel. This of course renders me, in times of great grief, stress or any other powerful negative emotion, completely emotionless and blank. — Thesailor123

In times of great grief you are completely emotionless? :chin:

Is it possible to have a choice whether to feel or not?

No, there’s no choice. We’re always feeling some range of excitement/boredom and pleasure/discomfort. We may have some control in how we interpret this raw sense information as it arises in varying circumstances, though I imagine it would take time and effort to retrain ourselves.

Just to add, as long as you can intend in the future tense a state or reaction of emotion, it is ostensibly under your control.

Say for example, I am going to see my brother on vacation. "WHY? I think I am getting some happiness out of seeing him and being part of his life when I can be, and I think he is as well. Can I just as easily not see him? Yes I could withhold the intention to be happy as I could to choose happiness.

Control is opting for a select number of possibilities over others. As long as there are outcomes that bring about emotion, control over emotion is under human control.

I understand this, but when is emotion not under one's control?

Feeling is thinking itself. To avoid feeling is to avoid meaning. all experieinces are affective comportments toward the world. To understand anything is for it to matter to us in a certain way, be significant, relevant.even the most seemingly feeling-neutral attitude toward the world is still infused with feeling.

Emotion is no more under one's control than willing. We dont choose to will, we find ourselves willing. Desire comes before choosing what to desire.

In times of great grief you are completely emotionless? — praxis

I think it is not wise to question such confessions. In times of great pain, such as stitching up a cut, my doctor applies a local anaesthetic. I see no reason to assume that the mind cannot function in a similar way, and indeed it is a fairly well known effect called 'shock'.

The contradiction I see in @Thesailor123's op is not so much that, but between "My personal belief is that we can control" and "renders me [... ] completely emotionless and blank."

One has to alienate oneself from what one wants to control, and this creates a division: one who believes and controls, v one who feels and is rendered. Both sides speak in the same sentence, and so the contradiction.

All of what we do, say and feel is a choice. It boils down really to ability (or desire) to control yourself.
I don't think it's "bad" or "wrong" to suppress your feelings unless you are unhappy about it.

I've long been frustrated with having to "mold" to society, but, I'm happier not molding then if I were.

In my opinion, it's rather a continuum, with varying degrees of control/influence possible. And control/influence can be developed, but that's also on a continuum.

It's not a simple black & white issue a la either you can control emotions period or not control them period.

Where does choice, preference come from? Do we choose to choose? Do we choose what we desire? Or does desire choose for us before we consciously choose?
Many would say we 'find ourselves' choosing.

Is it possible to have a choice whether to feel or not? — Thesailor123

I think it is not possible to directly control our feelings, but is possible to control what we do, and thereby indirectly control our feelings. It is that insight that disciplines like Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and, before that, Stoicism, use.

An extreme example. Say you are feeling bored or sad. You go and do a bungy jump. I imagine that, unless you are an experienced bungy jumper, you will be feeling neither bored nor sad around the time of the jump. Terrified, exhilarated, elated are emotions that seem more likely. You have controlled your feelings indirectly by changing what you do.

Scientific studies indicate that exercise helps mood. So - less extreme than bungy - doing a hard exercise session can alter our feelings. Not by as much as the bungy, but still significantly.

We can also, with practice, control what we think about - another control of what we do (thinking is doing). CPD invites us to think about something else when we have negative feelings that are of no practical use. The reported evidence is that this works to some extent, and the more one practices it, the better it works.

I don't think that any of these indirect approaches render one emotionless.

On closer inspection, he may have simply been stating his belief that he could render himself emotionless, and in that case there's no contradiction. He explicitly mentions his belief but not his experience.

A) not good for one to suppress emotions as they bottle up and later do come back to deal what needs to be delt and B) that its not possible. After having suppressed my emotions I, even after a great amount of time, get nothing that "comes back up" or anything of that kind.

Yet, that is not where my question lies, Is it possible to have a choice whether to feel or not? — Thesailor123

It is not possible to just decide not to feel. We can train ourselves to be instinctively ready for feelings and through that have a conscious cushion that makes it easier to suppress them when they arrive. This is how soldiers and similar occupations train in order to suppress fear and similar emotions.

We use two systems when we navigate through our waking hours, system 1 and system 2, the latter being our calm, thinking, rational self who analyze and find the right answer based on information that we know. But system 2 is never in the driving seat, it's system 1, which goes by pre-programmed responses and feedbacks towards what we experience. It continuously consults system 2 in order to process new information, but can only act on things we know. System 1 is the one acting with emotions so in order to have some control over it you would need to train it to handle those emotions, but you can never get rid of emotions consciously, since you can never switch to using system 2 in the drivers seat.

Control our emotions?

I guess there's a lot going on than meets the eye.

Emotions are part of our personality and our experience of the world. We're described as upbeat, gloomy, jealous, indifferent, etc. and emotions give color to our experience which otherwise would be a black & white world of facts (and lies). Do we need to and also can we control our emotions?

I guess it's the rational part of our mind that's asking this question. Afterall emotions are linked to irrational thinking. Plus emotions need to be appropriate to the situation in both type and intensity. So, it is control over our emotions the rational seek but it isn't that we want to be able to do with our emotions as we will and see fit. For example we don't want full control over our feelings in a way that we could will ourselves to feel sad when seeing a laughing baby or be happy at the sight of torture. No it isn't that. Rather we wish to modulate our emotions - their type and degree - and make the appropriate to the state of affairs.

Can we achieve such control?

A characteristic of our feelings is that it is reflexive. Our feelings are rather immediate reactions to something or other. It's only later that the logic is engaged. We then, upon reflection, come to realize the appropriateness or not of our reactions to things.

Perhaps some emotions, the ones that are in response to things we've already thought upon, are appropriate and acceptable to us but there'll always be ones that are spontaneous and inappropriate. Given so, it seems it's going to be quite difficult to have even the type of control I suggested.