Letting them out before they build up is the best idea. What you were taught was not very useful to you, it doesn't sound like. You might want to go to a counsellor for a few sessions and see if you can start learning a different way.

Emotions are information for you. They let you know what is going on with you and can be helpful for telling the people around you what is going on with you so they can understand their world better (you're in it :-) and how to help you if you need or desire help. Emotions should be used to help make you more fluid; if you stuff them you become "hard" and it hurts to bump into you :-)