Suppressing emotions is a far too common practice that most of us don’t realize we’ve been doing our whole lives. We live in a world where we’re constantly told not to feel the bad emotions. Don’t be anxious. Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. Be positive. It could be worse…
Our society has conditioned us that if we feel anything negative, there must be something wrong with us, so we better do our best to not feel that way, shove it away, and go on thinking happy thoughts only.
Depending on the context, you can see this as toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing. It send a signal to your brain that you’re supposed to feel okay, but you feel far from it. The mind-body connection isn’t adding up.
Suppressing emotions can do a lot of collateral damage. Contrary to popular belief, shoving them away doesn’t actually make them disappear, much like shoving all your dirty clothes under your bed doesn’t actually make them clean. You have to go back under your bed and pick them out one by one which is a lot more work than if you would have just done the laundry straightaway. The same rules apply with your emotions.
Here’s how suppressing your emotions is hurting you in the long term, and how to adopt new ways to let them flow through you so they don’t compound interest and so you can live a more aligned and purpose-driven life.
Suppressing Emotions Adds Interest
One of my favorite metaphors when it comes to thinking about suppressing and shoving emotions down is thinking of them as if they were credit card debt.
Emotions compound interest over time. When you immediately shove them down they automatically cost you more energy and time to deal with later than if you had just dealt with them straightaway. And the longer you let them sit there, the more interest they’ll compound over time.
People suppress their emotions through lots of ways:
- Scrolling on social media
- Video games
- Using substances to numb out
- Extreme exercise
- Overeating or controlling food intake
Emotional suppression can lead to a downstream of physiological effects if you don’t address them. When you push your emotions down to avoid the distress, this actually requires a lot of effort. You have to be extremely diligent about not letting them come back to the surface.
If you’ve ever found yourself going to great lengths to avoid certain activities that will trigger your feelings, asking yourself questions like:
- Will this trigger my emotional response?
- How do I avoid these things entirely?
- How can I distract myself enough to not feel what I felt initially?
This causes the sympathetic nervous system to enter a state of constant distress, which can lead to physiological symptoms like:
- Increased heart rate
- Increased blood pressure
- Lack of focus
- Lack of sex drive
- Inability to think clearly
- And so on and forth.
The prolonged stress one can feel from this process of suppressing their emotions commonly manifests physically into tight muscles and psychologically into things like anxiety disorder and depression or even substance abuse problems.
In ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Vessel van der Kolk, MD, we are shown that as our minds desire so deeply to leave trauma and emotions behind, our bodies keep us trapped with often wordless feelings. When we hold onto these feelings without release, they start to show themselves in a plethora of other ways.
All of this can have waterfall effects into your relationship with yourself, with others, and with the world at large. Suddenly you may feel so out of control of your own reality because you’re shoving down what’s really happening. You’ve lost connection to your true self.
Why Don’t We Feel Allowed To Feel?
Feeling your emotions is your birthright. In Greek mythology, it’s said that the immortal Gods are jealous of us mortals because everything is more beautiful since it could be our last. So why have we made it seem like such a negative thing?
Humans are the only animal species that can think past, present, and future at the same time. Lucky for us, that means we have a lot of time to keep up with.
Humans are also sentient and emotional beings, something we have lost sight of in the wake of capitalism and in a world that values productivity more than we value the well-being of our people.
When you realize that as a human you’re going to have a spectrum of emotions ranging from “good” to “bad,” you realize that this is our inevitable truth that we can’t run from, so we might as well lean into it.
Feeling emotions both the good and the bad detracts and distracts from our ability to get things done. When we’re overjoyed we aren’t productive, just as much as when we’re devastated. We place so much emphasis on productivity as humans and tie it directly to our worth, that feelings don’t stand a chance, so we better not let them have a seat at the table.
Most of us also have no idea how to deal with our emotions and feelings when they do arise. It’s as if we’re placed in these massively sensitive bodies and not given a user-manual so we’re just figuring it out as we go.
Even in ‘safe’ environments, like therapy, if we have never practiced the feeling process then we likely won’t make much headway in these environments until we convince our bodies to actually feel safe. The process of creating this safety is much more time consuming than we might think.
Unfortunately, as a result, we’ve lost touch with what it really means to get the ability to feel. One of the most beautiful aspects of being human has been so blunted because of the value in material and tangible things.
How to Allow Feelings to Flow Through You
I won’t lie to you, at first the process of rewiring your brain to allow yourself to feel your emotions is going to be weird and sticky. Since you’ve been doing the opposite for decades, it’s going to feel wildly uncomfortable. Just know that in that process, you’re doing something right so keep with it.
Taking baby steps is going to be the process you’ll want to adopt. You won’t want to feel everything all at once and your nervous system won’t be able to handle that. Start slow and take it easy.
You can begin this entire process with the simple act of awareness. Even at first if it’s just being aware that you’re shoving an emotion down, that’s a great start. When you can bring awareness to yourself doing this you can also bring mindfulness to how you’re going to change this habit.
Once you’ve built awareness, your next step is to have a plan on how you’re going to change the pattern. If an emotion arises are you going to:
- Take a deep breath and sit with it?
- Jot down what it feels like in a note in your phone?
- Take a walk?
- Meditate?
- Utilize a grounding practice?
When you decide what your course of action is going to be, you’re going to practice it every time an emotion comes up that you normally would shove away.
During this process (and practice) I want to remind you again that it’s going to feel pretty odd. You might not be able to go through with your plan and that’s okay. Just keep coming back and promising to yourself that you’re going to work with it as it comes and not try to brute force the feelings to express. Part of this work is trusting yourself enough to know when the emotions are ready to release.
When you start to tap into the feelings you’ll start to notice your own patterns. For example, when I start feeling big emotions brewing within me I notice I start to get flighty. My thoughts start to go haywire and sometimes my palms will start sweating. This is my cue that I need to stop what I’m doing and go find somewhere where I can be silent and allow what’s happening to happen.
This isn’t always possible, and if it’s not I make sure I have some form of quick action item that I can at least calm my nervous system with. Five deep breaths usually does it for me. Then I text myself a reminder to bring that up later in a mediation. I’ve also been doing this work for years so if you don’t feel like you’re there yet, don’t stress it. It takes time.
Take Notes On Your Emotions When They Want to Speak
It’s not always the case, since some emotions are wordless, but when you start to feel into your emotions sometimes a pretty spectacular thing will start to happen: You’ll start to feel like you’re getting a deep download of information from them.
Sitting with emotions is so powerful because emotions can be so directive. Often times they point us in the direction that we are resistant to going, or they show us the way that we haven’t yet seen. Whatever emotions arise, let them speak to you and give you information.
When you let emotions talk, you’ll notice they’re just trying to tell you something. They didn’t happen randomly, they happened on purpose. Whether you were triggered by something that made you feel like you were in either real or perceived danger, or you felt overjoyed by something that was in direct alignment with your soul and purpose, that emotion wanted you to know something.
Practice listening to your emotions and really getting familiar with what they’re trying to say. You can practice this through meditation and then taking notes on what came through or try conscious stream writing where you just let your pen hit paper and write until you feel complete. Find a practice that works for you and continue to be open to what comes up.
I love this process because once you realize that the emotions are directive, you start to be more open to them coming forward and sharing their insight with you. You become more accepting of the emotions and allow them to move through you without as much resistance.
What About When the Emotions Feel Wordless
As mentioned, emotions don’t always have words to share with us. Sometimes they’re just physical sensations that need to move through us. This is actually my experience more often than not. The somatic release of my emotions often feels scary until they’ve run their course and I feel much lighter.
If this is what happens for you, I invite you to also find a somatic release practice that works for you. For bigger more intentional practice I like to use a combination of Cannabis and breathwork to release emotions somatically. This modality allows me to tap into my body on a physiological level and let it do the talking. This is usually in the form of physically shaking which I do my best to surrender to.
As more of a daily practice I’ll use movement as my processor. Whether it’s through my daily exercise or through intentional shaking, I can guide my body to release what it needs to release without putting words to it. At first this practice felt strange, but over time it’s actually lowered my anxiety and cleared a lot of the junk that felt stored within me physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Mind-body healing through somatic practices is a really powerful way to work with the nervous system and get to a place of calm internally to do any additional healing work that needs to be done.
The Beauty of the Process of Feeling Your Feelings
Maybe I’m biased because I’ve become so pro-emotional health over the past few years. I was a chronic shove your feelings down kind of person until I no longer had a choice. If that’s you, you’re exactly where you need to be.
This process is deeply gratifying and a good reminder of what it means to be a human. If the Gods were jealous of us mortals, there must be something to this.
When this practice begins to flow, you’ll begin to notice more flow in your life, your ideas, and in the calmness you feel. From there, you can really honor what you truly want without feeling like all your energy is being spent on trying to keep all your suppressed emotions un-triggered and at ease.
You can direct that energy back into your soul’s true purpose and live the life you truly desire.
Please note: This is not medical advice. If you’ve never done any work alongside dealing with your emotions it is advised to work with a trained professional such as a licensed therapist or a credentialed coach. Be aware that if you have pre-existing mental health conditions you may require more supervision if exploring this option of emotional healing.
