The Physical Consequences of Repressing Emotions
On average, people have around six-thousand thoughts per day. Not every thought leads to an emotion, but a lot of emotions arise from thoughts. For example, if you’re thinking about a tough conversation you need to have with your partner, that can bring up emotions of anxiety and fear. Once an emotion arises, there are two options –
- Acknowledgment and processing: You recognize the presence of those emotions and work on resolving them with the goal of putting your mind and your relationship in a happier and more easeful state.
- Repressing or avoiding: You still have that conversation with your partner, but your emotions aren’t truly processed; instead, they get repressed (not shared with your partner or analyzed within your own mind) or avoided (your mind gets distracted with something else –watching a game, doing laundry, etc. — and tries to move on, as if those emotions never came up).
Why would you not acknowledge and process emotions? Sometimes, it may seem more comfortable/easy to bypass processing emotions; delving deeper into your emotional state, coming to terms with reality and working with your emotions can be hard.
If that emotional processing involves interactions with your partner, maybe you don’t feel comfortable opening up and being vulnerable, so you don’t share it with them and neither do you process it yourself.
This behavior only works — if at all — for the short term. Done often, it becomes a habit and a part of your personality.
Why is it a problem not to express emotions?
Unexpressed emotions are buried alive and will come forth later — Sigmund Freud
Emotions need an outlet. Think of it as pouring water into a pot in which you’re growing a plant. The plant needs water, and it’s good that you’re feeding it. But if the pot doesn’t have a drain hole, that’s a problem: plants can’t stay in water forever; if the water level keeps building up, the air pockets in the soil close, and the plant loses the ability to take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the air, causing the roots to rot.
It’s a similar thing with emotions that are repressed and not given an outlet. You don’t need to express every single negative emotion you feel — annoyed at a traffic jam? disappointed that your favorite team didn’t win a game? those kinds of emotions will pass on their own — but stronger emotions do need an outlet. There’s a sacred connection between physiology (our bodies) and psychology (our minds). A change in one affects the other.
If negative emotions keep building up — like the water in the pot without a drain hole — it leads to a downward spiral: the less you express, the more it causes stress. Your mind isn’t processing those emotions; instead, it’s shoving them aside. They keep knocking on the door of your mind, but you never open that door because you’re too stressed to deal with it. They’ll keep coming back and knocking, and it becomes a vicious cycle of avoidance and stress.
Stress puts your body in a fight-or-flight response; when your body is in that state (vs. an easeful state), your brain becomes more hypersensitive to stimuli (it’s a survival instinct: your brain is watching out for anything dangerous), lowering the threshold for triggers of pain and disease, and making you more susceptible to illness.
Besides, emotions need to be expressed for more than just the reason of preventing them from manifesting as physical symptoms. Your emotions are your spirit, and they deserve an outlet. How would the earth feel if a rosebud never blossomed into a flower and instead stayed closed?
My personal experience Almost two decades ago, I was in a car accident where this guy ran a stop sign at fifty miles per hour and totaled my car. It was a miracle that I survived the whole thing. A few days later, I started having physical symptoms that I’d never had before. I started a variety of treatments and kept at them for years.
I also felt and harbored a lot of resentment, bitterness, and hatred towards that driver: why didn’t he follow the law and stop when he was supposed to? Why do I have to suffer because of someone else’s fault?
I didn’t express that resentment in any way other than feeling angry and frustrated. Mostly, I felt those emotions in my mind and let them stay there. It took me several years to realize that part of the reason why my physical symptoms were persisting was that my emotions were not processed/expressed.
After years of practicing mind-body healing techniques, today, I’m at a point where if I feel a strong negative emotion and don’t journal about it within a few hours, my body manifests that emotion physically: I may feel tightness in my shoulders or achiness in my neck. Conversely, after journaling, I can feel my body relaxing and being at ease. Both my mind and body hold the pen of gratitude together and write these words: ‘thank you, my love, for expressing what you feel and for taking care of us.’
How can you express emotions? Fortunately, there are multiple ways to express emotions. With experimentation and practice, you’ll find a technique (or a combination) that works best for you.
One general suggestion is to approach these techniques with an outcome-independent approach: do it because it’s the right thing to do, not because you want to get rid of your symptoms. If you choose the latter approach, that puts more pressure on your mind to do it ‘right’ and diverts it from the real goal: to hold your emotions the way a mother holds her suffering child — with acknowledgment, kindness, support, and compassion.
- Creative
Journaling is a great way of expressing yourself. It’s private, and you can do it any time you want. There’s no judgment or expectations; it’s just you and your journal (whatever form that takes: electronic devices or pen-and-paper) having an honest, free-flowing conversation.
You can start by asking this basic and vital question: ‘How do you feel right now, my love?’ And the words will start to flow. Let them stream through, give them the time and space they deserve. Each word you write is a healing balm you’re applying to your mind, body, and soul.
If you have creative pursuits — like drawing, painting, making pottery, etc. — indulge in them and use them as a vessel to take in your feelings. If you paint, what sort of painting would you make to express your sorrow?
2. Verbal
You can share your feelings with others that you feel comfortable with. This can be friends, family, or colleagues. It’s important to make sure you’re doing it with someone who’s non-judgmental and comes to the conversation without biases/prejudices. What your mind needs is someone who acknowledges your reality and can bear witness to your feelings.
3. Physical
Because emotions reside in the body, giving them a physical outlet can be therapeutic and strengthening.
You can do this in multiple ways:
- Shout and vent your feelings in a private safe place.
- Talk out loud to yourself while on a walk; use hand movements to illustrate your feelings.
- Let it out: 1. Bring up the emotion to your conscious mind: feel angry about something from months ago? Put yourself in the situation you were in then, and simulate that feeling of anger. 2. Identify where in your body you feel tight/clenched: pay attention to your body for where it manifests that anger. 3. Shake that part of the body with the intention of literally letting that feeling leave your body. Once it leaves — and it will — your mind and body will feel relaxed.
Remember, the relationship between your mind and your body is the best one you’ll have in your life, and you can leverage that relationship to not only heal but also strengthen.
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