Three Ways that Emotions Show Themselves
Originally Posted on 1/25/25
What happens if I don’t think about what happened?
If I don’t make space for or ignore the emotion or bad memory when it comes up, it will go away, right? I wish I could tell you yes. It is natural to desire the easiest way out, to not feel any pain. However, I have a sign in my office that reads: “Its about the journey, not the destination”. The growth and understanding of yourself that comes from going through the journey rather than immediately getting to the destination is what it is all about.
By pushing emotions down or ignoring them all together, you are unfortunately creating the opposite effect of what you are hoping. While in the immediate moment, your goal of not experiencing pain is possible, emotions have to come out at some point. I’ll give you a few examples of what this looks like if you push them down and don’t make space for them as they come up:
If you push down on a springboard far enough, it is going to reach its limit. It becomes impossible to push down any further and once you let go, it will come back up. Imagine that in the sense of emotions, if everything comes flying back up at once - that quickly becomes overwhelming and dizzying.
The second example is, if you imagine a jar that has a screw on lid, you are only able to fill that container so full until the lid no longer screws on. If we all have an internal jar, there are only so many emotions that can be stuffed down until they start spilling over. We start to see this spill over through irritability, constantly feeling stressed, crying at the drop of a hat and not understanding why, anger outbursts and more. This often causes confusion, because you are unsure of the cause.
The last example brings us all back to our science experiment days as a kid. Do you remember what happens if you put mentos into a bottle of coke? This is very similar to what happens if emotions are suppressed for long enough. It takes one thing to happen or a trigger to be felt for EVERYTHING to come shooting out like a sticky geyser. Emotions start flooding out and can often cause panic attacks, anxiety, and overwhelm. We aren’t meant to handle everything all at once.
Emotions are a lot like a bell curve. If we make space for emotions, they have a natural process that they go through. We feel them coming, we take the opportunity to acknowledge them and then they naturally dissipate - ultimately bringing relief. If we allow that process, it feels less overwhelming and the emotions aren’t as large and rocky. When we get stuck in the process of suppressing emotions, they start to look like large mountains that we have to climb each time. This makes us resistant to feeling them and we give up at the base, yet the mountains never go away.
Emotions can be very manageable to cope with when we don’t give them so much power. When we begin to see them differently and allow them space and attention as they come up, we don’t have to worry about the tidal wave that hits us in the face because the springs can’t hold any more, or the leaking out that occurs when we stuff our internal jars too full or lastly the sticky mess that comes when the last straw hits and the emotions geyser all over our life.
You deserve a happy and fulfilling life. You and your relationships will benefit greatly from you investing in yourself.
