Why pushing away your feelings doesn't work

A gentle guide to emotional reconnection

Feelings can be messy. We love to feel excited, elevated, loved, and so many other things. But we have problems with all the feelings that fall into a rather dark category.

Anger is one example of that. It’s quite a powerful force that can be used in a constructive but also very destructive way. Society sees mostly the latter aspect. That’s why we often learn from our parents as children that anger is not only undesired but also actively suppressed.

So we swallow that feeling down as best as we can. Gone it is, at least for a while.

And then there are all these deeply unpleasant feelings, like feeling like a failure, too stupid, not worthy, unseen, lonely, etc. Our thoughts tend to amplify these feelings. Some of them feel like a real-life threat.

Of course, there are ways to process these feelings in a healthy way. But we are often stressed out or so overwhelmed that we are looking for a quick solution.

Numbing is one word for that.

It’s more commonplace than you may think. Just have a look at the per capita alcohol consumption, and you get an idea.

Another way is to shut off your feelings. Of course, that doesn’t make them go away, but you push them out of your awareness. It’s called rationalising, and it’s exactly what many people who operate only with their heads do.

It makes them a bit like machines. They often seem very logical from the outside. Only when you know them better can you sense that there is much more below the surface. They may not even know this by themselves, as they often have learned in early childhood to only use their heads. It started as a coping mechanism and became second nature.

Numbing or pushing feelings away wouldn’t be a problem if that worked. But what happens is that all these strategies only bottle up our unwanted feelings and emotions.

When the pressure in the bottle gets too high, the body reacts with diseases (e.g., stomach problems for suppressed anger), or you fall into some sort of depressive state.

We don’t want any of that. Therefore, it makes sense to reestablish the connection to your emotional world and find healthier ways to cope with them.

Image by Ruslan Zh

Allowing yourself to feel again

Let’s forget for a moment all the reasons why you are either pushing away or numbing your feelings. There is a reason why you do that, and you cannot just open the floodgates.

Instead, we need to start with methods that feel safe and only let feelings through that we can handle.

One way is to go the spiritual healing path. With this, I mean things like Reiki, Yoga, and Chi Gong. It’s all techniques to help you bring the focus into your body and feel it more consciously.

In the beginning, it can be quite amazing when you suddenly feel your hands without using them. This makes you naturally curious about what else you can feel in your body. And exactly this curiosity reconnects you softly with your feeling world.

Learning to play a musical instrument can also help you get more in touch with your body. The same goes for any other art for which you need to use your hands consciously and train them to do things they were not used to.

A safer environment

One reason why we had to push or numb our feelings was that we were not at a place that felt safe.

So while all the above will have some effect, your progress will come to a halt when you don’t change your environment.

The simplest change you can make is to spend as much time as you can in nature. It’s the best thing we can do for our bodies. Nature calms us down, gives us fresh air to breathe, and appeals to all our senses.

The next question is what else you can do to feel safer. Maybe you currently have a toxic job, or you fear that you can get fired any second.

It could also be that your financial situation is giving you panic. What can you improve on that? And if facing that issue is too overwhelming, who could help you to give you at least emotional support?

All the above will not directly change your environment, but they will improve how you feel about the place you are in now.

Feelings don’t need to make sense

For a long time, I wondered why I had this or that feeling. Of course, I only asked that for the ones that I regarded as negative or unpleasant. The „positive“ feelings were always invited and needed no reason to enter my life.

The thing is, feelings come and go. There is no particular benefit in understanding your feelings. Allowing them and healthily processing them is a different story, though.

When you are angry, you don’t really need to know the reason. You need to get your anger out in a non-destructive way. You could punch a bag, or yell „fuck you“ in your head, and start actions that will improve the situation you are angry about.

Feeling lonely is more difficult to process. The reason is that being alone would have been life-threatening for you as a baby. We humans are social animals and need connections to others like we need sunlight.

The problem is that this connection can even be missing with lots of people around us.

You don’t need to know the reason why you are lonely. As with all other feelings, the first step is to allow yourself to feel this feeling. And then you observe what it does with you.

How does it feel in your body? What thoughts does it trigger?

Just observe and don’t forget to breathe, and of course, make sure you are at a place that feels safe enough for you.

The magic of allowing yourself to feel this loneliness is that it connects you with your body. It’s a connection you had lost for a while. When you are not in touch with yourself, it’s no wonder that you may feel empty or lonely.

Again, you don’t need to know the reason for the feeling. Just accept that you have feelings that are messengers that want to be seen. Let them show you...

Rollercoaster ride

The more you allow your feelings to get through to you, the more they will show. Sounds easy, but it can be a bit challenging.

The good news is that you will be more aware of positive and negative feelings. In a way, this will enrich your life as it will make you feel more whole.

The challenging part is that the intensity of your feelings will also increase. In other words, it can be a bit of a shaky ride. Knowing this makes it all the easier. Otherwise, you might be taken by surprise when, after several sunny days, very dark nights might show up.

But again... feelings come and go. At this point, you will know this on a rational and bodily level. This means you learned to trust the process of dealing with these feelings until they dissolve and are out of your body.

Your bottled-up emotions will get fewer and fewer. At one point, life doesn’t feel like a burden anymore. That’s when you have left the roller coaster stage.

Life will stabilise more and more from there. Where once there was drama and overwhelm, peace slowly enters your life. There will still be ups and downs. They are the spice of life, but they will feel more like hiccups.

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