“The cure for the pain is in the pain” —Rumi
Some of you may think this post title is silly, as it’s an obvious truth (duh!), while others may disagree entirely with its premise. I think a lot more of us, though, can agree on the fact that our world needs more emotional intelligence as it becomes increasingly technological and siloed.
Potentially today more than ever, many people get stuck from not identifying and processing their emotions. I’d argue this is the key reason we get stuck most of the time (I wouldn’t say all the time because in some contexts or situations it can be healthy to block out emotion). The simplest way I make sense of the root problem is that we often grow up in environments where it wasn’t safe to feel, process, and express what we were feeling. In other words: we are conditioned to tune out emotion. We also live in an emotionally phobic society; it often feels like our culture disregards and downplays emotion. Emotional suppression (conscious) and repression (subconscious) may have worked well for us in the past but it can often get adults in trouble, especially when we want to understand ourselves better, make better decisions, and have healthy, nourishing relationships.
When we take the time to feel and understand our emotions, it can often lead to a more insightful outlook on life, better relationships, and improved physical health. Working through them and expressing them enables us to improve our mental and emotional health. Humans are not designed to ignore emotional information, as emotional information is among the most important signals our body sends us. The good news is it’s never too late to learn to identify, process, express, and manage your emotions.
If our lives are a journey or trip, emotions are the inner compass or GPS, revealing our most important and pressing needs—and our problems in the moment, along with possible solutions. Disregarding your GPS (representing emotions in this metaphor) can make it harder to get to your destination on your trip. For example:
- If you’re feeling sad, you may have lost something important, and may need comfort.
- If you’re feeling angry, you may have been mistreated and need to fight back or protect yourself.
- If you’re scared: you may be anticipating something bad happening and need to protect yourself or leave a dangerous situation.
As a general rule with some exceptions; when we continually suppress our emotions, not only do they not just go away, they can even grow stronger and fester in our bodies and mind. The saying goes, “what you resist persists.” Ignoring emotion is thus like tuning out essential signals to and from our body and brain, obstructing your success and ability to understand, take care of yourself, and act wisely and intentionally. This is why perhaps one of the most important findings in psychotherapy over the last 40 years has been the importance of emotion in the healing process: the most powerful and transformative moments in therapy sessions are often when a client is feeling the most.
Conclusion
So the next time you’re feeling a strong emotion about something, when it’s safe to do so, either alone or with a safe person, I’d invite you to resist the urge to bottle it up, and instead acknowledge your feelings. This, over time, can make it easier to identify them in your mind to yourself, verbally or in writing, and let them out in a healthy way. A “healthy” way can mean in a supportive or therapeutic group format, cardio or anaerobic exercise, meditation, journaling, and reaching out to your social supports, among many other options. This will help you understand yourself better, especially the challenges you are facing and the potential solutions needed. It will also help you in your relationships, as strong, close relationships are built on sharing vulnerable emotions. Luckily emotions are a skill you can learn and it’s never too late. What skills have you recently surprised yourself by learning? Cooking? Learning a language? A video game? Identifying, processing, and sharing our emotions is similar.