How would you describe your relationship with your emotions?
Accepting?
Wary?
Respectful?
Dismissive?
Curious?
What shapes our emotional expression?
From the time we are very small, we are learning what to do with emotions as we experience and make sense of the world about us. Through the responses of others, we start to discover which emotions are acceptable to those around us and which ones are not at all welcome. The messages are often gendered; girls are expected to be nice, big boys don’t cry. Our expressions of anger may have been met with disapproval or punishment, our sadness with the admonition to ‘cheer up’ … ‘that didn’t hurt, you’re ok’, our distress with the shaming ‘don’t be a baby’.
How we have experienced the emotions of others also shapes what we do with, and how we regard, our own. If, as a child, we have been exposed to the out of control rage of adults, we may internalise that any experience of anger is not safe, it hurts people. Emotions start to be allocated into good or bad categories.
What are the consequences?
As we begin to adjust ourselves to external expectations and experiences – whether to keep others happy or to avoid trouble or to keep ourselves safe – we start to develop an emotional pattern of how we show up in relationships.
Slowly, slowly we may stop heeding the input our body is sending us and we learn to put our emotions away. They are not to be trusted; to show them is to invite censure and trouble. We place a guard at the door of expression and rigidly control what we allow to pass through to the outside world. What might this control look like? We may teach ourselves to be strong, taking pride in how we can cope with whatever life throws at us. We may develop an inner mantra of “I’m ok”. We may try to distract by keeping ourselves busy; numb ourselves through alcohol or drugs; seek comfort from food.
What happens to the emotions we repress in this way? Where do they go?
Unfortunately, they don’t go anywhere. They remain stuck deep within us, perhaps out of range of our immediate awareness, but stuck all the same. Perhaps they will manifest instead in a physical way such as headaches or stomach issues, or leak out as anxiety or depression. We are caught in an imbalance and our mind and body pays the price. As the fairy tale warns us “But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.” (The Little Mermaid, Hans Christian Andersen).
Is there an alternative?
What if we stopped resisting? What if we viewed our emotions as a source of vital feedback; communicating important messages to us as we function within our world? What if we gave ourselves permission to tune into our body and allow space for whatever feelings we discover? What if we let our emotions act as guideposts, leading us to develop deeper self-awareness? What if we were able to experience our emotions in ways that were both safe for ourselves and others?
What if?
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Photo by Andy Watkins