7 Steps To Stop Repressing Your Emotions

5/24/2017

Somehow we, as a society, have come to believe that feeling and showing emotions makes a person weak. If we’d pay more attention to our bodies we would know that our body is actually doing something we need and want.

Repressed emotions are emotions that we consciously choose not to acknowledge and feel. Failing to act on them or expressing them in a healthy way, could lead to depression, numbness, or snapping at others.

Most of the emotions we tend to repress are negative feeling emotions; emotions that we don’t like because they don’t feel good in our bodies. Emotions like anxiety, doubt, grief, despair, fear and other emotions that make you feel very uncomfortable.

Repress one, repress them all

We need to be aware that when we try not to feel negative emotions, what we’re actually doing is blocking ourselves so we don’t feel them. But there’s a problem with that, not allowing ourselves to feel negative emotions is not allowing ourselves to feel any emotion at all. This includes positive feeling emotions as well such as hope, inspiration, optimism, contentment, happiness, enthusiasm, peace, love, joy and more.

Do you see now what you’ve been doing to yourself? You’ve been negating yourself the joys of this world just because you don’t want to have a few seconds of negative feeling emotions.

Allowing yourself to feel negative emotions is as important as allowing yourself to feel positive emotions. Because when you feel negative emotions is when you realize what you like and don’t like, what you desire and not desire, what you need to improve and what you need to remove from your life. Makes sense?

If you’re alive you feel, and you feel when you’re alive

As long as you feel life energy freely flowing through you you’re going to feel emotions; positive and negative feeling emotions. Allow that living energy flow through you. Don’t keep it stagnant and don’t block the flow.

The moment we begin to repress emotions, it’s like a little piece of ourselves is being frozen inside of us. When we do this many times, collect little frozen pieces inside of us, we begin to feel with no energy and no flow going through us.

We then begin to feel deflated and de-pressed. Yes, this is the beginning of depression and oppression. And what happens when you keep putting high pressure to something? It eventually leaks out or explodes, right? The pressure needs to be released.

Don’t wait until you snap

If we try to stop a flow of energy, its pressure will eventually win and release its extra force. The same is true with the human body. The human body is designed to heal itself and for that it releases everything that it doesn’t need or that hurts it, and emotions are not an exception.

You know what happens when a person represses negative emotions for too long, right? The pressure rises until there is a moment when they need to be released. This is when we snap.

The level of the energy released goes with the amount of time you repressed your emotions. So, make it a habit to release them as soon as possible. Do whatever you need to do to feel better and/or talk to whoever you need to talk to, to have the issue or situation resolved.

There’s nothing that cannot be solved, nothing. It’s our negative thought that spurred from repressing negative emotions that make us believe that there are no solutions. But that’s not true. Remember, you are in control of your mind always; always have and always will.

So, don’t allow yourself to snap and instead allow yourself to feel, release, and heal.

What to do to stop repressing emotions

To stop repressing emotions means to allow yourself to begin feeling them. This means, you’re not going to avoid them, you’re going to welcome them instead. To do that, follow these steps until you have your own process:

Trust and believe in your need to feel. This includes all emotions, positive and negative feeling emotions. I always like to clarify, emotions are not good or bad, when I say negative and positive emotions, I refer to the feeling they cause in your body. So, allow yourself to feel.
Think before you speak. If you’re feeling an emotion that makes you want to quickly react, try to remember that you still have to go through the steps below if you really want to let emotions go, and heal.
Remove yourself from what caused your strong emotion. If the negative emotion you’re feeling is too strong or repetitive, remove yourself from the cause. If there’s no way to get yourself far away from that situation, just go outdoor until you have time to feel the emotion.
Allow yourself to feel the emotion. Mentally allow your emotions to fill your torso, arms, neck, head and legs. See it as if you are being filled with light and give it total permission to travel all over your body while you observe it where it goes. Remember, you’re not the emotion; you are the observer of your body’s reaction. According to Dr. Taylor, it takes no more than 90 seconds to process an emotion. So be aware of the process and see it subside within a few seconds. When you notice it decrease in intensity, you’re allowing your body to heal. Do this more often.
Be gentle with yourself. Don’t be mad at yourself for feeling emotions that make you cry, that make you scream, or that make you hit. Cry all you need to cry, scream all you need to scream, hit all you need to hit. Just make sure you’re not hurting yourself and you’re not hurting or scaring others. Always choose the healthy way. Then allow yourself to feel and heal as the emotion subsides.
What’s next? Think of whether you need to do something to fix the situation that caused your emotions. You don’t have to respond to everything or everyone though, choose your battles. Sometimes the smartest person in the room is you and you need to act accordingly. If you need to respond to someone, make sure you take your time to feel first and then find a response you feel you can live with. Remember, words most of the time come back to us. So, what do you want back at you?
Find humor in your situation. After allowing yourself to feel and realizing a response is needed, or not, can you find humor within your situation? If you think you will be laughing at the situation a few days from now, why not begin laughing at it now then?

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” –Sigmund Freud

Now you know. So, next time you feel something so strong you can’t contain, allow yourself to feel and allow your body to heal.

Do you have other methods that help you process your negative feeling emotions? Please share them with us in the comments below.

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