Identify & Pacify Repressed Emotions
Repression vs. Expression
All the emotions are in each of us, and different things trigger each one. We also have societal messages that tell us what we are “allowed” to express. For many people, certain emotions are repressed from a young age.
Many boys, for example, are told they need to “man up”. Often this looks like being restricted to just one or two permitted emotions. If a woman cries, it’s okay, even expected. If a man cries, it’s taboo, and isolating. Much of a man’s feelings are then converted to anger or to sexual feelings. These feelings at large are seen as more acceptable of men. This is problematic, as the other feelings that are repressed come out in compulsive, and sometimes dangerous ways.
Since anger, by societal standards, tends to be reserved for the men, many girls are taught to repress anger. Suppressing anger in another person is a characteristic of an abusive relationship. It’s an effective tool that an oppressor uses, as converting anger to sadness in another person makes them easier to manipulate.
Guess what? No gender needs to have a monopoly on any emotion. Women don’t own all rights to sadness. Men don’t own all rights to anger. Can we share? Can we break the status quo and allow each other and ourselves a greater range of expression?
By doing this, we can break the unhealthy statistics we’ve come to see in our world. We can get along and work together. Men can wear what they want; dress, make up, hair, etc. Are these not healthy forms of expression? Is this not better than bottling up those emotions? Can men be allowed to cry without feeling humiliated?
Can women be permitted to feel and express anger, so it doesn’t become a repression that turns into a depressive disorder?
What about all gender orientations? Repression of any valid orientation tends to present comparable issues that ripple throughout communities, not only individuals. In your own unique position, what emotions do you want to express?
How can we allow ourselves to express emotions in constructive, rather than destructive ways? Recognizing how repressed emotions may be currently leaking or exploding in unexpected ways, can help to identify feelings that need attention.
Let’s examine repression on a small scale. Seeing this behavior in my kids helps me identify it in myself. I’ve seen them argue about things that don’t matter to avoid dealing with homework. I’ve seen them procrastinate their bedtime by binge watching shows.
The repressed feeling causing self-sabotage with homework could be fear of new material the student is struggling to understand. They might just need a little help to feel confident.
The feeling causing procrastination of sleeping could be an unresolved problem that came up that day; or that came up a while ago, especially if difficulty sleeping has been an ongoing issue. They may just need a little talk or journaling to help process the feelings; or possibly therapy for a longer lasting concern.
For a while I’ve been seeing the positive effects on my life of healing trauma and creating what I really want. I started dealing with joy foreboding, which I learned about in therapy. After being in survival mode for so long, finally having my needs met felt really uncomfortable. It was different and new. I couldn’t trust it.
What if it doesn’t last? It felt better to predict the same unpleasant past pattern, than to hope to predict a pleasant, yet unknown unexpected future. I likely might have sabotaged the new stability if I hadn’t processed what I was feeling through journaling, therapy, and talking with my friends and family.
I could have tried blaming the emotions on my partner, and I might have been right. His presence contributed in part to the new feeling of stability in my life. Blaming him, though, likely would have eroded the stability which I actually do choose to enjoy and participate in long term. I just needed to adjust to the new feeling after seeing clear evidence that it was safe.
I’d been in many unsafe relationships in the past. After learning quite a bit, I gained skills required for a healthy, growing relationship. In the previous unsafe relationships, blaming the partner was never helpful longterm. I had lessons to learn to grow beyond where I was at those stages in my life. Each lesson, showing up as an emotional experience, gave me the opportunity to see a need and create a better boundary to help fill that need in a healthy way.
Instead of seeking a scapegoat for causing an emotion in you, what if you now have events to describe a feeling that was already in you? You could blame a person for causing the feeling, or you can allow yourself to feel gratitude. You now have an awareness on a level you didn’t have before. You now have a greater capacity to face and manage that part of yourself. Awakening an emotion gives you space to deal with it.
Expressing emotional awareness is a skill you can build like a muscle.
The cool thing is we get to learn how to choose when and how we feel about each of them, and to choose what we do with them. Happiness is just the top of the wave of emotions. It’s good to feel all the emotions. My intention is to help you harmonize them; grow your power to invoke and prolong happiness, and to make all your emotions work for you.
Happy Tip #5 Identify and Pacify Repressed Emotions (CLICK HERE FOR PRINTABLE WORKSHEET):
Examine
- What is an emotion you feel, but typically avoid expressing?
- What reward do you get for repressing it?
- How does long term repression hurt you and others?
- What new reward would you achieve by expressing it instead of hiding it?
- How can you express this emotion in a constructive way?
Action
Create time in your routine to creatively express repressed emotions through
- Art; dancing, painting, etc.
- Therapy
- Journaling
- Talking with a friend
- Fashion
- Sports
- Other; What are your own ideas for how to regularly express yourself?
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