The Adverse Consequences of Repressing Your Feelings

Feelings and emotions have a negative connotation attached to them. When you think about an emotionally open person, you automatically perceive them to be sensitive and weak. However, emotions come naturally. They are present from the moment you are born to the moment you die.

Feeling pain or anger is no different from feeling hunger or thirst. However, emotions are viewed, negatively, because they make other people feel uncomfortable. Due to this, people are taught to hide and repress their feelings from a young age. This repression can result in a series of negative consequences including:

Lack of self-awareness

When you are ignoring how you feel, you are brushing away your problems without acknowledging them. The lack of acceptance can create a drift between the person that you are and the person you are pretending to be. When there is a distance between these two, self-awareness is lost. As a result, you engage in behaviours which may be immoral or go against your code of conduct.

Infusion of self-doubt

Self-doubt is created by the presence of negative emotions within you. When you repress your feelings, you bury them without getting rid of them. Following from this, these emotions jump out in the form of your unconscious actions. Compare your emotions with a bottle of soda. The more you shake it, without giving it some release, the greater the eruption will be.

Most of the time, negative emotions become embedded in the unconscious mind. They then create a feeling of inadequacy and instil self-doubt within you.

If you have a voice in your head that keeps telling you that you are not good enough, then it means that you are repressing your emotions one way or the other.

It makes you numb

The difference between humanity and every other species is the human ability to experience emotions. The feelings that you feel you define your humanity. When you ignore them, you are becoming numb to the gift of being human.

Most people believe that being numb is better than feeling emotional distress. While this may be temporarily true, it causes harm in the long run. When you become numb to your emotions, you ultimately lose a part of yourself. You become so accustomed to being cold and indifferent, that it becomes almost impossible for you to find your emotions again.

Numbing yourself means that you are willingly giving away your chance of being happy. Hence, it is vital to allow yourself exposure to all emotions- both positive and negative.

How to feel your feelings

To feel your feelings, mean to get in touch with yourself. You are required to introspect and understand the significance, frequency, and intensity of every emotion that you have encountered. To do this, you can follow the ensuing steps:

Accept the emotion

Whatever you are feeling, it is imperative to accept it.  You must instantly recognise the emotion and tell yourself that it is okay to experience it.

For instance, if you are facing extreme stress due to academics and acting out because of it, take a moment to breathe and accept it. Once the emotion is identified, you can move onto the next step of letting it go. In this situation, you can hire an assignment writing service.

Find the cause of the emotion

Sometimes, you may react with extreme emotion to an event that is not even that significant for you. This happens when the source of distress is not the actual event. As a result, you need to have mental conversations with yourself to find out why you acted in the way you did. These conversations can be cathartic and could offer you information about the source of your emotions.

Taking the previous case into account, your stress can result in you lashing out at a loved one. In that situation, your stress is the ultimate cause of the behaviour. 

Make peace with yourself

The next stage of feeling your feelings is making peace with yourself. This means that you must resolve the internal conflict to move forward.  If you continuously feel guilty about your wrongdoings, you will not be able to resolve the problem. What you can do is allow yourself to apologise to your victim, accept your mistake and move on.

Making peace with yourself is an essential part of growth. It is imperative for you to learn the art of self-forgiveness.

Create channels to let go

The final stage involves creating a channel for yourself to let your negative emotions flow out of your body. These paths can be in any form. For instance, you can listen to music which calms you down, you can talk to a person who can make you feel at home, or you can write about your experience to let go.