Your Clan, My Clan, Everybody's Clan: Emotional and Physical Costs of Hiding Our Emotions

Emotional and Physical Costs of Hiding Our Emotions.

From an early age most of us are trained to hide our negative emotions. We’ve experienced receiving praise or positive reinforcement when we behaved well and punishment or negative reinforcement with emotional chastisement, disapproval, or shaming when we cried, showed anger, or other unacceptable emotions.  So instead of fully experiencing negative emotions, we developed a long list of strategies to avoid them – that still work for us today.  Some basic strategies include, talking ourselves out of it (whatever we are feeling), ignoring it, blaming someone else, getting busy doing something else, eat, drink, or call a friend. Consciously and subconsciously, we may have used many distractions and are adding new and improved ones all the time!  As a result, negative emotions are stored up inside, and are triggered in adult life by new negative experiences.

Our brain stores information – all information – from all our experiences.  It does not differentiate between the details of past and present experiences.  So, this is why we are triggered into feeling the same emotions and thinking the same thoughts when we are experiencing a situation that is similar to one/s from the past.  

Symptoms of Repressed Emotional Trauma.

Anxiety. Are you feeling anxious, even when you’re safe?
Something is missing. Relatively happy, just not quite fulfilled and in constant search.
Rage. You generally keep it together, but when someone pushes you over the border you respond with rage.
Depression. Totally stuck, no motivation and no idea how to get out from this “black hole”.
Lack of purpose. Do you feel you living just a half-life with no clear direction?
Feeling unworthy. In constant need for validation from someone else.
Isolation. Do you feel lonely, but safer when you’re alone?
Procrastination. Frozen by inaction and indecision, even when it matters most
Disease. Illnesses happens where the cells are blocked.

The important thing to remember here is that our brain has constructed these ego defenses to protect us.  That is to say that our brain stop processing information that is too overwhelming for us thereby creating less intensity for us to deal with.  That is why we often feel calm during a crisis.  Even though the storm is raging, we experience standing in the eye of the storm where it is quiet and peaceful and calm. 

The problem with repressing trauma is that we use vital life-force energy to keep our true feelings in check, or hidden.  We begin to feel emotionally disconnected from those closest to us.  Some folks describe this as numb or feeling dead inside although externally others see a smiling face.

This process has been described extensively by endocrinologist, Dr. Deepak Chopra, in his research of how the body reacts to emotional trauma. He discovered that if the emotion is not fully expressed, it causes various cell receptors in the brain to shut down. Over time this unhealthy process can become a major contributor on the creation of illness (emotional or physical).  The “illness” may be experienced as tension or pain in the body, stress or, unhealthy patterns of behavior.

Family members are often dismayed with their inability to control their emotions and reactions to a present situation despite their efforts and progress with their recovery practices.  One of the important things to remember when working on our recovery is to be gentle with ourselves.  As we gain a better understanding and acceptance of what has happened to us, we can consciously create healthier ways of living so that our recovery becomes a joyful journey. 

My prayer for all suffering family members is that they will progress in healing past trauma and begin to experience true joy in being fully emotionally alive today.