How to Stop Stuffing Your Emotions to Become a Healthier, Happier You
... despite living in a toxic environment
Years ago, I read a fascinating article about the connection between anger and heart health. The researchers discovered a recovering coronary patient’s heart showed dangerous levels of stress whenever he became enraged.
The link between our mind and body isn’t surprising; they are the components of our “self.” Yet, for some reason, we’ve imagined each aspect of ourselves operating on different planes.
The mind-body connection becomes even more critical for those of us who have or are surviving toxic relationships.
Antagonistic personalities suffer significant emotional immaturity and neurological deficits, making emotional regulation and self-soothing challenging. Instead of internally managing stress, they blame others for what goes wrong. When distressed, they “lean into” those around them for support. It isn’t their fault they overslept; you should have woken them. They’re having a bad day because you brought up the wrong subject, and the list continues.
This regulation difficulty also affects their ability to comfort others. Their limited internal resources inadequately equip them to handle others' emotions. They blow up at a baby’s crying, accuse you of being manipulative for having a bad day, and storm off at the first sign of your distress.
Over time, survivors often learn the bad habit of holding in or stuffing their emotions. They ignore, neglect, deny, or reject what they’re feeling. And slowly, they become less and less aware of their emotional reactions.
The consequences of this can be devastating.
Emotions have to go somewhere, so they become stored in our bodies. Is it any surprise that there are skyrocketing rates of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases in abuse survivors?
The obvious solution is to learn how to express emotions safely, but this is easier said than done, especially if you’re still in a toxic situation or it’s become an ingrained habit.
To learn more:
Check out Tara and Lisa’s discussion of this topic on this week’s podcast. You can listen to it here.
Unfortunately, there won’t be a live stream this week. The next one will be March 5th.
In the next section, subscribers will get:
This week’s Podcast Extra— Lisa and I discuss our progress in unlearning the bad habit of stuffing our emotions
An Emotions Checklist
A Breath Work Exercise
A List of Self-Soothing/Emotional Regulation Resources
And this week’s podcast transcript
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