None of us is immune to our human experience. Throughout our lives, we experience emotions that disturb or distress us. Often, our first reaction is to push our feelings away. We may say, “I don’t want to think about that right now; I’ll think about it later.” We bury our emotions, deny the validity of our feelings, or distract ourselves.
The diverse emotions we experience are neither good nor bad – they’re simply a part of being alive. Choosing not to experience pain, anger, or other intense feelings could cause those emotions to become buried deep in our physical body. They linger there, unresolved and unable to emerge, even though they affect how we experience the world. Allowing ourselves to experience all our emotions rather than pushing the more painful ones away can help us come to terms with our feelings so we can experience them and then move on.
It’s possible to bring forth the old feelings you’ve pushed aside and experience them in a safe and enriching way. It may sound silly to set aside time to feel your old wounds – the ones you haven’t dealt with which can be deeply cathartic and beneficial.
Find a safe place and pick a time when you can be alone. Make sure you feel secure and comfortable in your surroundings. Bring to mind the circumstances that originally triggered the emotions you’ve been pushing away. You may need to revisit these circumstances by reading relevant entries in your journal or using visualisation to relive your past. Once you trigger your long-denied emotions, let yourself feel your feelings, and try not to judge your reactions, you can set yourself free and break old patterns that keep you stuck.
When you deal with your feelings directly, they can move through you rather than staying stuck up in your body as emotional blocks that can sometimes turn into disease. Acknowledging your emotions instead of pushing them away allows you to stay emotionally healthy and fully accept yourself as you are.