Your Emotions Aren't your Enemies - They can be a Doorway to Healing

Maybe you’ve learned or decided that emotions are dangerous and you try to push them down or control them. 

Maybe you’ve been taught from your parents, teachers or bosses that emotions are self-indulgent and what’s more important is achievement and looking good. 

Maybe you had to dismiss, suppress or deny your own feelings because a family member was expressive and louder about their own needs. 

Trauma intensifies your difficulty in dealing with strong emotions. When your nervous system is in a prolonged state of fight or flight, it’s like the volume is turned up on fear, overwhelm and anger to hard to control levels.

In trauma there’s also a shutting down of the pre-frontal cortex in the brain. This would normally turn the volume back down on the emotional brain and keep things in perspective. 

Emotions are not actually the problem. They’re a natural part of human life. The problem is the coping mechanisms we use to relate to them: resistance, disassociation and suppression is what keeps you stuck in the emotion. This is what affects our thoughts, decision making and relationships. 

You can learn the skills to relate to difficult emotions wisely in my Masterclass: Self-Awareness for Nervous System Regulation.