By in Meditation

What Happens When You Bottle Up Your Emotions

In our racy, focused and unrelenting society that requires us to perform the same tasks day in and day out, there is often no room for the expression of emotions. In fact, any expression of emotions may be seen as weak, irrelevant or just plain embarrassing. We may even resort to taking a medication just so that our increasingly overwhelming emotions, do not sabotage our ability to earn an income and therefore keep a roof over our heads. But what are the long term effects of bottling up your emotions?

If expressing an emotion has been ascribed to being weak or irrelevant it’s no wonder people find it hard to admit to having them, especially in a world that is dominated by the notional masculine – where the intellect reigns and the emotions are just some wayward human or female frailty to be tamed by the mind. The issue I’d like to explore is just how unintelligent it is to ignore the emotions in favour of the critical capacities of the mind which, operating necessarily out of a disregard for the real visceral sensations of the body, has made some of the most uninformed, unwise, and disconnected decisions veiled as good for our well-being. I refer to issues such as the prescribing of many drugs whose side effects can be as bad as the condition an individual is being treated for. This is clearly, an unwise, counter – natural imposition on a body already under siege.

What are the mental effects of bottling up emotions?

When we talk about ‘mental health’, we are talking about the ability of the mind to behave in a calm and rational manner, much coveted by our modern system. To have good mental health means to have a clear and open thinking mind unclouded by inner turmoil. However, once you start to bottle up emotions, that rise up from beyond the thinking mind, and yet still try and maintain your calm and composure, you are effectively screwing the top down on a pressure cooker. It is only a matter of time, before you will start to experience either a sense of anxiety, panic, depression or even to explode in bouts of unpredictable anger. We may try and reason with ourselves about our emotions convincing ourselves that we shouldn’t really have them, but all that does is further disenfranchise us from our inner life and compound the problem.

What are the physical effects of bottling up emotions?

In my practice as a transpersonal therapist, one of the benefits of working with the heart and soul of my clients, has been to literally witness the improvement of physical conditions once the emotions are released from the body. In many people, I have witnessed the emotion of fear and anxiety literally weaken the body to such an extent that people can become housebound – in particular in the case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome of Fibromyalgia. I’ve also seen the effects of resentment towards a large figure in a person’s childhood, create things from Multiple Sclerosis to Crohn’s disease. And I literally mean, create. Once those emotions are processed and released, spontaneous healing often comes about. This is never more the case as those with IBS who tend to suffer an intolerable perfectionism which creates an inability to ‘stomach’ anything. When physical symptoms come before emotional context, I feel we are immediately at a disadvantage. If all we have to go by are the physical symptoms, then I naturally want to know what lies beneath them: which human experience and therefore unexpressed emotion has contributed to the manifestation of this physical issue?

What is the role of emotions

If emotions and their expression is seen as such a retrograde step, so much so that we have learned not to trust them in favour of a more ‘rational’ mental perspective on life, what on earth are they for? Why are a growing number of people at some time or another at odds with their emotional life, unknowingly bottling up their unruly inner world, in favour of an almost robotic, unfeeling and objective perspective on life which, at best is unreasonable, and at worst, positively damaging! The role of emotions, in my opinion, is what makes us real human beings. It is our ability to have emotions, that makes us aware of dangers, as well as love, and of the need for compassion and empathy. These qualities are what make us truly human and able to connect to each other meaningfully, working together as a community.

The benefits of ignoring the emotions – personal and societal

The personal benefits of ignoring the emotions are limited. While in the short term it might enable a challenge to be effectively negotiated, in the long term, it stores up unaddressed trauma that is compounded by the compulsion to not really deal with it. The lack of acceptance for our emotionality has destroyed our connectivity within communities and disenfranchised us from our feelings, which actually suits modern society very well. Not only do we turn out unthinking robots to serve our masters, but when they malfunction, we pump them full of drugs to get them back to functional servants. To address the deeper issue, is to admit that how we see the modern human is actually as an automaton following orders. To the system, that is a benefit of ignoring the emotions. To ourselves, each and every one of us, it is a cost that should not be paid – EVER!

Societal effects

Socially the effects are magnified by the obvious fact that everyone, at the mere whisper of an emotion, automatically thinks they are crazy, or wrong, or that these emotions are not justified. We self sensor trying to conform to some arbitrary idea of what it means to be a successful and happy member of society, so often beamed at us through the media and TV. Social conformity is a force to be reckoned with and if one person has disowned their emotions and taken a drug instead that fits in with the societal narrative, you can bet your bottom dollar that others will follow, blindly believing that the solution to their emotional turmoil resides in a bottle of tablets because ‘that’s what you do’ isn’t it?

How to negotiate your own emotions

However, if you want to make use of your emotions in the way that they were intended, that is NOT what you do. If you want to successfully negotiate your forbidden feelings, your self censored emotions that you have deemed unacceptable, then you have to take some kind of action to bring them to light, not drug them out of existence. In the light, they become valuable and useful friends, showing you where you need healing and in the process, creating mentally and emotionally strong and spiritually connected human beings.

One way I suggest is to negotiate your emotions and to begin to listen to them deeply. Each of them has a message for you. They are there to protect you, to connect you with things more meaningful and larger than yourself, and to enable rich and rewarding relationships. Meditate, spend time alone, notice what you feel, practice mindfulness, challenge your thoughts and ask if they are true. However, if you are doing this with the same mind that you created the problem with in the first place, you are probably using a broken tool. Sometimes, it simply takes someone removed from your immediate circle of influence, who can see the traps you are in. They can help shed some light on how your inner demons, and inner beliefs, are actually driving your life, and witness you in your fullness as a human being. This is deeply healing and gives permission for you to own your emotions, use them as they were intended (before you bottled them up) and free yourself to be who YOU are, and not who your boss, work or family need you to be for them to remain in their stupefied status quo. If I can help you unravel the puzzle, give me a call.

Jenny Lynn
Latest posts by Jenny Lynn (see all)