Controlling your Emotions Is Bad for You
Emotional Regulation invites us to befriend ourselves and learn from our emotions instead
My throat tightens and I feel tears behind my eyes. My stomach starts to turn. There is a heaviness on my chest as if someone is compressing my lungs. My shoulders are tensing up to my ears. I want to run away from my own life.
These are all signs of anxiety in my physical body.
I recognize my feeling. I name it: Anxiety.
I take a deep breath and slowly exhale. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Again. Inhale. Exhale. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
My hand is on my stomach, the other on my heart. My eyes are closed.
I keep breathing until the tightness releases a little.
I open my eyes. I notice where I am. I focus on something beautiful. An autumn tree, vibrant with color. A favorite painting. A photograph of my son.
“I am safe,” I whisper to myself. “I am strong.”
This is my practice of emotional regulation.
For the majority of my life I didn’t know I could regulate my emotions. As a super big feeler, I have often by overcome or overwhelmed by my feelings. I’ve spent many nights crying or raging, believing that my emotions were bad, something to be expelled or controlled. But I couldn’t control them. And I couldn’t get rid of them. I believed I was at their mercy. I believed I was bad because I had them.
I ignored them and stifled them. I learned not to show them to others. I did my best to keep a tight reign on them. But in private they were all I could see.
The majority of my clients have expressed a desire to learn how to deal with their emotions. Most of them, like me, have learned that their feelings are bad and irrational and therefore need to be silenced. But the emotions always come out.
For some, the emotions erupt like a volcano. Dormant and silent until suddenly something snaps and everyone around is left running for cover.
For others, the emotions eat away at the individual. They are internalized and expressed in self-hatred, low self-confidence, and withdrawing from relationships.
And still for others, the emotions have been numbed to the point that the feeler doesn’t feel anything. Not joy. Not sorrow. Just flat-lining through life. A low-lying, long-term depression.
We have all been surprised and a little unbelieving that there can be a different way. A different way than trying to control and manage and hold ourselves tight to not have these feelings.
In emotional regulation, not having feelings is not the goal.
Noticing them is.
Let me back up. We often have been told we should control ourselves. “Control your feelings.” And that is what leads us to put a lid on them and feel like it is inappropriate to feel anything “too big.” Yet the emotions keep showing up no matter how much we try to silence them. There is an important reason for this.
Emotions are a Center of Intelligence in our bodies. They communicate to us important information about ourselves and the world around us. They tell us if we are in danger (or we at least believe ourselves to be). They let us know when we are safe. Emotions tell us when our boundaries have been crossed or when we should not take another step forward. They also let us know when we are experiencing something good and when we can celebrate.
The Enneagram teaches us that we need to integrate our Emotional Center of Intelligence into our lives in order to be healthy individuals. Controlling and keeping emotions out suppresses our maturity.
Controlling and keeping emotions out suppresses our maturity.
Do you remember the Pixar movie, Inside Out? In the movie, we get an inside look at the emotions of the main character Riley. Riley went through a move from Minnesota to California at the beginning of the movie (as a formerly displaced Minnesotan, I immediately empathized). She believes she must keep her chin up and be the family’s happy, smiling girl, and she does her best to hide the other feelings she is experiencing. We see inside her brain as Riley “Joy” is trying to keep “Sadness” from “ruining everything.”
Joy leaves Fear, Anger, and Disgust in charge as she tries to control Sadness. Hilarity and chaos ensues. Ultimately, we discover along with Joy that Sadness is essential. Sadness needs space to be expressed.
What isn’t stated explicitly in the movie is that each emotion is a piece of Riley. When an emotion expresses itself, like an outburst at her parents, Riley is trying to communicate something of herself. Like a cry for help as best as she can because the move across the country has left her wounded.
The same is true for us.
The wounded part that is crying out for help, that part is desperately hoping that you will pay attention to them. That you will take them seriously. That you will listen.
We must learn to notice our emotions because when we do we are noticing ourselves. We must learn to befriend our feelings because we are befriending ourselves.
This means not pushing down your anger or fear or shame but receiving it and reassuring it you are listening.
My practice of emotional regulation I shared above may look like I am simply calming my body to silence my emotions (and I confess, at times that subconsciously is my goal). But what I am doing is in fact paying attention to the scared, vulnerable part of me that wants to act out to be heard. I am tuning in and reassuring her that I am actually safe, not in need of my typical fawning or fighting response that arises in my anxiety.
In practicing emotional regulation, I am not pushing my anxious feeling away but inviting her along to see that at the time there is nothing to be afraid of. And if there is something to be afraid or concerned about, I would also reassure her that I will take care of that as well.
The Enneagram names three main emotions that each type experiences the most: Anger, Shame, and Fear. In the coming weeks, I will explore those three emotions and I invite you to subscribe for free as we learn about these strong emotions together. We will study what they tell us, why we have them, and different practices for regulating these emotions.
For now, I leave you with this:
If you have big feelings or have been told your emotions are too much, you are not alone. You are not too much. Your feelings are valuable and a gift. They give you insight into the world around you and are so important. Your emotions give you strength, after all it is in vulnerability that we are strong.
May you embrace those parts of yourself you have pushed away for so long.
Perhaps you don’t want to wait for the coming series on emotional regulation and want to get started now. I understand. I offer Enneagram Coaching as a tool for learning more about yourself so you can practice self-awareness and emotional regulation. Learn more about my one-on-one course, Knowing You here or sign up for a free consultation here.