Are You a Stuffer?
Emotional stuffers are people who spend their entire life trying to push their emotions aside and truck through life in order to keep up with the demands of expectations both self-imposed and placed on them by others. They learned these skills usually at a young age. Society and their family system seemed to honor and value their resilience and helped to reinforce the fact that they could accomplish so much while seamlessly letting difficult emotional situations just roll off them. Yet, there is a cost to this stuffing! Eventually, the emotions seep out through anger, resentment, or an overall feeling of a joyless life.
Impact of Stuffing
Stuffing emotions, or repressing and avoiding the expression of one’s feelings, can have various negative impacts on mental and emotional well-being over time.
When emotions are constantly repressed and not addressed, they can build up and lead to increased stress and anxiety. Bottling up emotions can create a cycle of tension and internal conflict, which can contribute to chronic stress. When emotions are not expressed, it can have negative effects on physical health. Chronic stress from unexpressed emotions can lead to health problems such as high blood pressure, digestive issues, weakened immune system, and increased risk of heart disease.
Repressed emotions can also contribute to the development or exacerbation of mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and mood disorders. Avoiding emotional expression can prevent individuals from processing and working through their thoughts and feelings, leading to emotional distress. It can also lead to relationship strain as keeping emotions inside can impact relationships with others. Bottling up feelings can result in communication barriers, misunderstandings, and conflicts in personal and professional relationships. It can also lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. I see so much of this in my practice with high-functioning individuals who are successful in their careers, but will avoid difficult conversations both professionally and personally as it is too much emotionally for them to handle.
When They Can’t Be Contained
When people suppress emotions they often limit their ability to understand and manage their own emotions as well as empathize with others. This can hinder emotional growth and interpersonal skills. Vulnerability can be extremely scary for many, and therefore acting as if they aren’t bothered by things seems easier at first than expressing their true feelings. Yet emotions that are stuffed and not addressed may surface unexpectedly and inappropriately. This can lead to outbursts of anger, frustration, or other intense emotions that can be difficult to control. It can also cause conflict with both personal and professional relationships and increase the shame trigger of showing up how someone doesn’t want to show up in front of colleagues and their loved ones.
Learning To Step Into Emotion
It can feel very uncomfortable at first, yet after some practice, clients start to learn that leaning into the discomfort and allowing themselves to actually get curious about the emotions they are having, can have a huge impact on decreasing their anxiety and distress levels. When we run from our emotions we end up in a vicious cycle of trying to manage symptoms rather than getting curious about the cause, and just acknowledging the feelings inside the body. Often just recognizing where we feel it and sitting with it for a short while can help reduce symptoms.
In my practice, I help people not only learn to regulate their emotions, but also learn to sit with them, get curious about them, take new perspectives, and then circle back into conversation with the people they need to about their emotions. It’s a skill that everyone can learn if they are willing to embrace the discomfort for a short period of time. Yet the real work comes with going back into conversation with those that got us emotionally hooked with shame that leads to anger, frustration, or even a sense of lack of value or worth. EMDR is a powerful tool that can help navigate the maze of emotion and help people start to feel less triggered and more capable of managing their emotions.