Suppressed emotions

[Skiigyrl]

I recently discovered I am quite out of touch with my emotions and have been suppressing them for a long time now. I have been journaling which helps, but any other useful tips I should explore?

[LoveforAll41]

Howdy Skiigyrl, I think that I am in the same boat. I have tried to avoid negative emotions my whole life. I think that the mindfulness thing is good. I hate mindfulness but realizing that it is more about sitting in the emotion and the present moment vs meditating or something to feel better makes me like it more. Realizing that these negative emotions are okay, and all emotions, makes me more able to feel them. I think that knowing and learning why we might try to avoid feelings makes it easier to overcome that and feel our feelings too.

I am new at this so I can't claim to be good at it, but I am liking the works of Kristin Neff on self-compassion. I can be nice to myself about my feelings, acknowledge them, and carry on while providing myself what I really need. ☮️

[Skiigyrl in reply to LoveforAll41]

thanks I’ll look at that author.

[Amiwrong]

gosh, that’s a tough one. Make sure you have journal prompts, specific questions to answer. This helps me rather than always random writing. Being mindful of how you react or respond to people, situations, during your days. Think back even if you can. Be curious about whys. Why did I respond that way? Why did my body react that way? Could it be because [ …..]. Sometimes it’s my body that reacts first before I know that’s somethings amiss, and then the emotions come. Tell yourself it’s ok to feel any emotion and let it out. Anger is seen as the bad emotion, but it’s not, only if we hurt someone with it, but otherwise it could tell us a lot about what is going on inside. The emotions wheel helps with that.

Identifying the emotion is really helpful and then connecting that emotion to the action. That can be like a jig saw puzzle. I may get angry at my coworker because they keep overstepping, but underneath all that my true emotions are probably linked to a history of feeling like I let people walk all over me.

I’m not sure if any of this is helpful, and it’s not meant to be overwhelming. You are starting a journey of exploration, just think of it that way

[Skiigyrl in reply to Amiwrong]

very helpful, but what is emotion wheel? Is there a resource for that?

[Amiwrong in reply to Skiigyrl]

Oh yes, if you Google it there at so many. There’s an inner wheel with our main emotions that’s often easier to identify and then a middle wheel corresponding to that emotion that you can choose to better describe how you feel, and then an outer wheel that’s broken down even more. Sometimes it’s not always easy to identify which one you feel, but in time, with practice, it gets easier. Start with some of the more obvious emotions that you are feeling so that it’s easier to identify.