Do you carry burdens that seem to choke the life out of you? Some refer to these massive weights as carrying a heavy load. But the damage it does inside is far more significant than what people realize. Worse, you inflict even more stress if you start repressing your feeling in an effort to stay strong.
Life is full of disappointments, but according to the National Institute of Health, it’s how you react to these setbacks that can alter the course of your existence.
What Causes Someone to Start Repressing Their Feelings?
If you and your spouse decide you want to get a divorce, it doesn’t mean that you can call off work or the following week. You must still go to work and handle business, so you push aside or suppress these emotions until you have time to deal with them.
Often, people suppress things as a short-term fix when they can’t handle the situation right now. The key is that you must deal with them at some point or cause a big problem. Repressed feelings are those emotions that you never processed.
Don’t think that these feelings and emotions will disappear if you don’t deal with them, as they will linger under the surface. In most cases, they will come out as physical pains and discomforts because your emotions are causing significant distress internally.
A hypothetical example would be Carrie, who lost her mother at a young age. She was forced to live with a father who didn’t know how to connect with her, and she often felt alone. During her teenage years, her father becomes quite abusive.
Shew grew up thinking there was something wrong with her and that she was a bad kid that made her mom sick. She furthered validated this emotion because her dad didn’t seem to like her either. Feeling like a failure and an outcast defined her life.
The burdens she carried were indeed too much to handle, and what happened to her as a child affected her as an adult. She repressed years of frustrations and feelings of inadequacy that spilled out into her marriage.
Carrie suffered from depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. If only she knew how to stop repressing her feelings, she could have a more positive life.
Common Types of Repressed Emotions
Most of the emotions you repress will be unpleasant or those that cause you significant discomfort. The most repressed feelings are anger, sadness, fear, frustration, and disappointment. Essentially, people suppress those things that are negative.
It’s not uncommon for individuals to fear judgment from others, or you may beat up on yourself. In most cases, these feelings stem from childhood. Parents of yesteryear weren’t so good at psychological aspects, though many improvements have been made.
Parents didn’t always validate your feelings, and they may have even encouraged you to stop crying or showing any outbursts. So, you learn to repress things so that you didn’t get into trouble. You learned to be out of touch with your emotions, and it can follow you into adulthood.
Twelve Positive Things That Happens When You Stop Repressing Feelings
What baggage do you drag around daily? The load is heavy to carry, and it’s causing you more problems than you know. Perhaps you should understand the positive things that will happen when you stop repressing your feelings. These are the things that can happen.
1. You’ll Have Less Stress
Stress is inevitable in life, but sometimes you can cause yourself more pressure than you need. When you ruminate on your problems or don’t deal with issues, you’ll cause your muscles to tense and your mind to become overloaded. Laying your burdens down will give you more energy to focus on other things because you’re no longer preoccupied with all the negativities.
2. You Will Have Lower Blood Pressure
There is a direct link between your blood pressure and your stress levels. According to the National Institute of Health, when you’re under stress, your body releases hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to combat the feelings. These hormones will increase your blood pressure levels.
So, it stands to reason that when you stop repressing things that are causing you stress, it will lower your blood pressure.
3. Your Whole Outlook Will Change
Have you ever carried around a heavy purse or duffle bag? Remember how relieved you felt when you put down that weight? You will receive the same relief when you get rid of your repressed feelings.
Getting rid of the thing that torments you emotionally will give you a whole new outlook on life.
4. You Will Experience Better Relationships
Perhaps you hold resentments and failures from past relationships. You can’t move on to someone new when you’re constantly stuck in the past. Remember, it’s not what’s behind you that counts; it’s the lessons you learn that help you move forward.
5. You’ll Have Better Communication
No one feels like talking when they weight the world on their shoulders. When your emotions are off-kilter, you don’t feel like getting out of bed and facing others. You can have more open communication when you learn to talk about all the things that are bothering you, especially if you open up and talk to a counselor.
6. You’ll Smile More
You will feel so much relief when you handle your emotions that you will want to smile more. It’s challenging to put a smile on your face when your whole world seems to be falling apart. However, positivity gives you a reason to beam.
7. The Future Won’t Seem So Bleak
You’ll start dreaming again. When you’re caught in the vicious cycle of ruminating about your problems, it’s impossible to think of your future. When you’re stuck in the past, and your emotions are a mess, you want to get through the day. Thankfully, laying your burdens down will help you feel better and look to the future with hope.
8. Depression and Anxiety Will Lessen
While some depressive episodes come about because of chemical imbalances in the brain, others are brought on by circumstances. It’s natural to feel down and blue when you’ve lost a loved one, your job, or had some other horrific event in your life. Once you get rid of all these repressed feelings, you will feel some of the cloud of depression lift.
9. Your Attitude Will Change
It’s easy to have a bad attitude when you feel down and negative all the time. Releasing the burdens that you carry can be so freeing. Not only will your outlook on life change, but your attitude will improve.
If you’re sad and blue all the time, then you won’t have a reason to smile. Oh, how wonderful it will feel when you finally conquer these demons that plague you.
10. You’ll Have Courage to Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone
Fear and anxiety about your future will hold you back. Maybe you want to go back to school, put your foot in the dating pool again, or try a new hobby. You may have lacked the courage to do these things before because your emotions were so out of whack.
However, once you get things back under control, then you will feel like taking some risks. After all, if you can conquer those repressing feelings, then why not tackle something else.
11. You’ll Feel Like Getting Out and Doing Things
Remember all those phone calls and invitations you turned down because you didn’t feel like going out? It’s completely normal to want to close yourself off in your bedroom and cry. Sulking won’t get you anywhere in life, but getting out and mingling with others will help.
Most people want to feel like they have a life, and it’s hard to feel like a contributing member of society when you’re miserable all the time. Your emotions can be just as bad as a raging storm that is causing massive destruction. Once the winds and waves die down, you can learn to see the beauty all around you.
12. You’ll Love You Again
While many situations can hold you back, it seems that matters of the heart are the ones that hurt the most. Stop beating yourself up over things you did or didn’t do right with pasts loves. So, one relationship didn’t work out; it doesn’t mean that the next one will end the same way.
There is someone for everyone, and your special person is waiting for you to find them. However, Mr. or Ms. wonderful doesn’t usually knock at your front door, so you will need to get out among the people again. When your heart has been healed from previous damage, and you have your emotions under control, then you’re ready to fall in love all over again.
Final Thoughts on Repressing Feelings
Repressing your feelings is only holding you back. When you drown in negativity, you can’t get on to the positive things that life has for you. It’s time to deal with all the emotions you’ve put off, either by default or on purpose. It’s time to live again, and this can be your first day and the first step towards healing.
