Emotional Suppression
Barbara Heffernan • October 9, 2025
Emotional Suppression Can Backfire
The Hidden Costs of Emotional Suppression: Why Stuffing Down Your Feelings Backfires
Do you tend to stuff your feelings down, pushing away emotions like fear, sadness, and anger? This is called emotional suppression, and it's a common coping mechanism. But this strategy comes with significant hidden costs. Suppressing your emotions has been shown to increase your physiological stress response, impact your memory, and negatively affect your relationships. In the next few minutes, let's explore what emotional suppression is, why it backfires, and what you can do about it.
What Is Emotional Suppression?
Emotional suppression occurs when you inhibit your emotions. This can be done consciously or subconsciously. When it's done unconsciously, it is sometimes called repression.
The inhibition of emotion can affect what you show to the world and it can also be that you are denying the emotion even to yourself.
The Spectrum of Emotional Suppression
Emotional suppression exists on a spectrum. At one end, we all need to suppress the expression of our emotions occasionally in particular situations. This can be adaptive—not starting to cry in the middle of an intense negotiation at work, not erupting in anger at your boss or in public or at your spouse. We can choose when to share our emotions and temporarily suppress their expression. As long as we acknowledge the emotion and work through it at some point without too significant a delay, this is what I would call adaptive. It's a coping strategy that probably works for us.
Moving along the spectrum, some people have certain emotions they suppress, perhaps feelings of anger or sadness. Here, people are aware they're having that feeling, they don't want it, and they do what they can to push it down.
Toward the middle of the spectrum, people suppress almost all of their negative emotions (which has the side effect of suppressing positive ones as well). If we continue this pattern, or if we learned it very young, we reach the point where we're completely suppressing emotions without being aware of it.
At the far end of the spectrum is what's called repression, where the emotion is suppressed completely unconsciously, out of your conscious awareness.
Common Techniques Used to Suppress Emotions
Here are examples of several common suppression techniques:
*Staying too busy
Running on adrenaline, keeping too busy to deal with emotions. The internal dialogue (conscious or subconscious) might be, "I'm okay feeling all the anxiety and stress about all this stuff, but I'm not going to feel those deeper emotions—the hurt or the sadness, or even the anger."
*Avoidance
"I know that doing X, Y, Z thing makes me anxious. I'm going to avoid it." Avoidance is chosen instead of addressing why the activity makes you anxious, or upset, or irritated....
*Overriding with habitual emotions
Some people feel anxious all the time, and that anxiety probably covers up deeper and more difficult emotions—usually hurt or sadness. Other people might be angry all the time, and that anger does the same thing. It covers up those more vulnerable emotions that people don't like to feel. If this resonates with you, it's worth investigating.
I call the emotion we frequently feel, which covers up the vulnerable emotions, a "habitual emotion." This is a super common technique that I never hear discussed.
*False positivity
This could be false positivity to the outside world as well as to ourselves, essentially denying that we're having any difficult emotions.
*Denial
Simply refusing to acknowledge that you feel the difficult emotion(s).
Signs You Might Be Suppressing Emotions Without Knowing It
Signs that you might be suppressing your emotions without even being aware of it—whether it's subconscious or unconscious—could include:
- Chronic health issues
- Unexplained anxiety or depression
- Feeling detached
- Feeling numb
- Feeling unconnected from yourself or your own life
That last one is a signal of fairly advanced emotional suppression. There's no judgment here. This happens for many reasons, and these patterns are very common.
I recently released a video and blog on why people are emotionally dysregulated, which I'm guessing will attract those who have huge overblown emotions. But it also applies to people who suppress — emotional dysregulation includes both extremes. You can find these here: Why Am I So Emotionally Dysregulated Blog and Video.
Three Major Areas Impacted by Emotional Suppression
I want to highlight three areas that have been scientifically proven to be impacted if you regularly suppress your emotions:
1. How you feel, both physically (your physiology) and emotionally
2. How you think (your cognitions)
3. Relationships
Physiological and Emotional Impact
Research shows that when we suppress emotions, we actually make them stronger. They might leak out in other ways or be contained until they explode, but suppressing them generally makes them worse. It's also been shown that suppressing emotions takes significant energy and mental focus. There's a high cost in terms of the effort required.
There are cardiovascular connections to suppressing emotions, including higher blood pressure and constricted blood vessels. Research has shown a connection to certain chronic illnesses. While that research isn't definitive, it makes sense.
In one research study, people watched movies. One group was told to feel whatever they felt. The other group was told to try not to be impacted by what they were watching. While watching, researchers monitored their heart rate and blood pressure. They found actual evidence that people suppressing the emotion—really trying not to feel anything—had increased blood pressure and heart rate. Their stress chemicals were increasing.
Cognitive Impact
People's memories are worse if they're suppressing their emotions. This makes sense when we consider the energy issue I mentioned earlier. If you're putting your focus on suppressing the emotion, you're not paying attention to what is happening around you. We only encode in memory what we pay attention to.
What we are aware of, we encode. So if our focus is on suppressing our emotions, our memory won't be as strong.
Impact on Relationships
Generally when you suppress your emotions, you end up suppressing both negative and positive emotions. That isn't beneficial for relationships.
What I also find is that when someone suppresses their emotions and maintains false positivity, it can be very distancing for the other person—whether that's a partner, friend, romantic relationship, sibling, or parent-child relationship.
If someone is suppressing their emotions, you get this feeling that you don't know what's going on with them. They may feel like a stranger. This makes emotional intimacy very difficult.
I recently read fascinating research showing that when someone is next to a person who is actively suppressing their emotions, the person next to them experiences an increase in their stress chemicals. The research paired two people who didn't know each other, told one to suppress their emotions, and measured all the physiological signs in the other person.
I've experienced this myself. I can think of many examples where I'm worried about something or processing something, and I'm with someone who says "everything's fine"—it makes my stress levels rise. I could definitely relate to that research.
This has real-world impact: missing details in conversations, missing opportunities for emotional connection. Probably what's missing most deeply is an emotional connection with yourself, because, over time, you stop knowing what you're feeling. Eventually you might feel numbed out about everything, or your emotions just feel like a messy area you try to keep in a box without even knowing what they are.
The Solution: Changing How You Think About and Deal With Emotions
There is a solution, and while it will take time, it's worth the effort.
Step One: Begin to Think About Your Emotions Differently
**All emotions are giving you information.** Our emotions are a treasure trove of information that's helpful for navigating the world, for knowing what we want, for knowing who we are, where we want to go, what we aim for, who we want to be with. All of that is provided through our emotions.
Some emotions are pleasant to feel and others are unpleasant to feel. But if we stop thinking of them as bad or good, and look at all of them as providing information—"What information is this emotion giving me?"—changing that viewpoint will be enormously helpful.
The other viewpoint to change about emotions is to **separate the emotion from the behavior that comes from that emotion.** In working with people over 20 years as a therapist, so many would say, "Anger is bad. Anger is bad." No, the feeling of anger is not bad. The behavior that anger can lead to—acting out in anger—can lead to pretty negative consequences. That behavior you might judge as good or bad, but the feeling itself is not bad.
Think about unpleasant versus pleasant—that's real and valid. Some emotions we like feeling. Some we don't. But don't tie the emotion to behavior that either comes from it for you or for other people.
Many people I worked with who suppressed their emotions had a parent who would act out in anger constantly, and that child had to learn to suppress their emotions to survive. But as they grew up, it also rationally made sense to them: "I don't want to be horrible like my parent. I don't want to explode in anger, be abusive, do all that stuff. And that's what anger does."
No—anger doesn't do that. The behavior that comes from your feeling
might do that. But other behaviors are likely to be more effective, and they
don't do that.
This is the big first step: changing your opinion of what emotions are.
Step Two: Acceptance and Validation
The second major step is accepting and validating the emotions you are having.
For many of us, while we were growing up our emotions were not validated. This is very common, and it can lead to numerous emotional regulation problems.
Here's an example of accepting and validating an angry response you are having:
"Yes, I feel angry. I'm going to validate that something happened and my response was anger. There is a reason I'm feeling the anger, and I can look into what that reason is. Once I understand that, I can decide my response."
When you accept and acknowledge your emotions—some people talk about inviting them in for tea—you can then explore: "What information is this emotion telling me? Is the anger telling me that somebody crossed my boundaries? Is the anger telling me that somebody hurt me?"
Anger is often a cover-up emotion. But by accepting it, validating it, and then beginning to investigate it, you can figure out what triggered it, why, and what the deeper, more vulnerable emotion underneath it. And then decide how you'd like to respond.
Additional Tools: Mindfulness and Self-Exploration
In one of my major online programs called the Roadmap to Joy and Authentic Confidence, we have an entire section on understanding your emotions. Before we get to that section, there's a section on mindfulness and meditation because that's a wonderful way to begin sitting with your emotions—really sitting with how your emotions connect to your thoughts, to your physiology, and understanding all the connections. With mindfulness meditation, you begin to see it all so much more clearly.
In that program, we start with an exploration of our values and of what we want—an internal exploration to begin figuring out who you truly are, authentically. Emotional intimacy starts with yourself.
Moving Forward
To summarize, begin thinking about emotional suppression as a tool you're using to regulate your emotions. It's probably not the most effective tool unless it's being used in very specific occasional situations. If you think of it as a tool you're using to regulate your emotions, you can open up to exploring other emotional regulation tools. I just released a video on that topic.
Know that your emotions are information, not enemies. Know that the emotion doesn't need to dictate the behavior that comes from it. And know you can improve your emotional regulation at any age.
Blog Author: Barbara Heffernan, LCSW, MBA. Barbara is a licensed psychotherapist and specialist in anxiety, trauma, and healthy boundaries. She had a private practice in Connecticut for twenty years before starting her popular YouTube channel designed to help people around the world live a more joyful life. Barbara has a BA from Yale University, an MBA from Columbia University and an MSW from SCSU. More info on Barbara can be found on her bio page.
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How much of your anxiety is about avoiding disappointment? Whether you have a fear of being disappointed, a fear of disappointing others, or a fear of disappointing ourselves, this desire to avoid disappointment can drive a lot of anxiety.
Is your concern reasonable or do you have problematic anxiety? This blog clearly outlines how to tell the difference and how to determine if your approach to your problem is reasonable or anxiety.
For some people, disappointment becomes a catalyst for growth. For many others, it triggers a descent into increasingly negative thinking patterns. The negative thinking reflects deep-seated negative core beliefs and is riddled with cognitive distortions—systematic errors in reasoning that distort reality and intensify emotional pain. Today I want to explain how cognitive distortions fuel the downward cycle. I will help you recognize these distortions in real time and provide practical tools so you can interrupt this cycle. Ideally, you will be able to extract useful information from disappointment. But even if you cannot get there yet, at least we can stop the downward spiral. How Disappointment Triggers Cognitive Distortions Something does not work out—something you hoped for, wanted, or needed does not happen the way you wanted. That leads to disappointment. Then your brain constructs a story about why the disappointment happened and how you should feel about it. Very often that story centers on what is wrong with you . We can move rapidly from disappointment to believing that the event not working out proves our negative beliefs about ourselves: "I am defective, I am not good enough, I am unlovable." The Cognitive Distortions That Fuel the Spiral Cognitive distortions are rigid, patterned ways of thinking. They can affect us across many areas of life. It is valuable to know which are your "go-to" cognitive distortions so that you can begin to recognize them when they occur. You become more aware of the thinking pattern and can observe, "There I go again. I am labeling. I am personalizing." That recognition creates distance between the thought pattern and our reaction to it. We are creating psychological space for ourselves and developing the observer mind—that wise part of the brain that notices these patterns and can evaluate them: Is this helpful? Is this not helpful? Personalization Personalization is when we take an event and make it about us—about our worth, our character, or what we did wrong—even when there are many other factors at play. A friend canceled plans, and we jump to the thought "they do not like me", or "I did something wrong the last time I saw them. We don't get a job we wanted, and we jump to "I am incompetent" or "nothing good ever happens to me because I do not deserve it, because I am not worthy." The event becomes personalized. I can hear you thinking that these things are personal. Yes and no. They personally happen to you, but if a friend cancels plans, there are countless possible reasons. The same applies when we do not get a job—there is much that is random and beyond our control. Labeling Labeling is when we reduce ourselves (or others) to a single defining characteristic, taking complex people and complex situations and drilling them down to one statement that supposedly covers everything. I" am defective." "I am incompetent." Labeling is a cognitive distortion because reality is never that simple. By nature, such statements are exaggerated and inaccurate. Overgeneralization Overgeneralization is when we take a single negative event and extrapolate it into a permanent, universal pattern. "I did not get this job, therefore I will never get a job." "I had a couple of dates with that person and really liked them, but they decided not to see me anymore, therefore I will never find a partner." A single negative event is extrapolated into a permanent pattern: this is how it will always be. Emotional Reasoning Emotional reasoning is when we assume that because we feel something intensely, it must be true. We draw conclusions based solely on our current emotional state rather than on evidence. "I feel like a failure, therefore I am a failure." "I feel right now like nothing will ever work out for me, therefore nothing will work out for me. I will defend this belief both to myself and to others because if I feel it this intensely, it must be true." But our feelings reflect our current emotional state. They are not predictors of the future. Emotional reasoning occurs when we draw conclusions based solely on how we feel in the moment, and usually those conclusions contain other cognitive distortions, such as catastrophizing.. Catastrophizing Catastrophizing is a cognitive distortion that conjures a worst-case scenario and then treats it as 100% certain to occur. As we catastrophize, our primitive brain, which controls much of our neurochemistry—our stress chemicals, our feel-good chemicals—does not distinguish between our catastrophic imaginings and reality. It does not recognize these stories as fiction. We often generate the stress chemicals that correspond to the catastrophic story. Those stress chemicals then amplify the rest of the cycle. Sometimes these are also shutdown chemicals that leave us feeling numbed or wanting to collapse. Catastrophizing almost invariably accompanies this type of reaction to disappointment. All-or-Nothing Thinking All-or-nothing thinking is when we see things in extreme, black-and-white terms with no middle ground. If something is not perfect, it is a complete failure. All-or-nothing thinking can create avoidance, which impacts our behavior. "I am not going to get a job like that, so why bother?" "I should not try to improve my situation at all. I will probably just be disappointed again, so I will not even try." This pattern is extremely common. Avoidance can lead to chronic disappointment and genuine hopelessness. Last week's video addressed chronic disappointment and its impact (you can find the blog here and the video here ). This avoidance constricts our world. We do not pursue what we want. We may even sever our connection to wanting because all wanting has ever done is cause pain. The Role of Negative Core Beliefs If you listen carefully to all these examples, you can hear that the themes are tied to negative core beliefs: I am defective, I am not good enough. Sometimes they are negative beliefs about the world: Nothing will ever work out for me. True healing requires addressing these very core negative beliefs. I have several videos on this topic, and I also have a free PDF that helps you identify your specific negative belief and provides three tools to begin transforming it. Five Tools to Break the Cycle Tool 1: Build Awareness We cannot change what we are not aware of. This week when you experience disappointment, which you likely will, notice where your thinking goes and see if it corresponds to any of the cognitive distortions I mentioned. If you are able to identify a cognitive distortion, label it: this is catastrophizing, this is all-or-nothing thinking, this is personalization. Even if you cannot stop the distortion, simply labeling it creates the distance between you and your thoughts. You can combine this with labeling the feeling you are experiencing. Scientific studies demonstrate that labeling your thoughts and feelings aids emotional regulation. The simple act of labeling activates a different part of your brain—the prefrontal cortex—which helps calm the amygdala and the fight-flight-freeze response. Tool 2: Challenge These Thoughts With Reality Check Questions Ask yourself: Whatever I am imagining about the future, the disaster scenario I have constructed—is this happening right now? Is this guaranteed to happen? Is it 100% certain? Do I need the stress chemicals I am generating right now as I think about this? If it is not happening right now, I do not need these stress chemicals. Is there something I can do about this right now? Part of the reality check involves determining whether you can physiologically calm your body while thinking through whatever problem exists. There are always problems, and your disappointment likely stems from a real problem. Some of these problems are extremely important, but they do not require this kind of distorted thinking or these chemicals. What they require is full-brain problem-solving. Sometimes it is helpful to write down what we are feeling or thinking. If we feel too overwhelmed, we can decide, "I can't think this through right now, but I will schedule time tomorrow or the next day to think this through." As we write down what we are feeling and thinking, we can begin to identify any statements that reflect cognitive distortions. Once something is identified as a cognitive distortion, we can acknwoledge that it is not accurate. A distortion by definition means this. Even if it FEELS true, we can KNOW it is not. Simply creating distance by acknowledging that these automatically arising thoughts, which feel so true, are actually distorted, can be powerful. Obviously a therapist can be invaluable in this work. An outside perspective can bring richness that we cannot access when we are cycling through the same thoughts repeatedly. I encourage you, if you have access to quality therapy and you struggle with this, to reach out. Tool 3: Identify the Negative Core Belief See if you can identify common themes in how you think about recent disappointments. Identify the negative core belief driving those cognitive distortions, the negative core belief driving your response to disappointment. Healing these negative core beliefs cannot be accomplished with a brief article. It may require long-term therapy. It is profoundly worthwhile to undertake the investigation and healing work. In working with people over 20 years as a psychotherapist, I found that addressing this was one way to reach the root issues driving most problems. There is a common thread, and it traces back to a traumatic event in childhood or a difficult situation that fostered negative beliefs about ourselves. I have a free PDF that lists very common negative core beliefs. It guides you through a process to identify your key negative core belief and provides three tools to begin transforming it. Click here for the PDF. Tool 4: Develop a Reasonably Stated Positive Core Belief that Counters the Negative Reasonably stated means you do not need to leap from "I am completely unworthy" to "I am the most worthy person in the world." We do not need to go from "I am stupid" to "I am brilliant." It is simply "I am smart enough, I am worthy enough, I am as worthy as any other human being." There are many reasons we phrase this with moderate language, but primarily because our brain will argue against absolute positives. Curiously, our brains do not argue against absolute negatives. "I am stupid, I am worthless"—somehow our brain accepts that. But if we propose the exact opposite, our brain will reject it immediately. So: I am smart enough, I am good enough, I am lovable enough. Develop the positive core belief. The PDF I mentioned also assists with this step . Once you develop it, write a list of evidence that the reasonably stated positive core belief is true. Tool 5: Identify Action Steps If you believed that reasonably stated positive core belief, what action would you take? I know you probably do not believe the positive statement at this point, but imagine: if you believed it, what would you do? If this is too hard to imagine, think about someone else who believed they were good enough—what would they do? Then push yourself to do this action. What is the worst outcome? You feel disappointed. If we could sit with our disappointment, allow ourselves to feel it, acknowledge that we dislike it and it feels terrible, but recognize that all emotional states are temporary—if we allow them to process through, they will pass. If we suppress them or push them away, they can become rigidly stuck. Generally, if we allow ourselves to feel disappointment, the feeling will ebb and flow. If we develop even a slight sense of "I can handle being disappointed," that alone will interrupt the negative cycle. I hope this was helpful and I will see you next week!
Are you suffering from a lack of motivation? Chronic disappointment might be the cause. This blog illuminates the impact that chronic disappointment has on our motivation and highlights what you can do to rewire your brain to be more motivated.
Disappointment can cause emotional chaos and emotional dysregulation. This important emotion is often overlooked. Learning to deal with disappointment can help you regulate your emotions.
You've left your family of origin, done personal growth work, and become a much more well-rounded person . You mostly feel good about yourself., or maybe you even feel really good about yourself! Yet when you go home for the holidays, it seems you turn right back into your old role! It's like a time machine because you suddenly begin to react the way you would have when you were much younger. You remind yourself of your 7, 10 or 14 year-old self and you think, " How could I be acting this way ?" Today's blog will give you a quick rundown of how these family roles typically present during family events and holidays. The Hero Child or Caretaker The hero child or caretaker is usually the one cooking all the food, cleaning up, arranging the events, even coordinating how other family members get there. If this is you, you probably make sure you're buying gifts for everybody. You might even buy gifts for that relative who never buys gifts for others so that person has something to give. You might be doing everything for everybody because that's always been your role within your family system. What does it lead to? Exhaustion, irritability, resentment, stress, and even loneliness. Because even with all the effort you've put in, you're not getting the feeling you're looking for. You're not getting a return on that effort. And the resentment you feel is toxic for you. Resentment is like taking poison but hoping it hurts the other person. It's a toxic emotion to feel, and it often signals that we're doing too much. Suggestions if this is your role: Pull back a little. Let things not be perfect. Let things slide. The Scapegoat The scapegoat grew up being blamed for everything, and it probably still seems to happen when your family of origin gets together. You probably dread going to the holidays because you know you're going to be criticized about everything. Anything that goes wrong will be blamed on you. You'll probably be resented by the hero child I just described. Even if you've stepped out of this role in other areas of your life, you still might act out or do something that justifies some of their blame or criticism. That's a miserable place to be. It can also be a really lonely place. You feel hurt. Nobody seems to understand or acknowledge that. It's exhausting. The Lost Child The Lost Child often skips out on holiday events. If this is you, you might live across the world from your family. You probably hate the conflict that arises during the holidays. You don't want to be part of it and you can't tolerate the arguing. You avoid asserting your own needs because that usually creates conflict, and you feel it isn't worth it. But then you end up feeling unseen, unheard and uncared for. The Mascot And then if you're the mascot, you're expected to tell jokes and keep everybody cheerful. It doesn't matter how you're really feeling inside—you need to make those jokes. You need to cheer everybody up. You need to provide entertainment and distraction from any real problems. You probably end up feeling alone, because nobody really knows you. You might even be resentful at the other family members - the lost child who just disappears and doesn't deal with anything, the Hero Child is stressing themselves out for no reason, and the Scapegoat who keeps causing chaos. Suggestions: Prior to your family gathering, you can identify one or two behaviors that you would like to change and set a boundary for yourself. This boundary is not dependent on anyone else - it is dependent on you changing how you respond to everyone else who is probably doing what they always do! Be compassionate with yourself. Breaking these patterns is SO hard! Be gentle and understanding if you slip back. Try to have compassion for your family... know that they developed their role as a way to cope with the same problem. And for your parents - they grew up in their own families of origin and may have suffered in ways no one is aware of. This does not mean you have to accept unacceptable behavior!! Just know that judging often leads to more isolation and to resentment. I wish you peace and joy this holiday season!
Have you ever had a reaction to something that seemed way out of proportion to what actually happened? These overwhelming responses aren't character flaws or overreactions—they're emotional triggers, and understanding them can transform how you view yourself and others
Chasing happiness can actually backfire. I know this sounds completely backwards, but there is actually a fair amount of science and research that backs up this paradox. In this article, I'm going to talk about why this happens and what you can learn from it. And of course, the really big question is: what should we all be doing instead? The Philosophy Behind the Paradox Over 150 years ago, the philosopher John Stuart Mill observed that the people who were happy were those who were focused on something else, not specifically on their own happiness. Yet we live in a society that pretty much tells us that we should always be trying to be happy, we should always be trying to improve our happiness. The pursuit of happiness is actually written into the US Declaration of Independence. The Science of the Happiness Paradox Some of the seminal research on this topic was actually done over 20 years ago at the University of California at Santa Barbara when Jonathan Schooler put out a research report, which he called "The Pursuit and Assessment of Happiness Can Be Self-Defeating." Since then, there has been a lot of research that has supported this point. In 2011, Iris Mauss, a psychologist and professor at UC Berkeley did a study analyzing whether the people who really valued being happy were actually happier than others or less happy. For the research, they gathered a group of women and had them do a self-report questionnaire where they ranked their life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, and overall feelings of wellbeing. They also asked the participants to report their current stress level, and whether there were big stressful events that had recently happened in their lives. What they found was that of the women who were experiencing a low level of stress, the ones who valued happiness more were actually less happy. But in the group of people who were experiencing a high degree of stress, there was no difference in happiness level between those who really valued happiness and those who didn't. It's interesting that the pursuit of happiness really seems to backfire when life is the best, when stress levels are low. I think this is because we get that feeling of "I should be happy, I'm not happy, but I should be because I have all this stuff, or all these things are going well, so I should be really happy." When we're under a lot of stress or things are really difficult in our lives, we don't put that pressure on ourselves. Let me know if that makes sense to you, but it definitely makes sense to me. Iris and her research team decided to follow up with another study because the first showed correlation between valuing happiness, stress levels, and happiness—but not causation. It didn't show that people were less happy because they valued happiness more. They designed a study with two groups. One group read an article about how important happiness was. The other group read a neutral article. Then they showed some participants from each group a happy movie and others a sad movie. For those watching the sad movie, there was no significant difference in how they felt. But there was a substantial difference in those watching the happy movie. The ones who had been primed to value happiness—who read about how important it was—reported being less happy than the group who read a neutral article and watched the same happy movie. These research findings have been followed up with numerous other studies showing similar results. What This Means for You But the important question is - what does this mean for you? It's a hard thing to stop valuing happiness... because... we all want to be happy! We are so conditioned to think, "What do I need to do to feel happier? Why don't I feel happier now? What would make me feel happier? Given everything that's good, I should be happier." This leads to all that self-criticism I've talked often about on this channel, and it makes us feel bad about ourselves. So what can we take away from this? Why the Happiness Paradox Happens Researchers who study this have identified two main explanations. One I'm going to call the "high bar and disappointment" angle, and the other is the "constant monitoring" angle. The High Bar and Disappointment Angle If you value happiness highly, you can create a very high bar of what that means. In reality, we all experience conflictual feelings most of the time. Those moments where we are purely happy are rare and not sustainable. But if we think we should be purely happy with no caveats, then we're likely to be disappointed. I was a psychotherapist for 20 years, and I found in working with people—and I've experienced it myself—that disappointment is one of those emotions we really dislike. It's not talked about as much as grief or anger, but I think disappointment is one of the most difficult emotions. I would sometimes be amazed at the degree to which people would try to avoid disappointment because they hated it so much. With this happiness paradox, if you're always setting the bar high and then you're disappointed all the time, that's a horrible feeling. Obviously, it cycles in on itself. It's been hard for me to read this research without thinking about my grandmother. Her parents were immigrants who did not speak much English. Until my grandmother was five, she spoke their language and she went to school not knowing any English. She did not have an easy childhood. Her parents were quite poor, and I think she had the view that life was going to be hard. By the time I knew her, she was moving into retirement and things were easing. I remember how she would have so much joy and happiness at the simplest things: picking blueberries, having a dessert, dancing. There's an element where it feels a little sad. I would have wanted her to expect more. I felt like she deserved more. But she was quite happy and didn't have any sense of being entitled to an easy life or happiness. I do try to channel her every now and then. The Monitoring Problem The monitoring problem is when we constantly ask ourselves, "Am I happy now? Why aren't I happy? How happy am I? What is it I'm feeling?" We're always monitoring our emotional state. Obviously some degree of this is needed. But we're talking about balance. If this is something you do frequently, it's worth knowing that constant self-monitoring has been tied to increased depressive symptoms. Five Practical Strategies to Stop Chasing Happiness I am going to focus on five things that you can begin to put in place to help you shift away from that prioritizing of happiness and towards something that maybe will surprise you with happiness. #1: Accept All of Your Feelings, Including Your Negative Feelings Part of the problem is that we try to push away those negative feelings. We don't like to feel anger or guilt or sadness, and we go to a lot of effort to push them away. It doesn't work. I know this is very hard and it's very complicated. I do have a lot of videos and blogs on emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. But the main point is to stop focusing on some kind of unattainable ideal. We are almost always going to have a mix of feelings, and sometimes good enough is good enough. Acknowledging and letting yourself feel what you actually feel can actually be really helpful. Not doing this leads us to a lot of guilt and negative self-talk, which is my point number two. #2: Let Go of the Self-Criticism There's an element in a lot of online content which says, "If you're doing it right, if you put your energies in the right way, in the right area, you're happy." I believe this content contributes to how badly we feel when we aren't happy. Sometimes it is true that if you approach things in the "right way" we are happier. But not always. We don't have control over everything, and human life can be hard. I also have videos that go into stopping the negative self-talk and changing these things. I know it needs a lot of work, and I do have an online program called Roadmap to Joy. In that program—and even if you're not interested in the program, bear with me because I think you'll understand the point I'm making—I really focus on the feeling of joy, not happiness. I think joy is about those little tiny moments, usually moments when we're mindfully present, usually moments that are pretty simple like the ones I mentioned that would bring my grandmother joy. It's really those small things. It's not always the big goals. I also have a free webinar called " Rewire Your Brain for Joy and Confidence ." In this webinar, I go into some of the scientific research on how we can actually change the focus of our brain away from things that are either problems or triggers and move towards more mindfulness and more joy. That webinar has a lot of practical tools as well. #3: Focus on the Activity You're Doing, Not the Feeling You're Having This recommendation comes from a lot of research. In particular, when you are engaging in activities, be focused solely on that activity. This is particularly true for the ones you get to choose. An example that comes to mind for me is skiing (I love to ski). When you're skiing, you can think of nothing else. You can't really spend time assessing, "Am I happy? Am I not happy?" (Although sometimes if you're cold you might be focused on that and 'why AM I doing this now?!'...) but basically you have to be really hyper-focused on what you're doing. It's incredibly relaxing to have my mind and my body focused at the same moment on the same thing. I think people who engage in music or art feel the same way. #4: Prioritize Positivity, Not Happiness I want to bring in a caveat with this, but first let's talk about prioritizing positivity. This would mean asking, "How can I look at this in a positive way?" Practices like gratitude have been shown overall to help improve well-being. There are some mindfulness practices that help with this: taking extra time to breath in the sight and smell of a beautiful flower for example. Taking the time to enrich our experience of the positive involves mindfully putting your focus on something positive with all your senses: hearing, sight, smell, touch, taste. Now, my caveat here is that false positivity is not helpful. If trying to be positive just ends up making you feel more guilty because you really can't do it, or more frustrated, skip this one. Maybe there are little small ways to build it in—the smell of a cup of tea—but not forcing yourself to change how you think. That's why I said there's a caveat for me on the issue of prioritizing positivity, although research does show that this helps people overall feel more wellbeing. #5: Focus on Things That Bring You Meaning and Purpose Rather Than Happiness Purpose doesn't have to be some big huge purpose. It doesn't have to be an enormous goal. Your purpose could be taking good care of your pet. Your purpose could be being there when your grandchildren call. Or your purpose could be learning more about poetry. Engaging in activities that give you meaning and pursuing goals for that type of satisfaction can sometimes surprise you with more contentment. The Bottom Line The science directly contradicts our culture's obsession with happiness. Constantly engineering your life for peak positive emotion is a fundamentally flawed strategy. To end today, I want to share the full quote from John Stuart Mill as it ties into a lot of what we've been saying here: "Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness—on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way."
Why Traumatic Memories Are Different—And How EMDR Actually Changes Your Brain Traumatic memories stay live, present, and intrusive until we process them. It is not just that they feel different—it is how they are stored in your brain. Today I want to explain what a traumatic memory is, how traumatic memory processing works, and how it helps turn that memory into more of a normal memory where you are not re-experiencing it. And I know that most people who have trauma memories want to get rid of them entirely. They ask, "Can you erase this from my brain?" That is not possible. But when you process the memory and it no longer brings up all the physiological and emotional symptoms, when it is not reinforcing the negative core belief that developed during the trauma—it is incredibly freeing. Most people I worked with, once they completed processing their memories, would say, "Wow, I can think about it now, and while I know it happened and I am not happy about it, it feels totally different. It feels like it is in the past. It feels like more of a story. I am not re-experiencing it and I am not feeling continually triggered by it and it is no longer intrusive." Those are major wins . Characteristics of Traumatic Memories Let me quickly outline the characteristics of a traumatic memory. Sensory Information Dominates Traumatic recall is dominated by sensory information—sounds, smells, feelings. The sensory details are stronger than any kind of storyline. Fragmented Rather Than Narrative You might remember one piece or very intensely remember a sound or smell, but not remember what happened right before or right after the event. The memory is in fragments and flashes. Time Distortion Traumatic memories feel fresh and current. The sensory details feel like they are happening now. It does not feel like the event happened long ago, and there is no sense of narrative time in the traumatic memory. People comment on this constantly: "Why do I feel this so intensely when it happened 40 years ago?" This makes them feel like they are losing their minds. But it is all about how the memory is stored. Connected to the Physiological Feelings From the Time of the Event Another characteristic is that traumatic memories come with the physiological feelings that happened at the time. If you froze, you might freeze when you remember it. If you fought or fled or wanted to flee, you will have those same feelings when that memory surfaces. And then, when you have these memories with that flood of physiological symptoms and emotions, it can reinforce those neural pathways. This is also why sometimes jumping into processing traumatic memories—if you have not done the required prep—can be overwhelming. For EMDR in particular, there is substantial preparation before you begin to process traumatic memories. If you are trying to work with them on your own and you have not developed tools and skills to physiologically relax, it can be overwhelming. Later in the blog post, I'll provide information on how you can navigate this. How Traumatic Memories Are Stored Differently in the Brain Researchers at Yale University and Mount Sinai were able to document that when people were recalling traumatic memories—instead of simply a sad memory—the traumatic memories were not stored in the hippocampus (via fMRI imaging). When they recalled the traumatic memory, that part of the brain did not light up. Whereas when they recalled a sad memory, there was the expected activity in the hippocampus. ( Reference for research : Perl, et al. Neural patterns differentiate traumatic from sad autobiographical memories in PTSD. Nature Neuroscience, November, 2023) The hippocampus is our file organizer for memories. When normal memories are stored, there's activity in the left front part of our brain—where our language centers are and where we think about stories in narrative fashion. Traumatic memories are stored in the right back part of the brain, which produces nonverbal memories and remembers sensory details. This part of the brain is in the limbic system—the part that doesn't have a sense of time. Research has shown that when stress chemicals flood our system, they shut off access to the hippocampus and normal memory storage. Just knowing that your traumatic memories are stored differently in your brain can help increase self-compassion. The trauma had a physical impact on you and your brain, and it is not your fault. Getting over that sense of self-blame and shame is essential to recovery. Neuroplasticity Now, I do not want you to get discouraged hearing that trauma had a physical impact on you, because it is possible to heal and rewire the brain. This is because we have neuroplasticity—our brains are changeable. Neuroplasticity means that a neuron (a brain cell) can be molded through our experiences, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and habits. I go into a much deeper dive on this in a free webinar I have (** Rewire Your Brain for Joy and Confidence **). Just know that you can change the neurochemistry of your brain. This is what EMDR and other trauma-informed, trauma-focused therapies work toward. How EMDR Processes Traumatic Memories With traumatic memories, you cannot just will them away. You cannot just "get over it." But "processing" traumatic memories can move them from the limbic system where they are stored (with all their intensity and emotion) into your long-term memory storage. This is one of the goals of EMDR therapy. The Importance of Physiological Safety and the Processing Stage Some people feel that when they talk about their trauma, they get re-traumatized. And this can be the case. The most important thing needed so that this does not happen is to integrate the processing of the memory with physiological relaxation and at least some sense of safety. I know a sense of safety is very difficult for many trauma survivors. However, practicing physiological relaxation techniques help you learn to move at least to a place of neutrality where your body can feel like, "I am not in danger this immediate moment"—that is sufficient. EMDR therapists are trained to work with people prior to the active processing stage to make sure they can stay in a zone of tolerance. I talk more about the zone of tolerance in other blogs and videos on emotional regulation, but it means staying within a certain range of emotion—not getting too hyper and not shutting down into a freeze state. Learning emotional regulation skills prior to active processing is important. When you begin to actively process the memory—actively bring it up, talk about it—you notice the very early signals that you are getting too activated or moving into a freeze dissociative state. Then you return to some grounding techniques, diaphragmatic breathing, to a feeling of safety with the therapist you are working with. Once you have lowered your pulse rate and re-centered, you can go back in. **It is the modulation and moving between different physiological states that helps the processing.** You are processing it into more of a story, more of a narrative that happened in the past, and that happens over time. Memory Fragments Come Together WIth EMDR, as the memory becomes a story, it is less fragmented. It has less of a physiological impact. When I worked with people using EMDR, it would often surprise me how different pieces would begin to fill in the memory, and often how the focus of the memory could shift. Here is an example of a client who was in a serious car accident. Now, I avoid using detailed examples of trauma in my posts because they can be very triggering for people. If you are particularly sensitive to car accidents, you can skip this section. This client initially remembered flashes, smells, sounds, lights, but not much about what happened immediately before or after the accident. As it was processed, they began to fill other details about the accident and about what happened prior to the accident. Toward the end of the processing, they remembered what happened after—the fact that the EMS team showed up and that they received the help they needed. This portion of the memory became a very important part of the memory for them. Prior to the processing, the feeling of "I'm in danger" had surfaced every time they had the memory. This belief gradually changed into "I can find the support I need." The memory changed from a fragmented, sensory memory into a narrative memory. It no longer flooded them with the sights, sounds, and smells of the accident. The client was able to move to a physical understanding that the event happened awhile ago and that they were physically safe sitting in my office, a feeling of being okay. Processing Negative Core Beliefs The other thing that gets processed with EMDR are the negative core beliefs that go with trauma. All traumas change some element of self-concept. EMDR therapists are trained in helping you identify these negative core beliefs and finding a "good enough" positive belief that can be strengthened. A feeling of "I'm in danger" (in a car accident, for example) can move to a feeling of "I can find the support I need." Bilateral Stimulation Another thing that makes EMDR unique is the bilateral stimulation of the brain. This is often done with eye movements, but can also be with sounds that alternate between the left and right ear, or tappers that alternate a pressure in opposing palms. This external stimulation of both parts of the brain helps facilitate having the whole brain involved in thinking about the trauma, not just the fear center of the brain. For processing trauma, you want to make sure your whole brain is online, which is connected to that physiological relaxation. When you are relaxed, your whole brain is online. When you are in fight, flight, freeze mode, it is your limbic system, your amygdala taking over. When Professional Help Is Not Accessible I know that not everybody has access to an EMDR therapist or a trauma-informed therapist. If you are in that situation, I encourage learning the emotional regulation tools. There is also an online Virtual EMDR software program that assists you in self-administered EMDR (Click here for information. If you decide to move forward, put this code into the promo box on checkout for 20% off: AWAKENJOY20. Self-administered EMDR is not for everyone ( here's a video on that topic ). However, I have talked to many people who have benefited from the VIRTUALEMDR Software. (I am an affiliate, which means this channel/blog receives some support if you sign up through this link) Moving Forward with Hope You cannot will your traumatic memories away. Avoiding them and avoiding the things that trigger them does not help in the long run. I hope you know that **healing is possible.** Processing your traumatic memories can move them into long-term memory storage where they will feel like they happened long ago in the past and you are not re-experiencing them. This also means that the sights, sounds, and situations that may have triggered you into a PTSD reaction will not trigger you. While you might want to erase the memory completely, moving it into long-term storage is a major win. I hope this was helpful! I wish you health and healing. See you next week. Reference for research: Perl, et al. Neural patterns differentiate traumatic from sad autobiographical memories in PTSD. Nature Neuroscience, November, 2023
How to Stop Reacting and Start Responding When you get reactive, what happens? Do you: Lash out in anger? Automatically say yes when you mean no? Shut down in the middle of a conversation Run away? We all have our habitual mode of reactivity, but what these reactions have in common is that they're not conscious choices and they usually lead to negative consequences. Today's blog explains how calming down reactivity is the most important skill for regulating emotions. By the end of this article, you'll understand what reactivity is and where yours came from. You'll understand that power lies in the space—the space between an event and our reaction or the space between our emotion and our response. And I'm going to share six strategies for expanding that space, allowing you to choose how to respond instead of defaulting to automatic reactive behavior. Understanding Reactivity: It's Not Your Personality Most of us live far more reactively than we realize. We have automatic behaviors that kick in, and we repeat them over and over to the point where we say, "Well, that's who I am. That's my personality." But when you understand the origin of reactivity, you'll probably shift that belief. Our reactive pattern comes from our fight, flight, and freeze survival mechanism—a primitive survival mechanism. If we grow up in a dysfunctional family or with significant trauma or stress (including neglect), we develop patterns very young that help us survive. When they become so ingrained that we repeat them over and over later in life, they prove ineffective. For example, if you have a parent who rages, you might learn to freeze or flee. Then later in life, any time there's conflict, you either freeze or flee. A different child in that same family might be the one who fights with the rageful parent. They grow up feeling that in order to survive, they have to fight with that parent, so they become the fighter. Then later in life, whenever there's conflict or stress, they fight. The Four Reactive Patterns There are four reactive patterns. Three are the ones mentioned above that you are probably familiar with: fight, flight, and freeze. The fourth is the fawn response, which is when someone immediately engages in people-pleasing behavior or diminishes themselves to accommodate another. This response also comes from trauma. Someone who fawns automatically moves into a position of appeasing the other. As a child, this might have been necessary for survival, and then it becomes deeply ingrained—so ingrained it feels like part of your personality. Later in life you find yourself doing it constantly, even when it's unnecessary. The Costs of Chronic Reactivity Chronic reactivity comes with serious costs: 1. You often feel out of control and ashamed. You know that these reactions don't lead to the outcome you want. This brings up significant shame and guilt. 2. Reactivity causes damage to relationships. If you're a fighter, this is obvious. But it damages relationships if you're a fleer as well. If you're a freezer, people often feel shut out. If you fawn, people feel like they don't know where you stand and can't be close to you. All four reactive patterns impact our relationships. 3. You aren't making decisions aligned with your values and long-term goals. 4. You're reinforcing the neural pathways each time you engage in these behaviors. The Power of the Space Between The Event and The Response One of the greatest quotes on this topic comes from Viktor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist and neurologist who survived the Nazi concentration camps. He wrote an incredible book I highly recommend called Man's Search for Meaning . He founded a school of thought within psychology and psychiatry based on the premise that man's search for meaning is the most powerful motivational force in our lives. You are not your automatic reactions. You have the capacity to choose. We're going to talk about strengthening that capacity to choose and expanding your ability to access that space between the stimulus and the response. Six Strategies for Expanding the Space Strategy #1: Awarenes s of your habitual pattern and awareness of when you initially get triggered. Know what situations, people, or emotional events trigger your reactivity. Learn to recognize the signs. Some signs could be physical: your face getting hot or your pulse rate increasing. Some might be behavioral: you might have a nervous habit or something you say when you are nervous that you don't mean. Some signs might be cognitive: your mind goes blank if you're a freezer. The quicker you recognize the signs, the quicker you can adjust and slow your reactivity. One exercise to expond your awareness is to keep a journal for a week or two. Note at the end of each day: Did I get reactive today? What was the situation? What did I do? When did I realize I was being reactive? As you pay attention and think it through, I guarantee your awareness will begin earlier and earlier. Strategy #2: Stop, Take Five, and Think The second you realize that something reactive is happening within you: Stop, take five deep breaths and think. You don't have to respond right away. You don't have to answer someone immediately. If you're a fleer, you don't have to run away right away. Stay grounded, take five. That "take five" can vary. Sometimes it's just five breaths in the moment. Sometimes you might need five minutes. With bigger issues, you might need five hours—you might need time to process what's going on. Strategy #3: Reset Your Physiology Regularly practice the things that help you calm your physiology in the moment. I guarantee that when you get reactive, your pulse rate jumps, your breathing becomes more shallow, and your muscles become more tense. You may or may not be aware of those different physical signals, but as you think this through, you'll become more aware. The best tools for physiologically relaxing are grounding tools and diaphragmatic breathing tools. You take them everywhere you go, they're free and they're accessible. However, you need to practice them when you're not reactive in order to be able to access them when you are. I often recommend people practice one of these tools (whichever one is easier or more accessible) for minutes at a time, a few times a day. This gives you greater ability to access that tool when you are activated. There are other tools that work for people: playing with your pet, taking them for a walk, being out in nature. Those things may not always be accessible, so it's good to have the other tools as well. Know what tools work for you. Strategy #4: Mindfulness and Meditation I know these are hard for many people, but these are the tools that will give you the greatest ability to pause—to access that space between something upsetting and your response. I talk more about this in a free webinar I have called Rewire Your Brain for Joy and Confidence . It's about an hour and 15 minutes and definitely worth it. I hear from many people that they learn a tremendous amount. It's about rewiring the neural pathways that have developed over a long period of time and lead to your reactive behavior. Strategy #5: Cognitive Reappraisal This is about thinking about the situation differently. This is not an early step in this process because with reactivity, you must first access some physiological calming so your amygdala calms down. This enables you to bring your frontal lobe online, so you can begin to think about the situation and have the capacity to change how you are thinking about it. This is a much bigger topic than I can address fully today, but I have several videos and blogs on cognitive distortions, and this blog also discusses it: Skills for Emotional Regulation . Example 1: Let's say you are highly sensitive to criticism and you become very reactive when criticized. When your boss criticizes you, your brain might jump into "I could lose my job" or "I hate my boss, but I'm trapped and can't get out of this." At the same time, your body is reacting as if you're in physical danger. There are several different ways of seeing the situation that are probably more accurate: • Your boss is kind of a jerk. He doesn't deliver criticism well, and it impacts everyone. It is unpleasant, but you are not in physical danger, and the catastrophizing is not needed. If you want to find a different boss and a different job, you can calm down and plan accordingly. • Or let's say your boss is generally reasonable and you know you are overreacting. You can reassure yourself that you're not in physical danger, and reassure yourself that it is ok to make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, which is true. Bosses usually offer criticism because they care about the employee and want to help them improve. If you look at it as a tool for learning—with a feeling of "I'm ok as I am, I just need to learn some things differently" you will be able to calm down and take productive action. Example 2: A friend doesn't text you back and you immediately get worried you might have done something wrong. You review your last conversations, going over and over them. Your thoughts escalate about how made the person is, or that they will disappear. If you are able to identify that this way of thinking is a habitual pattern from your past, you can stand back from your reactivity and assess it. Bringing in cognitive reappraisal and recognizing the pattern, will help you shift your thinking to, "She's probably just busy. I can try her again tomorrow." Strategy #6: Value-Based Decision Making Once you've calmed down and created space, you can think through what response to the difficult situation best reflects your values and your goals in life. Ask yourself: • What response would be most aligned with my values and my long-term goals? • What response helps achieve what I want to achieve? • What response will make me feel good about my handling of the situation no matter what the outcome is? Knowing our values is a North Star for us. It relates to the concept that the search for meaning is vital. In the Roadmap program I have ( Roadmap to Joy and Authentic Confidence ), the first module is on identifying your values. Which ones do are truly yours versus the ones you were told to have by family or society? What are the most important ones? This self-exploration helps guide your decisions throughout life . Remember to Practice the Tools and Have Self-Compassion, and Freedom Practice makes progress—all of this takes practice and time. Have self-compassion. Know where your reactivity came from and that it made sense to develop this pattern. The freedom is in the response you choose, not in the automatic reaction. You can still feel anger, and yet not act out in anger . You can feel anger, and choose your response. You can still get your feelings hurt, and yet not act out with your habitual pattern. All of us will have our feelings hurt, something will make us angry, things will happen that make us sad. All of this is going to happen. I know it can be very tempting to listen to those people who say, "If you do everything right, life is perfect." But that simply isn't true. Knowing your emotions, knowing yourself, and being able to choose your response—that's a wonderful thing. If you found value in this blog, please share it with someone else you might benefit! I appreciate you, and I'll see you next week.
