Can Repressed Emotions Cause Physical Harm?

Sometimes our minds have a harder time letting go of emotional trauma than we may realise. When we experience a traumatic event – such as a car accident, loss of a loved one, or emotional and physical abuse – our mind goes into lockdown, protecting ourselves from the event by shutting off our emotions. We become numbed.

Just like our bodies react to and manage physical pain, our mind also reacts to negative stimulus by suppressing strong, negative emotions in attempt to protect our well-being.

But although emotional suppression sometimes serves a very useful and essential purpose, that doesn’t always mean it works in our best interest. Repressed emotions may be the first step in the healing process, but it should by no means be the last!

Think of an event where you have recently felt the need to repress your emotions - maybe you had an argument with your spouse, perhaps you lost your job or suffer from anxiety. While all of these events are emotional, they tend to be situations where we consciously and deliberately suppress our emotions.

While this is a key coping strategy for most, it is essentially an avoidance tactic, and one which can lead to greater damage in the long run. So let’s have a reality check here:

Avoiding your emotions is not a healthy thing to do. It is damaging you more!

And not just emotionally either.

Suppressing and repressing your emotions can also have dire physical consequences on your body, as well as your mind and spirit.

How Do Emotions Affect Our Body?

Monitoring and controlling our emotions is a large part of our current society. From an early age we’re taught to keep our emotions in check or risk losing face in front of our peers. But our efforts to stifle our emotions have made us emotionally weak, and more over, physically unwell.

While symptoms differ from person to person, emotional repression can lead to a variety of different ailments and disorders.

We can become emotionally unbalanced due to bottling up our emotions – depressed, suicidal, angry and self-sabotaging. In fact, by repressing our negative emotions we can make them stronger, with more physical consequences.

All forms of consistent emotional repression, such as sadness and anxiety, increase physical stress on your body, which again may lead to diabetes, heart disease and raised blood pressure. In addition, those who repress their emotions are also more likely to suffer from stiff joints, a weakened immune system and bone weakness.

And while many of us knowingly continue to repress our emotions, we fail to pick up the signals from our body telling us to stop.

Our emotions don’t just riddle out bodies with ailments though, they can also shape who we are, how we act, and even what we eat. When we’re emotional, different toxins are released into our body which can totally change your flora (that’s the good bacteria in your body).

While flora health is only just starting to be understood, we now know that our emotions have direct effect on what goes on in your gut. Flora imbalances due to repressed emotions can cause stomach ulcers, bloating and a whole host of other flora-based issues. So do your gut some good and don’t fight back those tears!

How to Free Yourself of Repressed Emotions

The best thing you can do for yourself if you believe that you have repressed emotions is to not be afraid of them. Don’t fight them, don’t run away from your problems, and most of all do not block them out.

We need to be welcoming of our emotions – without them we couldn’t experience this wonderful and diverse Universe. Embrace them, be with them, acknowledge and accept them. Emotions are neither good nor bad. They simply are. We are the ones who force our feelings upon them.

Here is a mindful meditation to help release your repressed emotions.

. Mindful Awareness and Release Meditation

Make sure that you are in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and relax.

Now, concentrate on your breathing. Do the following breathing exercise for 10, deep breaths.

Concentrate and breathe in - deeply. Inhale till the count of 6.

Now, hold to the count of 6. Then rest to the count of 6. And repeat.

Your mind should now be clear and focused.

So let’s begin to look at our emotional state.

Analyse your body. Feel for any emotion that may reside in a specific area (remember, emotions can physically manifest in the body as well as the aura).

Anger manifests in and around the belly button – the seat of anger. Sadness is said to linger in our midriff. Feel your way around your body until you target a specific emotion. Take your time, this is not a race.

Observe that emotion. Feel it and try to understand it. Why is it there? What does it look like? How does it feel?

Describe the emotion in front of you. Stay with it. Observe but don’t judge. Don’t get your other emotions entangled into it. Mindfulness is all about being in the moment. So learn to accept and just be here.

Now it is time to reintegrate this emotion with the rest of your being. Why has this part of you been left? When did you let it go and put it aside? Allow yourself to understand.

This exercise is not an overnight cure. You need to readdress your emotions on a daily/weekly basis. Let that emotion back into your life. There is no need to hide it.

Slowly but surely, each time you look for that emotion it’ll take up a smaller and smaller chunk of your body. It is reintegrating with your being. Until eventually, it’ll have disappeared. But of course, that’s just its physical representation – the emotion is still there, but simply part of the whole it once belonged to: you.

Our gifted psychics are always here to talk and help you understand difficult situations and emotions. Talk to one of our psychics today.

Do you have any techniques to help reconnect with repressed emotions? Leave us a comment below.