Stop Being So Emotional!

Have you ever heard someone say, “Stop being so emotional!” Or why do you wear your emotions on your sleeve?” In many cultures, emotions are often bypassed or repressed. When you’re operating from a place of survival mode, no one ever teaches you to create space for your emotions. Food, shelter, and physical safety matters more than our feelings right? Before becoming a therapist, I would often wonder why some people were either very emotional or expressed little to no emotions? My wife would often tell me that my tear ducts dried up years ago. Lol! But seriously, what does it look like to express what’s considered to be healthy emotions? And is there even such a thing as emotional awareness of self and others? Our ability to safely express our emotions stem from how we were raised and what we saw communicated either on television or social media.

In my book, Trauma Stories: Discovering Strength Through Our Vulnerabilities, I reference Phil Borge’s commentary on a world-renowned psychiatrist named Gabor Maté. He mentioned how every child needs authenticity and a secure attachment. This involves a child feeling safe enough to express all their God given emotions to their caregiver(s)/parent(s) without feeling shamed or ridiculed. Attachment is basically a child’s ability to emotionally connect or bond with their caregiver(s)/parent(s). Attachments are grouped into two categories: Insecure and secure attachments. Secure attachments are the secure connection a child should have with both parents. Vulnerability is safely expressed and reciprocated, and their parents are emotionally attuned to all their emotional needs, without shaming them. Insecure attachments are broken down into three subtypes, which are anxious, avoidant, and fearful. The child with the anxious attachment was typically raised with an inconsistent parent who would vacillate between showing up for them emotionally one minute, to completely disregarding their emotional needs altogether the next minute. This child will most likely grow up to feel anxious as an adult, due to the lack of  consistent emotional stability and safety that their parents provided for them. The child with the avoidant attachment was left to soothe themselves when scolded. They will grow up to become the type of adult who may completely detach from their emotions. They struggle with emotional bonding in their dating relationships and may only see emotional bonding as sexual in their relationships. The avoidant adult will break up with their spouse if they feel like the commitment level requires more than they’re willing to invest. The fearful attachment child most likely experienced a lot of abuse from their parent(s)/caregiver(s) and will sometimes vacillate between both an anxious and avoidant attachment style. The fearful attachment adult will grow up to self-sabotage their friendships and dating relationships in fear of being hurt by them. They desire secure connections in relationships, but fear attempting to cultivate and nurture them. If a child’s needs are authenticity and a secure attachment, then when they’re shamed for freely expressing their emotional needs, they will resort to abandoning their authentic expression in hopes of not losing that attachment and connection with their caregiver. For example, if as a little boy my father sees me crying and says, “Boy, what are you doing? Men don’t cry in this family,” I will grow up and probably never cry again in hopes of not disappointing my father, whom I so desperately want to have a secure attachment relationship with. At this point, I’ve learned to abandon my natural emotions and feelings in childhood in hopes of not losing my secure attachment with my parents.

Many adults either express very little emotion or suppress it altogether. We live in a world where, depending on your cultural background, emotions are considered safe if it’s either anger or happiness, but emotions, such as anxiousness and sadness tends to make other people uncomfortable. In my office, I have a feelings wheel chart, which lists over one hundred different emotions, but unfortunately most of us have only felt safe or comfortable enough to regularly engage maybe two to three of them. When someone experiences trauma, it becomes a barrier in articulating or even engaging that overwhelming emotion that may be at play. When emotions are not appropriately processed, we may take them out on those we truly care about, suppress them in hopes of avoiding them altogether, or self-medicate ourselves to numb them. In order to process trauma, safety and connection are needed. Trauma modalities, such as EMDR therapy, IFS therapy, and/or Somatic Experiencing therapy can help us to feel safe enough to process our trauma, learn to sit with emotional discomfort, and eventually learn to articulate our emotions. Emotions are neither good nor bad. Our emotions are attempting to communicate to us what’s currently going on inside of us. For example, an emotion, such as anger is secondary. Meaning, it’s not the primary emotion. It’s communicating to us that we’ve either had our boundaries violated (hurt), we’re anxious or afraid of something or someone.

Regardless of where you’re at on your mental health journey, we can all help to push back against the stigma of not feeling safe enough to be sad, angry, embarrassed, or afraid around others. A healthy emotional outlook involves one in which we stop shaming each other when these emotions come up for us. Especially men, we sometimes have a tendency to emasculate each other if we’re sad or hurt about something. Healing looks like learning to notice our emotions, identify the bodily sensations that are associated with it, and take the time to talk about the deeper meaning that our emotions were really communicating to us at the time. So, let’s stop shaming each other with statements, such as, “You’re so emotional!”, “Stop being so dramatic!” You’re crying over that!” Emotions are normal and it doesn’t make you any less of a person when experiencing them. Healing from our unresolved trauma wounds will teach us to respond to our emotions as opposed to reacting to them.

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