Emotions Are A Signal Not A Weakness
No matter how much society tells us to suppress our emotions, we must understand their function in order to master them.
Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.
You’re so sensitive.
What are you getting angry about, it’s not a big deal?
Calm down, I don’t understand why you’re getting so emotional.
Many of us have heard statements like this throughout our lives.
When we’ve expressed difficult emotions as children, or even adults, that forced those around us to tap into their own difficult emotions, or worse, take accountability for their actions.
The messaging starts when we’re young. Your emotions are unacceptable and you should hide them or people will think you’re weak. This idea that we should be ashamed of our emotions and bottle them up is one of the most pernicious forms of gaslighting that exists.
If emotions weren’t useful, we would have evolved not to have any.
Emotions are a signal. They are your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong with your environment. They are as important to our survival as hunger or thirst.
Imagine if you were dying of thirst and someone laughed at you and said “You don’t need a drink, stop overreacting”. Just because you won’t die from not expressing an emotion, it doesn’t mean it won’t affect your life adversely.
Emotions play an important role in our survival, helping us forge relationships, make decisions, set boundaries, follow our passions, and find our authentic place in the world. They’re important and shoving them down doesn’t help anyone.
Why do we have emotions and what do they mean?
Emotions are a body signal, and relatively universal across cultures, which is something Charles Darwin wrote about in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
Although there is a lot of nuance to emotions, there are six of what are known as the ‘basic’ emotions, these include happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise.
Some emotions have an obvious use, such as fear informing us that we may need to respond to a threat or happiness as a signal that our immediate needs have been met or as a means for bonding.
Anger, while derided by most, is an incredibly useful emotion, which when used correctly, is able to protect us from harm or inspire us to act. All of these emotions have their place and should be expressed in varying degrees.
I am not advocating for anyone expressing extreme anger towards others or treating them with overt contempt. However, it is healthy to express that something or someone has made you angry, sad, or fearful, as this gives us the information needed to correct course.
Unfortunately, societal conditioning means we are often not given the room we need to process difficult emotions, such as anger, meaning we don’t have the tools we need to control them. This is what leads to outbursts or emotional breakdowns, which further reinforces the idea that emotions should be quashed.
To illustrate this point let’s put it in the context of a dam, which when struck by a rock develops a crack. The crack lets a small amount of water flow through the dam and has weakened the overall structure.
The management company is aware of the crack, but they think repairing it would cost them too much money, so they ignore it. Pressure builds until eventually the dam can no longer support itself and the entire structure breaks apart resulting in a flood.
If the management company had addressed the crack earlier, then engineers could have been called, and the crack could have been repaired. Without alerting anyone to the issue, we now have to repair the entire dam, as well as everything the flood destroyed.
Now put this in the context of your relationships. You ignore that something has caused you to feel a difficult emotion, like anger when feeling taken for granted by a partner, but you don’t say anything out of fear they will invalidate you or leave. Your partner continues to take you for granted and you gradually build resentment.
One day, your partner pushes you too far, and you get so angry you have a huge argument or break up with them altogether. Now what could have been a small issue has resulted in a rupture. Now your partner is angry and you feel ashamed for having such a giant reaction to a situation that might not have required it.
Even if you had spoken up earlier, the situation could still have ended in a breakup. Especially if your partner was unwilling to hear you when you expressed that their behaviour made you angry. However, you likely wouldn’t have had such a big reaction if you had advocated for yourself sooner.
Unfortunately, some people are not going to be receptive to your emotions, no matter how reasonably you express them. This is a sign of an emotionally unavailable person, which is someone with a chronic tendency to downplay, ignore, or dismiss the emotions of others, as well as themselves. This can also be known as a Dismissive Avoidant attachment style.
However, this isn’t a reason to ignore or shame your own emotions. Someone’s inability to hear or tolerate you expressing an emotion is their problem, not yours. You should express yourself anyway, as their reaction to your emotions is a good test of whether or not this is a relationship you should be putting your energy towards.
Emotional unavailability is contagious
Emotional unavailability can actually be a sign of low self-esteem, as often people had their own feelings invalidated as children, and it was so painful they learned to cut themselves off from their emotions.
This can convince people that emotions and closeness lead to negative outcomes and so they avoid them completely. While this might have been a useful skill in childhood, in adulthood it can be extremely detrimental to relationships.
Many of us know how it feels to be in a relationship with someone who can’t access or express their emotions. Unfortunately, the emotionally unavailable person’s inability to connect causes them to be dismissive of other people’s emotions and needs, which perpetuates the cycle of disconnection.
The partners, friends, and family of emotionally unavailable people really only have two options — abandon the relationship or disconnect from their own emotions. The latter leads to a lack of closeness and can prevent one or both people from finding fulfilment within the relationship.
If you feel uncomfortable expressing yourself around certain people, it could be worth discussing this with them to understand why they feel the need to invalidate your emotions and the effect that has on your relationship with them. You are allowed to have feelings and anyone who tries to “tone you down” likely isn’t comfortable with their own difficult emotions, let alone yours.
However, it is not your job to shrink yourself or repress your emotions for the comfort of others. While it isn’t okay to let your emotions run riot and be hostile, you should be allowed to express your feelings and be heard without being invalidated.
If you frequently find yourself being invalidated, gaslighted, or even mocked for expressing yourself, it could be time to look at the people in your life and decide if those relationships are serving you. You don’t owe anyone your time, energy, or attention.
If you find yourself having negative feelings or resentment towards someone, and they refuse to take accountability, you are allowed to take a step back, or end the relationship, to protect your peace.
Some people aren’t willing to grow, or accept that emotional unavailability is a problem, and it isn’t your job to fix them. It is very difficult to have relationships that are fulfilling if one or both of the people involved are emotionally unavailable.
Emotionally unavailable people often can’t empathise with others and this detachment frequently results in the relationship revolving around them and their needs. This leads to their friends, family, or partners being taken for granted or feeling ignored, dismissed, lonely, frustrated, or resentful.
It’s much better to walk away from or limit your exposure to someone who is dismissive so that you can make space for people who are capable of connecting with you on an emotional level. Although, I understand this is easier said than done.
If all you’ve ever known is emotional unavailability, it’s difficult to believe that you will ever find someone to share your emotions with or who is comfortable expressing their own; but these people do exist.
However, we need to be open to expressing our needs and being vulnerable. We can’t go through life suppressing our emotions and expect to attract people who are open to connecting and being vulnerable.
This process starts with us.
Learn to honour your emotions
There is such a thing as overreactions, which is when we are no longer able to repress our emotions and can result in responses that are bigger than the situation warrants. However, this often stems from a build-up of emotions and resentments, due to feeling like we can’t communicate our upsets in a healthier way.
For example, if caregivers were not able to create a safe environment for us to work through difficult emotions as children, we might not have learned the skills to do this effectively as adults.
Another reason could be that we feel unable to express ourselves when something upsets us, due to fears of invalidation, so we bottle it up until our emotions get so big they burst out of us at inopportune moments.
When we have explosions of negative emotions, this can be a sign we haven’t been honouring our emotions or communicating them effectively. Emotions, after all, are a signal that we need to communicate with those around us or act upon something. Whether that is to advocate for ourselves when we are treated unfairly, respond to something, or express that we have an unmet need.
It can be extremely scary to express emotions and be vulnerable with people, especially when past experiences have taught us that this is not a safe way to get our needs met.
However, by being brave enough to act when we are triggered to feel a particular way — be that sad, angry, scared, etc. — we are giving ourselves the ability to be heard by others, get our needs met, and give ourselves the tools to express our emotions in a more productive way.
Don’t shame yourself for experiencing negative emotions. They are healthy and they have a purpose. Repressing and shaming yourself doesn’t lead to emotional control, because those emotions will come out one way or another, and usually much more destructively than you had intended.
Your emotions are a signal, so get used to asking yourself — “What is this feeling trying to tell me?” The more we can become attuned to our emotions, the more mastery we will gain over them. It is in honouring our emotions that we come to understand them, act on them appropriately, and prevent them from overwhelming us.
So don’t listen to anyone who tells you your emotions are too big or you’re being too sensitive, especially when they have done something to hurt you. Odds are these people are benefitting from you remaining small and not advocating for your needs and wants.
Feel your feelings and speak up for yourself in the moment so that your emotions and resentments don’t fester. People who actually care about you will be willing to hear you out and will care about how their behaviour affects you, even if they disagree with you.
Speaking up about your difficult emotions will not cause you to lose good people, only users and those who are emotionally unavailable.
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