Why Suppressed Emotions Resurface Later (and How Therapy Helps You Process Them Now)
“Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.” – Spinoza
I’ve always told my clients…if suppressing your emotions was effective, I’d be out of a job. We all know that suppressing how we feel doesn’t actually work for us to feel connected to ourselves and the world around us. Emotions play many important roles into your human experience.
Emotions are information for what you need, value, and provide important direction for future action. Emotions also ensure connection with others, and yourself, through helping you communicate deeper desires, and experiences, which allow you to bond through empathy and compassion. Yet we all find ourselves suppressing certain emotions, or certain experiences, throughout our lives or in specific relationships.
It is a natural and sometimes protective mechanism for us to continue to function at the level we function. However, it can have lasting impacts to our sense of wellbeing. In this article we’ll explore how we can use processing how we feel, as a way of navigating challenging emotions instead of opting for suppressing.
What is suppressing an emotion?
Suppressing emotions is when you consciously push down, ignore, or avoid a feeling that you’re actively having in the moment or has recently resurfaced. An example I often give to my clients is when something has irritated you, like traffic, or waiting in line, and someone asks how you are. Instead of articulating, “I feel mildly annoyed right in this moment.” We often just go for the standby of, “I’m fine.”, perhaps even through gritted teeth.
Trust me, we’ve all been there.
Suppressing an emotion may also look like having an involuntary reaction from a feeling that is body or nervous system based, like tearing up, having your voice shake, or snapping in anger. After the more immediate reaction, you may opt for suppressing and shutting the experience down by changing the subject, distracting yourself, or trying to mentally push the feeling away. So even if a little bit of the feeling is “released” through the reaction, it’s not gone or processed.
How do we know that we are suppressing?
Cultural norms play into suppression being as normalized as it is, particularly the belief that our feelings are ‘burdens’ to others; a wide standing belief held culturally in the US. Short-term suppression of feelings can be very protective and helpful, and aid in compartmentalization. If there’s a stressful situation that requires you to act or function in a specific way, like giving a public speech, presentation, or business meeting, it’s not the most ideal time to start feeling into a recent heartbreak. That’s where we can compartmentalize the feeling, until we have a safe emotional space to revisit the feeling and really feel and process. Suppression takes compartmentalizing a feeling a step further and skips the step to revisit the feeling or process the emotion.
Suppression is clocking the feeling that rises within us, (i.e. guilt, anger, sadness, etc.) and then try to pretend it isn’t there. Those feelings don’t actually “go away”, even though in the short-term it may feel that way. Suppressing feelings is also different from repressing feelings, because suppression is a conscious effort. Repression of feelings or experiences often happens subconsciously and can be outside of your awareness. Through therapy, self-reflective practices, and self-development you can learn what feelings may be repressed and the ways your subconscious may be driving some reactions or behaviors.
What are the potential risks of not processing emotions?
Suppressing your feelings can compound, so if we try to hit the snooze button on them for too long, they can return with greater intensity, or manifest in different ways, emotionally, physically, and relationally.
Increased Stress and Anxiety
Bottling emotions can activate the body’s stress response (tension, racing heart, restlessness), leading to higher anxiety and increased feelings of stress over time.
Depression or Emotional Numbness
Constantly pushing down feelings can create a sense of flatness, emptiness, or disconnection from oneself and others.
Physical Health Issues
Research links emotional suppression to headaches, high blood pressure, weakened immune system, and even chronic pain, as the body carries unprocessed stress.
Strained Relationships
Avoiding emotions often means avoiding honest and direct communication, which can create distance, misunderstandings, or resentment in relationships.
Emotional “Build-Up” and Outbursts
Suppressed feelings don’t disappear — they often build until they spill out in sudden reactive states like a flare of anger, tears, or emotional overwhelm.
Difficulty Processing Future Emotions
The more we suppress, the more we are internally communicating that our feelings are not important or do not matter; reinforcing a belief that they are burdens to us. It becomes harder to recognize and work through emotions later, making emotional resilience more difficult.
Loss of Self-Awareness
When emotions are constantly pushed aside, it can become harder to know what you truly feel or need, which impacts decision-making and self-trust.
What is processing an emotion, and what are the steps?
Processing an emotion is when you are able to notice how you feel in any given situation or moment, and then take steps to regulate the feeling, as well as gain any insight into what you are needing. Processing an emotion is the opposite of suppressing. It’s about giving the emotion the time, space, presence, to experience it, and allow it to naturally shift. Through the shift, the emotion can provide whatever wisdom or direction you needed, instead of staying stuck inside of you. Processing an emotion is active. It is not a passive experience. It takes awareness and consciousness, as well as patience and observation. Processing an emotion is not a singular experience. Particularly with heavier and deeper emotions like grief, which must be processed repeatedly as the layered emotions evolve through time.
The steps to processing an emotion include:
Noticing – Becoming aware of the feeling you’re experiencing through physical cues (increased heartrate to indicate fear or anxiety), relational cues (conflict with a partner), or emotional cues (feeling sadness, anger, guilt, etc.).
Pause – Taking a moment to check in with yourself.
Acknowledging the feeling with non-judgement. *
Internally voicing inside to the emotion, “I see you feel ____.”
Next internally voicing inside to the emotion, “Beyond seeing you, I feel with you.”
Experiencing the feeling – whether it’s a wave of sadness, that may result in crying. Or if it’s anger, which may result in needing physical movement to discharge some of the energy or time alone.
Validating the feeling genuinely. If there’s some part of you that doesn’t think it’s valid, seeing if you can take some mindful breaths to remind yourself you are a human, and human’s experience all emotions.
Internally voicing inside to the emotion, “I understand why you have shown up in this moment.”
Offer reassurance – This will be depending on the context to the circumstances or the emotion. The below is a list of optional reassuring statements.
“This won’t last forever.
“It’s okay to feel ___.”
“I will make it through this.”
“This feeling is just one part of me. It is not the sum of me.”
Keep breathing – It’s important to remain somatically engaged with your body to increase the body/mind connection and sense of cohesion with the present moment.
*Now remember, any type of mindfulness or self-reflective practice will help support you in processing. Mindfulness focuses on entering into that observer state of being, where you can observe your emotion from a non-judgmental place. A phrase that can be supportive in getting there is, “Here is a human who is experiencing this feeling of ___ because _____.”
Suppression is much more commonplace than processing emotions. It can be difficult the first couple of times you try, and becomes a lot more fluid with practice. If you feel like you’re becoming overwhelmed by emotions, or shifting into dysregulated states when you are with your emotions, that may be an indicator to get some professional support. Through therapy you can explore how it is to process emotions with the support and guidance of a professional while you build familiarity with the process.
I am so glad you are here and engaging in learning more about your emotions. It is half the battle ;).
Alicia Perzichilli, LMFT
Nourished Wellness Group
P.S. If you are interested in getting 1:1 support, we’d love to hear from you. You can schedule a free 15-minute consultation call directly through our site.
