The one unsettling quote that has changed how I feel, acknowledge and express my emotions
The disturbing truth I apply to build a better relationship with my emotions.
I’ve been pondering and applying neurologist and psychiatrist Sigmund Freud’s uncomfortable truth about emotions for some months now. Freud said, “unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
The first time I came across this quote, I thought about the many ways my emotions take over my experiences out of nowhere.
No matter how we try, we can’t suppress our emotions, ignore them, or convince ourselves we’re fine when we know we are not. It’s easier to avoid tough emotions; some people hope they will just disappear.
But they don’t.
Psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychologist Carl Jung said something similar. “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
He also said, “what you resist, persists.”
Holding in our emotions may seem like the easier path, but it never works in the long run. Our unconscious signals need our active attention. Both Freud and Jung are teaching me that I need to face my emotions, even…
