Contents
Emotional avoidance: why it is not good to suppress anger and sadness
Psychology
If we do not let all our emotions surface, they can return in a much more intense way and even generate anxiety.
The “happy era”, as the psychologist Buenaventura del Charco refers to the years we are living in, seems to have come to stay. And social networks could have been an important factor that today sadness and other feelings recognized as “negative” are not well seen in our society.
Let’s say that for those messengers promoting happiness, the motto of life would be: “if life gives you lemons, make a lemonade.” However, for people like Buenaventura del Charco, a health psychologist and psychotherapist, for whom life is not being entirely easy, they do not know what kind of lemonade to make: «These kinds of messages make a a disservice to society, which is less and less tolerant of the emotions that we know as negative. Instead of be compassionate and helping people who are going through a bad time, or simply letting them be bad, we manage to make them feel guilty for feeling the way they feel, as if not being happy was their fault.
With the term “happy era” the psychologist tries to show that it is a denial of reality: “Trying to be happy and well is not about closing your eyes to reality, but about facing what is not going well.” For him, you must first look at the problem in order to understand it and then find a solution: «That idea of focus on the positive it is still a cowardly component in which when we have a problem we dedicate ourselves to turning our backs on it and looking away, as if nothing were happening. What we need is to treat each other with respect and cope with adversity, life is not going to be riding on a unicorn expelling rainbows, “he exposes.
Emotional avoidance
But let’s go in parts. The first thing to understand is that emotional avoidance (Trying to change our “negative” emotions for ones that we think are better) are not a positive change at all. For Buenafuente del Charco, taking out the emotions of sadness or anger, for example, and trying to distract them with other things lengthens the process and would even lead to anxiety: «If we do not let those emotions surface, it can generate anxiety and they can come back in a hurry. in a much more intense way, that is why when we allow ourselves to feel them, our emotion is spent and that feeling disappears, as when we are sleepy and fall asleep, our body does not need to continue generating sleep because it has already rested ».
For this reason, venting and sharing our feelings will make us free ourselves sooner and in a better way from those negative sensations that we have, because all emotions have a function in the human being and nothing that happens to us happens “just because.” For example, according to the psychologist, when our body has a deficit of nutrients, it generates an emotion that is hunger and what it does is push us to eat. The moment we eat, the body no longer has that feeling because it has fulfilled that function. Well when we have emotion deficit, it happens the same.
«If we repress sadness, anger or guilt, they will not stop appearing. It is his way of saying that there is something we do not cover, and that state finally pushes us to lick our wounds and stop to rest or ask for help. Being unpleasant sensations they move us to do things that we do not like, such as crying, lamenting … “, says the psychologist, who encourages these emotions to surface in their own way:” I try to explain to my patients that when we have a loss or disappointment, the body generates two liters of tears that will be there until you cry it; the only way to get it out is by crying. If that emotion does not go through its channel, we will end up taking it out with another emotion: anger, discomfort … », warns Buenaventura del Charco.
So positive in many ways and so harmful in others. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram have changed the way we show ourselves to the world, but so have YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat … p It has settled into our lives, and sometimes we doubt if we are in the middle of a competition to see who appears to be the happiest. Buenaventura del Charco is clear: «It seems that we have to show everyone that we are well and happy, and I think that the wrong message has been given about happiness, understood by many as focusing solely and exclusively on what works. Instead, this has led many to pretend and pretend an idyllic life. ”
For him it is a kind of loyalty Toward oneself. The psychologist alerts that covering up and hiding those bad moments only makes us more vulnerable. «The part that is wrong is the one that needs the most attention from us, and we leave ourselves alone in that pain because we want to show others how happy we are. In the end, happiness seems to be something to show off ”, concludes the psychology expert.