Locked emotions

By nature we are fearful creatures. Our fearfulness however builds resilience and it is our resilience that helps us to survive.

Although we are an evolved form of human who have grown an understanding for love, life and culture, we are not too far removed from our primeval roots. The main difference is that we choose mates now who will fulfil our emotional needs rather than simply a mate who is strong as a caveman or cave woman might have. Otherwise, we still have to face the threats and vigours of life in many different forms from dangerous animals, to bad weather to the cut and thrust of a city. As we do this we throw up a protective wall around ourselves we call resilience.

We have no need of our emotions as we walk through a city and fight against the hustle and bustle. If faced with a dangerous animal we hide our fear away and focus only on our survival. When bad weather sets in we bolt the doors and windows and find cheery things to do inside in spite of it. At all times, we push away the emotions that the situation evokes and instead bring forth the coping mechanisms we need to get through the situation unscathed.

Now think of the last time you had an injury. When you were on your own and not looking for sympathy from other people did you feel the pain so much as when others were around? How bothersome was the pain or discomfort you felt from the injury? Why did it bother you so much?

When we are injured we seek comfort and sympathy from others. We need them to know we are hurt and we reach out for them to help. This dependency is normal and part of our tribal make-up but it is a false face on what is actually going on for us.

Our injury is not as bad as we are making out. In fact, when we are alone, we function reasonably normally and do not feel as much pain or discomfort. This is because our resilience kicks in and withdraws the emotion from what we are feeling because in terms of survival, we do not need emotion in this situation. Emotions serve no purpose here, they only hinder our progress.

When we are hurt emotionally we do allow our feeling to rule us for a while but after some time this becomes tiresome and painful for us and we crave an end to it. We fight against the negative emotions we feel and push ourselves into a more positive frame of mind. We need to do this in order to still function and survive in life.

In so many different situations we lock our emotions away because they hurt and hinder. We do not need them to survive. They are a modern indulgence which our ancestors coped without.

There is nothing much you can do about this but it does serve to know about it and be aware of it. How much emotion do you attach to the situations in your life that you are locking away in order to survive? Are you living your life in an entirely honest manner?

If you like, make a small list of three recent negative events in your life. They might be physical or situational. Now think about how each event made you feel. Honestly! Are there emotions present in your memory that you were otherwise unaware of? I bet there are. These are the emotions that you locked away at the time in order to survive. Now if you like, you can examine each one in turn and see if you can identify why you chose to bring that particular emotion to the situation and why you decided to lock it away.