Day 8 - Question to Ponder

Are you having success at recognizing the emotions connected to your pain?
If you have, how do these emotions make you feel? If not, what do you think is preventing you from doing this? If you feel comfortable sharing, then post your response in a thread in the Structured Educational Program section of the PTPN's discussion forum. We would love to hear from you.

Yes, I am recognizing I have a lot of emotions in my subconscious that are slowly coming to the surface. It was not safe for me to express emotions as a child so I don't have the experience of feeling my emotions. It feels relieving to realize I have emotions in there and I am curious as to what will come out. So far some anger has come out and a lot of fear. The fear of not being safe is preventing me from feeling my emotions too much.

 

I can relate to this so much. I think my lack of experience finally caught up with me when I started digging around in my past. I wasn’t able to process all the feelings and they just were categorized as “danger.” Now I talk to my brain all the time and tell it it’s not dangerous to feel my feelings.

 

Yes there is just so much fear/danger here too. I do a similiar thing with my brain.

 

I can relate to this so much. I’m an easy crier - or I used to be. I remember my parents telling me growing up “it’s not worth all that” or “don’t cry, you’re just trying to manipulate the situation” or “shhhhhh, don’t cry, it will be okay” which can also be damaging. Then I married a man who wasn’t allowed to cry and he reacts adversely when I cry. We have worked on it together, and he’s growing to be a comforting presence for me when I cry. But I also have to allow myself to cry, still, if that makes sense? I have a lot of anger, a lot of fear, and a LOT of sadness coming up. I don’t have tears yet but I also don’t want to force them. I think they’re possibly buried under everything else I have repressed. I’ve had to edit my words and my feelings my whole life - now that I’m allowing myself to feel things, it’s kind of shocking to discover I am capable of strong emotions. Some of the emotions seem so foreign to me, and I think it’s because I was taught I couldn’t share those emotions or be open with them when I was a child.