Avoiding Your Emotions Protects Nothing

You think you are protecting yourself from the emotion by constricting and flinching. You are not. Here’s a prime example of the physical results of emotional avoidance and flinching: Almost everyone has tension in the neck and shoulders. This is because of thousands of times the person has constricted around feeling judged or rejected. It is a reaction to emotional pain. It is resistance.

But here’s the question: Have your tight shoulders every prevented you from being or feeling rejected? Of course not. Those tight shoulders never protected you from the feeling. They actually trapped that feeling within you. That’s why some people will have intense emotional reactions during a massage. The feeling is being released and experienced simultaneously.

Now you have imprinted the emotion in your body and the next time it comes around you flinch in about the same way you did the first time. Every time that emotion is felt, a part of you constricts. Emotional avoidance and flinching go hand in hand. The flinching is the built in mechanism for avoiding the flow of emotion.

Emotional Avoidance and flinching are Cumulative

Look at people as they age and you will see the result of thousands of constrictions layered on each other, expressed in their body language. You will see, on a very physical level, the results of emotional avoidance. Notice the heart protection that leads to people being hunchbacked. And you can’t help but see the expressions held on faces so long that they become permanent.

The solution? Emotional healing. Feel, relax and be gentle with yourself. Experience your  emotions as physical sensations like tension. All of this tension wants to unwind. When an emotion comes up, say “Yes!”. Let it move through you. Allow it to sweep up those layers of self denial in one big emotionally cathartic release.

You’ll love yourself for it.