Podcast Summary
The Importance of Emotional Expression for Our Health: Expressing emotions is vital for maintaining balance in the body, while suppressing them can lead to health issues and neurological problems.
Expressing emotions is crucial for both our emotional and physical health, particularly for our nervous system. Repressed emotions can lead to various health issues, including depression, anxiety, social disconnection, and even neurological deficits and diseases. Psychoneuroimmunology, a discipline that studies the relationship between the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems, supports this idea. Homeostasis, or balance in the body, is an integrated process involving these systems, and emotional expression plays a significant role in maintaining this balance. Conversely, suppressing emotions can keep the nervous system in a constant stress response, leading to increased stress hormones and the risk of neurological problems. Emotional expression, on the other hand, can help deactivate stress hormones and return the nervous system to a state of balance. Society's discomfort with emotional expression and the punishments we receive for expressing emotions contribute to many people's difficulties in experiencing, feeling, and expressing emotions. It's essential to create a safe space for emotional expression to promote overall health and well-being.
Early Childhood Experiences Impact Emotional Regulation: Understanding threats to emotional expression and learning to regulate our nervous systems can help us navigate emotional landscape and improve overall well-being.
Our early childhood experiences can significantly impact our ability to express and regulate emotions, leading to deep repression and dysregulation in our nervous systems. This can be especially true for those who have experienced complex trauma or unsafe environments where emotional expression was not safe or supported. Our brains are wired to perceive threats, real or imagined, and can make it dangerously threatening to express emotions, even in adulthood. Understanding the different threats and learning to regulate our nervous systems can help us better navigate our emotional landscape and find balance. For many, this process involves recognizing and releasing trapped emotional energy to reduce anxiety and improve overall well-being.
Impact of Perceived Threats on Health and Well-Being: Recognizing and validating unique emotional experiences of threat can lead to healthier responses, while past experiences and nervous system responses shape our reactions.
Our emotional and physical responses to perceived threats, whether real or imagined, can have a profound impact on our health and well-being. The speaker shares her personal experience of repressing emotions due to a lack of emotional availability from a caregiver in her past, leading to a cycle of emotional eating and self-soothing. She also emphasizes the importance of recognizing and validating the unique experience of threat and emotional pain for each individual, as our nervous systems and previous experiences shape our reactions. The speaker encourages practitioners and clinicians to keep this in mind when working with clients, as the perception and experience of threat can vary greatly from person to person. Ultimately, understanding and addressing the root causes of emotional and physical reactions to perceived threats can lead to a healthier, more resilient response system.
Understanding Suppression and Repression: Suppression and repression are coping mechanisms for dealing with trauma, with suppression being a conscious decision to hide emotions and repression an unconscious blocking out of memories, leading to different consequences such as explosive reactions or avoidance behaviors.
Suppression and repression are two different ways people deal with trauma, and both have their consequences. Suppression is a conscious decision to hide emotions, while repression is an unconscious coping mechanism where memories are blocked out. While suppression can lead to explosive reactions, repression results in avoidance or numbing behaviors that can last a long time. These behaviors often occur on a subconscious level, making it difficult for individuals to understand why they're engaging in them. Without recognizing the root cause, individuals may feel broken or dysfunctional. Understanding the difference between suppression and repression is crucial for addressing past traumas and promoting emotional health.
Emotional repression changes perception: Emotional repression due to trauma can alter brain areas, leading to changed social interactions, fear of environments, and chemical imbalances.
Emotional repression, a subconscious defensive mechanism, can significantly alter our perception of the world around us. When we experience emotional repression due to traumatic experiences, our brain areas responsible for assessing safety and energy utilization change their lens, leading to a shift in how we view and interpret sensory inputs. This can result in various consequences, such as altered social interactions, fear of certain environments, and chemical imbalances in the body. Understanding this process can help us recognize the importance of addressing emotional repression and working towards healing and creating safety in our nervous systems.
Emotional trauma changes us on a physiological level: Emotional trauma can affect the interoceptive system, making it hard to recognize emotions and gut responses, leading to chronic stress and potential health issues.
Emotional trauma and repression can lead to significant changes in various systems within our body, making us effectively "different persons" on a physiological level. These changes often go unnoticed, leading us to question our abilities and wonder why we struggle with certain behaviors. The interoceptive system, responsible for reading signals from within our body, can be affected, leading to difficulties in recognizing and responding to emotions and gut responses. The fight-or-flight response, once crucial for survival, remains relevant today as our bodies continue to alert us to emotional stressors. However, due to societal pressures, past trauma, or other factors, we may lose the ability to recognize these signals, leading to chronic stress and potential health issues. Emotional neglect and abandonment during developmental stages can also contribute to these challenges. It's essential to understand the impact of emotional trauma on our bodies and work towards recognizing and responding to our emotions to maintain our overall well-being.
Healing from complex trauma with support: Expressing emotions from complex trauma is crucial for healing but can be scary and vulnerable. Having support from someone can help build trust and provide safety during the process. Safe and productive ways to express emotions can include activities like pruning trees or using hedge clippers.
Processing and expressing emotions, particularly anger, is an essential part of healing from complex trauma. However, it can be a vulnerable and scary experience to do alone, especially in the beginning. Having support from someone else to hold space and build trust can be crucial in the process. The work doesn't always have to be intense or private; finding safe and productive ways to express emotions, such as pruning trees or using hedge clippers, can also be effective. It's important to remember that structure and safety are essential at the beginning of this emotional work to prevent potentially harmful or dangerous spiral effects. As individuals become more comfortable with expressing their emotions, they can explore ways to do so in real life and even find productive outlets for it.
Understanding Anger as a Complex Response: Anger is a natural response to boundary violations, but holding onto it can lead to hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances, making it hard to be present and experience positive emotions.
Anger is not just an emotion, but a complex neurological and physiological response to the discrepancy between our expectations and reality. It functions as a communication tool and a means to regulate the nervous system by releasing built-up tension and stress hormones. However, if we hold onto anger and the nervous system remains in an activated state, it can lead to hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances, making it difficult to be present in the moment and experience positive emotions. From an animal perspective, anger is a natural response to boundary violations, and a history of such violations can result in significant anger.
Suppressing anger and not setting boundaries can harm emotional and physical health: Unhealthy patterns of overworking, overgiving, and overdoing can lead to weakened immune system and increased risk of autoimmune diseases, especially after childhood trauma
Suppressing anger and not setting appropriate boundaries can have detrimental effects on both our emotional and physical well-being. This can lead to behavior patterns of overworking, overgiving, and overdoing, as well as being in unhealthy relationships with violated boundaries. The body's response to these boundary violations can result in an overactive immune system and a decrease in natural attacking cells, making us more susceptible to external pathogens and increasing the risk of developing autoimmune conditions. Childhood trauma, including boundary violations such as early childhood sexual abuse, has been linked to a higher risk of developing autoimmune diseases later in life. And it's important to note that the effects of trauma are not limited to the emotional and neuro levels, but also impact the physical body and nervous system. The body's response to trauma can manifest as an underactivated but hypersensitive state, where the immune system is constantly triggered but unable to effectively respond to pathogens. This can ultimately make us more susceptible to diseases.
Early childhood experiences impact body's ability to maintain balance: Early trauma can lead to autoimmune conditions and require a holistic approach for healing, involving emotional work, somatic practices, and nervous system regulation, with epigenetics playing a role in gene expression.
The body's ability to maintain balance, or homeostasis, is significantly impacted by early childhood experiences, particularly those involving body boundary violations. For some individuals, this can manifest in autoimmune conditions, such as MS, which can be linked to generational trauma. Healing from such experiences requires a multi-faceted approach, including emotional work, somatic practices, and nervous system regulation. Epigenetics plays a role in this process, as the expression of certain genes can be influenced by environmental factors and emotional experiences. Through the use of neuro-somatic intelligence tools, individuals can work to prevent the activation of potentially harmful genetic markers and promote overall well-being.
The importance of understanding epigenetics for health professionals: Professionals need to be trauma-informed and neurologically educated to help people lead healthier lives by minimizing triggers and supporting inhibitors in epigenetics, a complex field that influences gene expression without altering DNA sequence.
Understanding epigenetics and its connection to our nervous and immune systems is crucial for coaches, therapists, healers, and anyone working with people's health and wellbeing. Epigenetics refers to changes in gene expression that don't involve alterations to the DNA sequence itself. These changes can be influenced by various factors, including trauma, stress, and cofactors, making it essential for professionals to be trauma-informed and neurologically educated. By minimizing triggers and supporting inhibitors, we can help people lead healthier lives. However, it's important to remember that epigenetics is complex, and many variables need to be considered. As we delve deeper into emotions like grief, shame, pleasure, and connection, it's vital to continue learning and expanding our knowledge in this area. If you're interested in bringing neuroscience, somatics, and emotional expression into your practice, consider joining the next round of neuro-somatic intelligence certification. Check the show notes for more information.