Which Discomfort Will You Choose?

Feelings can be uncomfortable. Feelings can be inconvenient. However, the one thing that feelings are most, is integral information. Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) posits that avoidance/repression of emotions, “robs people of part of their intelligence because emotions reveal what is important to them in a situation and guide them in the actions that are required to get what they need or want” (Greenberg, 2017). Unfortunately, their discomfort and inconvenience has led so many of us to repress, or at least not fully acknowledge our feelings, which ends up promoting disembodiment within us. 

The thing about feelings is they contain energy and that energy demands to be expressed. Often repressed energy will manifest in ways that we do not feel good about, or that harm ourselves or others, either in thought or deed. This in turn, often leads us to believe we should repress again in the future. It is a vicious cycle. The reality is that we actually cannot change our emotions without first feeling them. This is where the importance of embodiment comes in. 

Pursuing embodiment, which I would define as something that allows you to be fully with and in your body, ends up being a crucial part of feeling our feelings. Hillary L. McBride, talks in her book, Practices For Embodied Living: Experiencing the Wisdom of Your Body (2024), about the disconnection we often have with our bodies, preferring more often to stay in our thoughts. She writes, “We often distance ourselves from what is painful about being a body, only to lose what makes us feel alive.” When we embody our feelings, we allow them to teach us what needs underlie them, what actions need to be taken, and in so doing, that awareness can lead to better regulation and further wholeness of the self. That is a cycle worth the discomfort and inconvenience of emotions, and it is one a therapist can help guide you through. The reality is that there will be discomfort either way, but emotional expression can lead to a more integrated, embodied self, where repression will not. Which discomfort will you choose?