Negative emotions are the ones that often remain unexpressed, which leads to suffering in our entire body. Why?

Our emotions and thoughts can affect us because they are physically connected to the body through the immune, endocrine and central nervous systems. All emotions, even the ones we repress or bottle up, have physical consequences.

Unexpressed emotions remain in the body, like time bombs, and can trigger diseases that may develop in the future.

One of the principles of the unconscious mind argues that, if you repress an emotion, its eventual explosion will be much stronger and will manifest itself as a disease or a nervous breakdown. "What we resist, persists," said Carl Gustav Jung, who studied the functioning of the individual and collective unconscious. Emotions that we refuse to engage with can control us from the backs of our minds and may burst anytime, in the form of:

‒ Emotional disorders – a state of nervousness or anger (as if you were a pressure cooker), tension, panic attacks, anxiety, depression, phobias, etc.

‒ Cognitive problems - problems with memory, concentration, focus

‒ Somatization - transferring the psychic tension into the body through various physical afflictions.

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” – Sigmund Freud

When emotions (which are natural reactions, considered to be indicators of our inner selves) are not expressed, they become toxic to our mind and body.

Most of the emotions that interfere with your daily life are not related to the present. These emotional responses are linked to painful childhood memories that we have "locked" inside.

When these memories are subconsciously triggered, all our reason goes out the window. We become rigid, hypersensitive, irrational and insecure. During these episodes, we’re under the impression that we know the reason for these reactions, convinced that they relate to a present event. The truth is that they belong to past trauma.

These present "triggers" are confronting us with past traumas for a simple reason: our body doesn’t want to be the prisoner of toxic emotions anymore. There is a close connection between mind and body, which can send us certain signals. For example, if a person is stressed, they may experience migraines, nausea, vertigo, weakening of immunity or even triggering autoimmune diseases.

Toxic emotions can harm our self-esteem, trust, love for ourselves and sometimes the consequences can be addictions, codependency, depression, panic attacks, anxiety, all of which act as pressure relief valves.

Emotions can be very painful, especially when we don’t allow ourselves to feel them. When we allow emotions to express themselves, we will notice that it wasn’t them causing us pain, but our rejection of them all along.

The first step is becoming aware of emotions and their triggers. Then we can start "digging" and allowing our feelings to resurface. Finally, we can allow ourselves to fully experience our emotions.

Such a process can be difficult, with many ups and downs, but it can also be the key to your emotional freedom.