People often suppress uncomfortable feelings such as anger, anxiety, and depression because no one wants to confront discomfort. As a result, positive thinking can sometimes serve as a way to avoid facing one’s pain. This phenomenon, known as “toxic positivity,” can also be used to sidestep conflict, maintain a calm demeanor, or stem from family or cultural conditioning. Unfortunately, the more you try to push away uncomfortable emotions, the stronger they become. This concept is captured in the saying, “What you resist, persists.” Moreover, suppressing feelings can drain your energy, leading to even greater suffering over time.
Conventional wisdom suggests that the best way to avoid suppressing uncomfortable feelings is to express them, but this does not necessarily rid you of them. Expressing emotions is appropriate in many situations, such as grieving for a loved one or speaking your truth in response to anger. However, some types of expression can reinforce emotions. For example, when you feel anger, you might be tempted to express it by punching or throwing something. While this reaction can provide temporary relief, it doesn’t address the underlying problem.
Anger, anxiety, and depression carry stories that want to be expressed verbally with others and mentally within oneself. However, expressing these stories can sometimes intensify these feelings and make them more energetic. Anger may involve a story about how someone wronged you or committed an injustice. Anxiety often comes with a fearful story about something terrible that might happen in the future. Depression usually brings a sad story, such as “my life is a mess” or “I feel worthless.” While expressing or venting these stories—out loud or in your mind—may feel satisfying, it can also strengthen the emotions linked to them.
Many people believe they have only two options for dealing with uncomfortable emotions: suppressing or expressing them. However, there is a third option called “pure experience.” This means welcoming the sensations in your body instead of pushing them away, and not attaching any stories to interpret, judge, or change them. You welcome the sensations the same way you would welcome a temporary visitor to your home; this is called non-resistance. By doing this, the emotional energy can flow through you naturally without being fueled by mental narratives or pushed down into long-term storage. If a situation requires a response, you will be able to respond appropriately without reacting once the energy has passed through you.
Many people also believe that they can focus their attention on two tasks at the same time, a phenomenon known as multitasking. However, research has shown that attention cannot genuinely be divided; instead, it rapidly switches between tasks, creating the illusion of multitasking. This is why attending to bodily sensations will quiet the mind and its stories.
The terms ‘worry’ and ‘anxiety’ illustrate the difference between the story and the sensation. These terms are often used interchangeably, but worry is about thoughts in the mind, while anxiety is about sensations in the body, such as the knot in your gut or rapid heartbeat. Worry and anxiety typically occur together, but that is not always the case. Anxiety attacks can happen without any conscious thought and may be a programmed response triggered by subconscious thoughts that you are not aware of.
The practice of “pure experience” can help release anxiety even if you’re unaware of the worrisome thoughts behind it. The moment you feel that knot in your gut, butterflies in your stomach, or your heart pounding, pay attention to those sensations and relax into them, rather than trying to push them away. Attending to your body quiets your thoughts because your attention cannot be in two places at once. When the anxiety is not being fed or suppressed with thoughts, it loses energy and begins to dissipate. Relaxation is the key—however, you cannot relax if you attach stories to your feelings. You must drop the stories to relax.
If you resist your feelings or try to suppress them with positive thoughts, they will likely become stronger and return to bother you later. By allowing the feeling to exist as it is, without interpreting, judging, or trying to make it go away, you allow it the space it needs to be released naturally, rather than stored in the body. Emotion energy that is stored can produce a range of physical symptoms, including migraine, lower back and neck pain, tendonitis, digestive issues, skin reactions, chronic fatigue, and more.
The practice of “pure experience” is not easy and does not come naturally to most people. It is learned by practicing regularly with small situations so you can handle larger challenges later. I recommend practicing regularly with situations beyond your control, like getting stuck in traffic, which can trigger anxiety, anger, and restlessness. There’s nothing wrong with positive thinking or turning up the music when you’re stuck in traffic, but if you want to grow, use this time to practice “pure experience.”
The next time traffic stops, avoid getting caught up in mental stories about being late and criticizing other drivers. Instead, take a deep breath, relax, and notice the agitation in your body, especially your torso and jaw, where you will find sensations of anger, anxiety, or restlessness. Doing this will naturally slow your mind because your attention can’t be on two things at once. Turn off the radio and music for a while so you can more fully attend to your body. At first, the silence will feel very uncomfortable, but if you stick with it, your mind will quiet down and the stories will fade away. This allows the emotional energy to begin flowing through you and to be released. Don’t be discouraged if this doesn’t happen on your first try; it takes practice, just like any skill.
As the emotional energy begins to release, you will shift into a state of presence. In this state, there is a space between you and your emotions, and your mind becomes relatively quiet. You stay alert and aware of everything around you, but stop adding mental commentary. You will feel relaxed and at peace, perceiving the world through a wide-angle lens instead of fixating on the situation and letting your mind turn it into a problem. Practicing this will help you realize that your thoughts and emotions are not the essence of who you are, because when they quiet down—you are still there.
The experience of being present and aware, with a relatively quiet mind, is truly beautiful—more profound than any positive thought. Many people believe they need positive thoughts to experience peace, joy, and love—but this is not true. The richest and most wonderful feelings arise from a deep place that is largely independent of the thinking mind. You don’t need to think joyful thoughts to feel joy, peaceful thoughts to feel peace, or loving thoughts to feel love. When the mind is still, you enter a state of rest that is sweeter than any positive thought, and this is accessible to everyone. This state of rest is neither dull nor empty—it is vibrant, expansive, and comforting.
Emotional suppression is often paired with repetitive negative thoughts (RNTs), and both will keep you stuck in pain. For more information, see the above article “Repetitive Negative Thoughts (RNTs) and Physical Pain.”
To learn more about the state of rest that lies underneath the thinking mind, and how I found freedom from physical and emotional pain, see my book “Your Brilliant Mind: Wonderful Servant or Wicked Master?”