DavidWolfe.comYou might think that by hiding your feelings from others, you’re being strong. You’re pretending to be OK, acting like everything is going just fine and bottling up your emotions. The truth is, allowing yourself to feel your emotions symbolizes strength. Hiding your true feelings can cause inner turmoil and end up leading to other problems.
Here are ten subtle things that happen when you hide your feelings:
1. You Disappear From Your Loved Ones’ Lives
Holding in your emotions eventually causes you to retreat. After a while, the peace and happiness that you no longer feel can cause you to slip into depression. Suddenly all you want is to be alone. You stop answering phone calls, start declining invitations and disappear from you loved ones’ lives.
2. Your Forget To Take Care Of Yourself
You might be hiding your feelings from others, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling them. The constant pain, anger or other emotions that you’re dealing with have a way of taking over when you refuse to acknowledge them. Soon, you stop taking care of yourself completely.
3. You Stay Busy
Many people have a similar reaction when they avoiding something – they stay busy. If you’re drowning yourself in your work or find that you’re extremely involved in a friend or family member’s life but you aren’t taking care of yourself, it’s probably a sign that you’re running from your true emotions.
4. You Tell Everyone You’re Fine
When you’re hiding your feelings from others, your typical response to “How are you?” becomes “I’m fine.” It’s a line that most people know all too well. Nine times out of ten, it means that you’re not fine, and that there’s something deeper going on.
5. You Start To Develop Anxiety
Even if you’ve never struggled with anxiety before, holding in your emotions and hiding how you are truly feeling can stir up feelings of anxiousness. You become constantly on edge, trying to make sure that no one sees what’s really going on.
6. You Begin Feeling False Positivity
Hiding your emotions can make you feel miserable. It can also cause you to feel a sense of false positivity every once in a while. You might be able to look at an unfortunate situation and find humor in it, but false positivity isn’t the real thing. It’s simply a coping mechanism.
7. You Have A Constant Need For Control
When the anxiety starts to set in, you begin planning ahead so you feel more in control of your day. You suddenly become afraid of surprises or spontaneity, and any down time causes you to think about your feelings. As a result, you have a constant need to stay busy.
8. You Start To Seek Out Bad Relationships
The longer you refuse to face your emotions, the more dangerous it gets. The pressure and anxiety and fear that you feel can cause you to make poor decisions, such as seeking out bad relationships. You become emotionally unavailable, which can cause you to choose someone who is completely wrong for you.
9. Everything Becomes A Joke To You
When you’re running from your true emotions, humor becomes a crutch you can lean on. While you’re drowning in your own sadness, you somehow find a way to turn everything into a joke, which allows you to brush it off more easily.
10. You Present A Tough Exterior
Repressing your emotions often creates a tough exterior. You become so afraid of other people finding out what you’re going through that you begin to keep everyone at a distance. This can cause your relationships to suffer.
Sources:
Power of Positivity
Huffington Post
Psychology Today