Our beings are multifaceted. Our bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits all have needs. Our bodies need to be moved and nourished, but not to excess. Our minds and hearts need learning as well as social and emotional connection, and our spirits need solace, meaning, and clarity about what we value and cherish most.

You may pamper your body but neglect your emotions. You may nourish your mind but starve your spirit, and you may pursue spirituality while cutting yourself off from your instinctual life. You may limit what you can get out of your relationships by keeping a superficial focus on self-image instead of investing in meaningful connections.

The ways in which we limit, reject, and sell ourselves short are endless, and the end result is that we feel less than whole and less than fulfilled.

Types of Self-Rejection

Some forms of self-rejection are obvious—self-harming behaviors, getting involved with people who exploit us or treat us poorly, pushing away people who treat us well, and ingesting harmful substances are some of the more obvious ways we may work against ourselves.

Self-rejection can also take more subtle forms. Some of these include:

• Resignation, or not pursuing our highest aspirations
• Remaining in relationships or jobs that are stagnant. They may offer the comfort of familiarity, but no growth.
• Turning down or missing various life opportunities
• Self-punitive mental habits like perfectionism
• Opting for instant gratification to avoid short-term discomfort while missing out on long-term fulfillment

You may take yourself seriously in ways that leave less room to be serious about the parts of yourself that need to be taken seriously. Do you take your hang-ups and self-image seriously while ignoring your true feelings? Evaluating your aspirations without seriousness is another form of self-rejection.

When Therapy Becomes a Form of Self-Rejection

Almost anything can become a form of self-rejection, including mental health counseling. Learning useful coping Reclaiming our rudders and accessing our true feelings can be a bumpy ride; cut-off feelings were repressed for a reason.skills is often important for many people. However, only pursuing a path of coping, as opposed to learning to cope while also working on resolving what is causing the need for coping, may lead to a lifetime of simply trying to cope while patching things over. In this scenario, the cause of our inner difficulties is never resolved. The path of simply coping becomes burdensome; we learn to survive, but never to thrive.

It may be tempting for clients and therapists to focus solely on ways of coping and feeling better for the moment, but this approach often neglects the potential for deeper healing.

Reclaim Your Rudder: Accessing Our Feelings to Overcome Self-Rejection

Our feelings are our compass in life. They are our inner GPS, informing us of what is healthy and what is not. This is why our feelings are good for decision-making—they provide the crucial information of what we really want and what we are averse to. When our feelings are shut down and cut off from conscious awareness, we are deprived of our rudders and set adrift on the ocean of life.

Reclaiming our rudders and accessing our true feelings can be a bumpy ride; cut-off feelings were repressed for a reason. Unearthing and working through previously avoided emotions can be anxiety-provoking and painful. But once we have learned to tease apart our feelings from anxiety and painful ways of managing anxiety, the ride becomes smoother, and feelings fulfill their function without taking over.

When our feelings are linked up and connected with our reasoning minds, the executive functions, we feel grounded, present, and calm, and we can navigate life with all our resources to bear. Our decisions aren’t impulsive; they are thought out and informed by our true feelings and deepest values.

Feelings are not be-all-end-all, but without them, we are cut off from information that is important to have in order to address our needs. If the emotional gate is closed, we cannot know who we really are, what we really want, and what we truly value.

Making Friends with Our Emotions

Discontinuing and reversing the trend of self-rejection must start with befriending our emotional life. A skilled therapist who understands how to address emotions in their entirety—cognitive, physiological, and impulse component—as well as the barriers to accessing emotion can be an invaluable resource when it comes to doing our emotional work. Find a therapist to support you through the process of addressing your emotions and working through self-rejection.

Only when we have befriended our true feelings can we properly tend to the needs of our body, mind, and spirit, and live in ways that actualize our human potential. The path of overcoming self-rejection begins with allowing our feelings to be. We befriend our emotions, and from there, our lives may flourish. We transition from coping to living, and from surviving to thriving.

References:

1. Coughlin, P. (2004). Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (2nd ed.). London: Karnac Books Ltd.
2. Damasio, A. (1999). The FEELING of WHAT HAPPENS. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
3. Ekman, P. (1980). The face of man: Expressions of universal emotions in a New Guinea village. Garland STPM Press.
4. Lerner, H. (1985). The dance of anger. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

In my life and in my practice, I have observed that many people are afraid of their emotions, especially feelings that make them uncomfortable or upset. Often, this fear can push people away from the benefits that emotions provide. They can be desperate not to feel what they are feeling.

Through hard work and study, I have learned how to effectively deal with my own emotions, especially anger. I understand emotions to be an opportunity for change, positive growth, and lasting well-being. In this regard, I have relied on the Emotional Guidance System (EGS). I have also introduced others to this method. I have personally witnessed how empowering EGS is in helping people achieve peace in their lives.

In my journey, I realized the feelings and sensations in my body are actually a guidance mechanism, sent forth from a deeper, wiser part of myself. This knowledge helped me to welcome all my emotions, recognizing they were there to help (not hurt) me. By actively listening to the messages (emotions) being sent to me by my body, I had the opportunity to tap into a powerful guiding force, one that is always there to direct me. As I put this into daily practice, I was able to remove internal blocks holding me back from actualizing my core self, what I also call the “aspired self.”

I believe everyone can benefit in a similar way. Our emotional system is protective and based on past experiences. Once we understand this fact, we can relate to the events in the present moment with less judgment and more constructive focus.

Your EGS is similar to a compass that helps you navigate and reach your desired destination.The EGS is a security system that is running in the background, always listening and communicating its message by sending physical signals. The sensations in your body let you know whether your thoughts are constructive and aligned with your purpose and aspired self. This information pushes you to respond to the world around you. It steers you to avoid reactions based on false narratives, negative habits, and unhelpful beliefs while directing you toward health and mindful living.

In other words, the purpose of the EGS is to reprogram the thoughts and limiting beliefs in your mind. It is designed to change your attitude and flip the coin. Rather than focusing on the past, it makes you focus on the present. Rather than focusing on fear and anger, it focuses you on your needs, wants, and aspired self.

It is essential to know that stressful bodily responses are an integral part of uncomfortable emotions. It is also important to understand that stress comes from your mind—when your thoughts are negative and not in alignment with your aspired self. Your body combats this stress by activating hormones (adrenaline, cortisol, and norepinephrine) that help you regain emotional balance and recalibrate your thoughts. Once you align your thoughts with your aspired self, your body moves from contraction to expansion. The emotional energy flows (rather than being stuck), and your stress diminishes. The opening of the body creates mental clarity that further supports the ability to access your inner wisdom.

In essence, the EGS is an alarm system, warning you that it is time to look closer at what you are thinking and doing. It alerts you when you are disconnected from your core self. The EGS reconnects you with your values and deep needs. It reminds you of your core self and recalibrates your path toward achieving positive goals. Understanding the benefit of the EGS, its purpose as well as its over-sensitivity, allows you to use its function in a constructive way rather than denying or ignoring it.

The EGS can bring with it a new awareness of your mind and body. Like physical exercise that requires repetition, commitment, and patience, you need to meet yourself where you are and gradually practice the EGS to get better results. When used constructively, your emotional system serves as a powerful tool to reprogram your mind away from false and limiting beliefs. Your EGS is similar to a compass that helps you navigate and reach your desired destination. It shows you what is important in your life and directs you toward your purpose.

A trained therapist can help you understand what your emotions are telling you. You can find a therapist here.

Dear GoodTherapy.org,

My ex-husband is suing me. My kids don’t want anything to do with me. My job is a dead end, and my life sucks. I feel like I have no future and can’t see beyond the end of this letter. So why can’t I cry?

Most people in my situation would be bawling their eyes out, but I feel nothing. Just a void—an empty, numb, emotionless void. I can’t even remember the last time I cried. It has to have been over a decade.

I seem to have no tears in me at all. I even tried to force myself to cry the other day because I thought it might help to finally do it. I hit myself, hurt myself, called myself names. Nothing.

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What gives? The only thing I can find online is information about melancholia. I might be depressed, but I don’t feel like that’s the whole story. I haven’t been able to cry for a long, long time. Is there a psychological explanation for this? And what can I do about it? —Dry Me a River

Submit Your Own Question to a Therapist

Dear Dry,

It sounds like there is a tremendous amount of turmoil in your life. Considering the far-reaching impact it has had on a previous marriage, your relationships with your children, and your work, I’m guessing it didn’t come to be this way overnight. I imagine things fell apart a little bit here and a little bit there over time. If I’m correct about that, I think it is possible the numbness you describe initially developed as a coping mechanism—a way to help you manage all the pain associated with the tumult in your family and work.

Sometimes people try to cut off the more difficult emotions they experience, like grief, sadness, fear, and anxiety. The problem with cutting off painful emotions is that it also cuts off the positive ones, resulting in a sense of numbness.

Sometimes people try to cut off the more difficult emotions they experience, like grief, sadness, fear, and anxiety. The problem with cutting off painful emotions is that it also cuts off the positive ones, resulting in a sense of numbness. It sounds like somewhere along the way you just shut down to try to protect yourself from pain. After building this defense system over time, it can be difficult to reconnect with your emotions, as you discovered in your attempts to cry.

I think it would be helpful for you to talk with a therapist as you try to work through this and reconnect with your feelings. The safety of a strong therapeutic relationship can allow you to explore your world, past and present, and access your full range of emotions. Your work in therapy can also help you to develop healthier coping mechanisms to handle the more painful emotions you experience. It’s also possible that getting to healthier emotional state might help you to repair some of the relationships that seem so badly damaged. You might also feel better positioned to take on some new career challenges.

You have arrived a difficult place in your life and there are no quick fixes, but you do not have to go through this alone. There is help.

Best wishes,

Sarah Noel, MS, LMHC