When our emotions confuse us
Have you ever come away from an interaction with someone and felt overwhelmed by what transpired because the intensity of your response did not match the intensity of the situation? Perhaps you felt judged, abandoned, or accused despite this not being directly conveyed by the other person. Then you might have responded toward them with anger, defensiveness, or walling off, or internally you felt insecure, depressed, hopeless, unworthy or alone. It can be so confusing to have your brain, body, and heart radiating heightened emotions and responses when the literal experience itself is not very intense or overtly negative. Oftentimes once the emotions have subsided, a great deal of guilt or hopelessness is present. Why? Your interactions did not align with your values and how you desire to connect with others.
Building insight surrounding painful emotions
Ask yourself questions such as: What was the moment that I slipped into a painful emotion? What about that was painful? Did something make me feel insecure? Did I feel unloved or unworthy in any way? What are other times that I have felt this way? When I feel this way, what do I do to protect myself? Do other feelings tend to come in and take over, such as resentment or anger? What ways do I behave when I feel that way?
Many people find journaling helpful because they are able to practice expressing emotions and build insight surrounding how they experience relationships as well as the patterns that arise most frequently for them. For others, talking with a trusted friend can have similar benefits. But some people still remain confused about why they feel and respond the way they do. These are often the people who feel hopeless about making true change in their lives.
The impact of trauma on our brains
One of the most challenging things about changing these interactional patterns are that so often, the most vulnerable emotions are nearly undetectable because they are so layered with defensive mechanisms and secondary emotions like anger. Why? Because they are so deeply painful for us to feel at all. Feeling unloved, unworthy, insignificant, unsafe, unimportant, and like a failure are common primary emotions that get partially or fully buried. This is especially the case when a person has experienced trauma or grown up in a home with caregivers who had limited emotional insight (such as parents struggling with severe mental health issues or addiction.) Our brain codes these confusing, scary, painful experiences in a particular way to try and help us survive and to avoid similar experiences in the future, and while some of the results might help us survive a repeatedly traumatizing environment or a toxic household – such as dulling emotional experience to focus on physically surviving or holding in painful emotions to show up always happy to your parents in order to keep them emotionally regulated – they do not help us thrive or have healthy relationships. Essentially, we continue to live life as though we are in the past continuing to experience the past trauma, the unsafe household, or the unhealthy relationship.
But I don’t think I experienced trauma.
I am so grateful to work with a wide variety of clients when it comes to trauma and negative core beliefs. I work with clients who have literally been to hell and back with the severity of trauma they’ve experienced, the type of stuff most people cannot imagine experiencing. However, I also work with many clients who don’t identify as having experienced trauma or even a challenging family of origin. For those, they often come into therapy very confused about why they struggle so much in their relationships at times. They often present as high-achievers and have a great job, are generally well liked, have meaningful hobbies, and sometimes even have the picture perfect marriage or family. But they are seeing me because they actually are not happy in their closest relationships. They feel unknown or disconnected, they experience conflict regularly, or they cannot hold down a romantic relationship. They might be struggling with depression or anxiety and feel helpless when the difficult emotions begin to set in.
The thing is that we can absorb negative messaging from many sources and over time build these strong core negative beliefs; trauma or a blatantly toxic family of origin is not always required. Those who are more sensitive in nature, more prone to seek achievement, or more vulnerable to mental health challenges are going to be more likely to absorb more of what is happening around them (the emotions, the expectations) and possibly even to internalize the related messaging. For instance, someone who is very tuned in to the emotional experience of others may be more prone to picking up on when a person feels overwhelmed or sad; thus, they might be more likely to take more responsibility for other’s emotions, either bottling their own emotions altogether or recognizing when their own vulnerable sharing leads to negative emotions in others. Over time, they might begin to have negative core beliefs such as “I’m too much,” “I need to be perfect and please everyone,” or “I cannot show my emotions.” On the other hand, a person who is high-achieving and has consistently gone through life performing well might come to conclusions that they need to continue performing just as highly in school, work, or relationships and begin to have a more intense relationship with control in order to maintain this. When they make mistakes or cannot adequately predict the future, it can be devastating for them and lead to feeling like a failure, even when the experiences themselves are common human experiences. Those core beliefs might look like “I should have known better,” “I am not in control,” or “I am to blame.” Can you see how this can progress and intensify over years?
Healing our core negative beliefs
Oftentimes, when a client is coming to therapy for the first time in their 30s or 40s, these negative messages have become deeply ingrained in their core, and even if the person is incredibly insightful and can see the patterns, they are often at a loss for how to change anything. Healing can happen by many means, and I by no means have all of the exhaustive solutions! But I do have two distinct directions I go with clients presenting with significant negative core messaging.
Therapy can help clear negative beliefs
Firstly, there is always so much genuine growth available when a person has a trusted therapist and confidential space to share their innermost feelings. Many people benefit from the practice of expressing emotions and sharing their experiences and insights, as they might not do so very often or might keep their reflections surface level in most relationships. But even very insightful, expressive individuals can benefit from having a therapist to help guide them deeper into understanding their feelings, needs, desires, blocking beliefs, shame, coping, and sources of hope. Doing this in the context of a relationship that ideally meets the client with unconditional positive regard – meaning that they are viewed and held with compassion and respect no matter what they share – can absolutely open the door to new revelations as well as allowing people to sink into their more vulnerable primary emotions. When we can acknowledge, feel, and share those most vulnerable emotions, so often much of the other distressing stuff (the secondary emotions, the maladaptive coping, the anxiety, the depression) begins to lift. The process becomes cleared out as the clutter becomes unnecessary. Part of this work also involves building self-compassion through learning more about the unrealistic expectations we hold ourselves to and where we might have learned them from and then identifying more balanced expectations and views of ourselves to hold. Experiential reparenting work is a beautiful accompaniment to this talk therapy.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR Therapy)
The second direction is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR,) which is a somatic based therapy that utilizes bilateral stimulation (eye movements using a light bar, tactile buzzers that clients hold in their hands, or self butterfly tapping are some of the forms I use) to stimulate the survival parts of the brain that take over when we become activated due to trauma or stress. Once the memory processing network is active, the client is able to literally reprocess traumatic or stressful memories or core negative beliefs and heal, forming healthier new ways of experiencing themselves and the world around them. I have found this modality to be pure magic for so many of my clients. Oftentimes they experience a shift in how they feel about themselves and past experiences much more rapidly than what is typically experienced in talk therapy. I especially find EMDR to be beneficial for other therapists, healers, or individuals who have participated in therapy previously and are already very insightful but continue to have heightened emotions at times that are lodged in core negative beliefs. Check out more information on EMDR including an introduction video on the EMDRIA website or talk with your therapist about if EMDR could be beneficial for you.