Can I get rid of my emotions?

Can I get rid of my emotions?

I hear this question from so many people, especially those dealing with depression or anxiety.  The short answer is: NO you can’t banish your emotions. But with practice and support, you can learn to regulation your emotional experiences.

I think the desire to stop feeling emotions actually comes from not understanding the real role emotions play in our lives.  Too many people feel shame or guilt about their feelings, they have been raised in families that share the belief that emotions are “crazy,” or they fear that their emotions will last forever, will overwhelm them or will be impossible to control.

What are emotions good for anyway?

In reality, emotions serve important functions in our lives.  Emotions are a universal part of the human experience.  Since there is no getting rid of them, it can be helpful to understand what they are good for and to build compassion for ourselves around painful emotions that we all sometimes feel.

Therapy works to help you regulate your emotional experience, but does not try to get rid of emotions. Therapy helps you build skills for changing emotions sometimes and gives you support for feeling your emotions at other times. Getting rid of emotions entirely is not a realistic option, and even if you think you would want to if you could, I don’t think it would be wise to try.

Too many problem behavior patterns such as drinking too much, emotional eating, or even suicide, stem from an attempt to numb out and not feel any emotions.   Many folks think that they are anxious or depressed because they are feeling too much. In fact, in my experience depression often looks less like “feeling too much sadness” more like “numbing out and trying not to feel sadness at all.”

Similarly, anxiety is often fueled by trying to change or control our emotional experience, “I should not feel this way, I can’t let this happen to me,” while acknowledging what you are fearing and getting some support in expressing these fears most often makes the anxiety you are feeling in the moment lessen.

Marsha Linehan has written about the functions of emotions in her books about DBT.  She talks about 3 important roles of emotions that she believes have evolved with us as humans because they help our species survive:

1. Emotions motivate (and organize) us for action

• There are hard wired biological links between certain emotional experiences and urges to act in specific ways. For example fear motivates us to escape and anger motivates us to defend ourselves.
• Because they are hard wired, emotions save us time by motivating very quick reactions during times of crisis. Imagine how dangerous it would be if you had to thoughtfully consider your actions in the moment of an emergency. Instead, emotions provide energy to act quickly and without much thought. Think about the emotional and physical reaction you would have immediately if someone were to yell “FIRE” or “GUN” or “RUN.”
• Because they are hard wired, emotions are also very difficult to change. Knowing this can help you have more compassion for yourself about your emotional experience. You can’t control whether you experience an emotion, or even how intense it is. But importantly, you can learn to observe your emotions and to make wise decisions about whether or not to act on the urges associated with the emotions. For example when you experience fear about something that you know rationally will be safe, you can overcome the urge to escape. You can have compassion for yourself for feeling afraid, but still choose to approach the situation if it is important to you.

2. Emotions communicate to others

• Did you know that facial expressions associated with various emotions are universal across time and cultural differences? They help us to communicate to others much more quickly than with words.
• Some emotional expressions have automatic impact on others. For example infants can recognize and react appropriately to an adult’s smile or a look of fear long before they can use words verbally.  Try to imagine someone sharing happy news with you but with a facial expression or an emotional voice tone of anger or fear. The discomfort your feel with these mixed messages makes it clear what an important role emotions have in communication with others.

3. Emotions communicate to ourselves

• Emotions serve as a signal to pay attention. We are oriented to events and people that trigger emotional response. Sometimes they are a cue that something may not be right.  Sometimes when a positive emotion is present we will feel warmly ad be attracted to the situation.
• It is important to learn to separate emotion from fact. Sometimes people have not learned to trust and validate their own emotional experience and they need to work on “trusting their gut.” On the other hand, it is important not to treat your emotions as facts. Finding a balance between taking your emotions seriously, and at the same time, keeping in mind that just because you have a feeling does not mean it reflects the reality of a situation, is the key to healthy emotional regulation.

I hope that this information helps you accept that emotions are an important part of life.  They serve important functions and they need to be accepted and even valued.  Certainly, emotional experience can be regulated, and the pain that can be associated with emotions can be alleviated. I hope you will stop asking yourself, “Can I get rid of my emotions?”

Paradoxically, trying to banish, shame and suppress emotional experience (whether someone else is doing it to you or you are doing it to yourself) usually makes anxiety and depression worse.

Instead, learning to understand and validate your emotions, and getting support in expressing these emotions effectively (rather than just acting on impulsive urges) can be very healing.

If you would like to talk more about your emotions and how therapy might help you feel less controlled by your emotional reactions, call me at 404-668-9893

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