Facing Your Feelings: Avoidance or Encounter?

Feb 11, 2021

The discussion centers on confronting negative emotions like sadness and shame, arguing against the societal push for constant happiness. Listeners learn that avoiding feelings can lead to deeper issues, including physical ailments. The dialogue also emphasizes emotional literacy, encouraging self-reflection and acceptance through methods like journaling. A fascinating dream about arranged marriage serves as a jumping-off point for exploring personal growth and the integration of opposing elements within the psyche.

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INSIGHT

Emotional Avoidance and Societal Pressure

Societal pressure to be constantly happy leads to avoiding negative emotions like sadness or anger.
This avoidance can cause long-term psychological symptoms and emotional difficulties.

ADVICE

Exploring Feelings

Instead of dismissing feelings, explore them.
Feelings provide valuable insights, especially into our instincts and areas where we need to grow.

INSIGHT

Externalization of Emotional Conflicts

We often externalize emotional conflicts, attributing them to outside sources rather than internal issues.
Jung highlights that emotions surface where we are weakest, revealing our vulnerabilities.

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While we welcome “good” feelings, we often try to banish “bad” ones like sadness, fear, vulnerability and shame. We may deny them by trying to “think positive.” We may attribute them to political wrongs or even the barking dog next door. If emotions have nowhere else to go, they become symptoms, complexes, and even physical illnesses. Avoiding negative emotions simply causes them to go underground and express themselves in disguise.

Jung says, “Our emotions happen to us; affect occurs at the point at which our adaptation is weakest and at the same time exposes the reason for its weakness.” So what is calling for encounter instead of avoidance, displacement or somatization? Feelings are information—they do not necessarily mandate action, nor do they originate externally. Notice them, name them--and look to your dreams, for the unconscious compensates nightly for what consciousness avoids. Something may be pursuing you.

Here's the dream we analyze:

"I saw a bride in a white dress sitting behind a small table in a candlelit, cave-like room. Her groom was standing/waiting across the room. It was an arranged marriage but of their own volition. The bride stood up as a signal that the marriage would occur. They looked into each other’s eyes and knew the marriage was right. This part of the dream seemed to be in close-ups of their eyes and lasted what seemed like a couple of minutes. The sense of certainty seemed to have been there, either two weeks before or after the marriage. "

References:

Inside Out (film).

On the Way to the Wedding: Transforming the Love Relationship, by Linda Leonard (Amazon).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1570627118/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_XYZKF14Y5NGZM0VGR9RH

It'ss Not Always About Depression by Hilary Jacobs Hendel

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399588140/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_JX1R3HSRBNV2HXZH8A9P

LOOK & GROW

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