101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

are appearing 
IN YOUR LIFE
Many people will agree that suppression is the least effective
emotional regulation strategy available, and yet it’s the most
common go-to coping technique. In a sense, emotional suppression
is simply just ignoring your feelings, or invalidating them by believing
they’re “wrong.” This is dangerous because your emotions are
responses that are designed to keep you alive and well. This
problem is created, of course, from basic emotional intelligence not
being common knowledge. Rather than face the scary unknown, we
just avoid it.
In 1988, Daniel Wenger conducted a groundbreaking study
16
that
showed just how insidious emotional suppression can be. The
results of his research were the ability to identify the “rebound effect
of thought suppression.” Essentially, the group in the study that was
instructed to push away thoughts of a white bear had more thoughts
about the white bear than the other group, which was allowed to
think about anything (including a white bear). Ever heard the phrase
“What we resist, persists?”
Long story short: You can’t avoid your emotions. You can’t deny
them, invalidate them, or suppress them. You can only try to ignore
them, but for reasons more powerful than your conscious mind can
grasp, they will make themselves known in many other ways. Here
are a few ways suppressed emotions resurface in life/signs you may
be experiencing this, too:
01. Your self-image is polarized: You either think you’re the
greatest person on Earth or a worthless piece of garbage,
with little in between.

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02. You become anxious when anticipating social situations, as
you feel you cannot just show up as you are, so you will have
to “perform” or be subject to judgment from whoever is there.
03. You catastrophize. One bad remark from a colleague is cause
for an existential breakdown about your self-worth; one
argument with a partner is cause to rethink the whole
relationship, and so on.
04. You exist in comparison to others. You feel you are only as
attractive as you are more attractive than someone else, or
the most attractive person in the room, and so on.
05. You cannot tolerate being wrong, as you associate making a
mistake with being invalidated as a person.
06. You have random, almost completely unprecedented bursts
of anger over very small, unimportant things.
07. You complain constantly—about things that don’t even really
warrant complaint. (It’s a subconscious desire for other
people to see and acknowledge your pain.)
08. You’re indecisive. You don’t trust that your thoughts or
opinions or choices will be “good” or “right” the first time, so
you overthink.
09. You procrastinate, which is just another way to say you are
fairly regularly in a state of “dis-ease” with yourself. (You can’t
simply allow flow, which is a product of suppression.)
10. You’d rather feel superior to other people than connected to
them.
11. When someone you know is successful, your immediate
response it to pick out their faults rather than express
admiration or acknowledgement.
12. Your relationships end for similar reasons, you feel anxiety
over similar things, and even though you assume time will
diminish these feelings or responses, the patterns persist.
13. You’re resentful of whomever you think is responsible for your
pain, or your lack of success, or your inability to choose.

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14. You feel as though you can’t really open your heart to
someone.
15. You suffer a “spotlight complex,” in which you feel that
everyone is watching you and is invested in how your life
turns out. (They aren’t. They’re not.)
16. You’re afraid to move on, even though you want to. You may
be ready to move on mentally, but until you completely
process the accompanying feelings, you’ll remain exactly
where you are.
16 Wenger, Daniel. “Suppressing the White Bears.” 1987.