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Don’t get stuck
I don’t like to make too much of the differences between males and females in terms of how they deal with emotions, but there certainly is some research to show that men tend to bottle their emotions more. That is to push them aside, to rationalize about them and to almost pretend that they don’t exist. Whereas women have the tendency to dwell on their emotions, to try really hard to understand their emotions and what they mean.
Now while these two ways of dealing with emotions – bottling, which is pushing aside, or brooding, which is dwelling on emotions – might on the surface look so different, what the research tells us is that the tendency to bottle or brood, both of these are associated with lower levels of well being, high levels of depression and anxiety, poorer problem-solving and lower quality relationships.
Often when people bottle, so they push their emotions aside, they are doing it with very good intentions. They feel that the emotions are impacting on their ability to deal with what they need to deal with. For example, a project at work or their careers. But unfortunately what bottling does is it moves to the side some very important clues. So things like stress or disaffection or dissatisfaction or anger or sadness can be really important signs to individuals as to how they should calibrate their lives and move forward effectively. When one bottles emotions, pushes those emotions aside, one is effectively cutting off a key piece of data. And what is happening is the person is so focused on the world that they live in that they’re unable to be still within themselves to, hear the heartbeat own why and their own emotions and to connect with what those messages are saying.
When people brood about emotions it’s done also with very good intentions. People are trying to understand, to analyze, to get to the bottom of what is happening. But when you are brooding, when you’re stuck in your emotions, you’re seeing the world from the perspective of your emotions. And you aren’t creating space in your heart for everything else that is out there – the people that you need to interact with, the children that you need to maybe parent, and the actual problem that you’re trying to solve. So in a completely paradoxical way brooding and focusing in on what one is feeling and why and why and why in a very stuck way can hinder us from actually moving forward effectively.
Unhook
One of the ways that we can unhook from bottling or brooding behaviors is to give up any struggle within yourself as to whether your thought or feeling is a wrong or right thought or feeling. To give up the struggle with whether you should or shouldn’t be feeling a particular thing. And to really just welcome your thoughts and emotions in a kind, compassionate, and curious way. That is the first strategy of dealing with bottling and brooding behaviors.
A second strategy that is really critical is to give a label to the emotion that you are feeling. If you come home from work and you say, “I was stressed,” and you use that non-nuanced way every single day of describing what your day has been, what you are starting to do is to overly strongly identify it with a feeling of being stressed. I am stressed. That creates no space between you and the emotion. So what we know is there’s a very big difference between being stressed and disappointed. Stressed and angry. Stressed and sad. Stressed and worried about whether this is the right career for you. And a really important aspect of starting to move away from the feeling of being hooked by an emotion or thought is to label that emotion or thought for what it is.
For example, instead of saying, “I’m stressed,” label the emotion accurately: “I’m feeling disappointed and this is why. I’m feeling angry and this is why.“ It’s only by putting an accurate label on what it is that we are feeling that we are able to start moving forward effectively.