An intense emotion like fear will run its course and pass in just 7 to 12 seconds if you let yourself feel it completely without suppression. Chronic suffering arises from resisting the feeling, not from the feeling itself. To accelerate this process, breathe into the physical sensation rather than holding your breath against it.

A six-year-old explained she cries when angry because crying makes her sister comfort her, while anger makes everyone run away. This reveals a fundamental social dynamic: we learn to express sadness to draw people in, while suppressing anger to avoid pushing them away, which can create a disconnect from our true feelings.

The habit of emotional withholding isn't selective. When you consistently suppress feelings like sadness or anger, you also unintentionally stifle your ability to experience and express joy. Emotional health requires being open to the full spectrum of feelings, not just the negative ones.

The common belief that emotions are a form of energy to be vented or suppressed is wrong. Emotions are more like a recipe, combining ingredients like thoughts, actions, memories, and physical feelings to create the final state, such as anxiety.

Society often mistakes emotional suppression for strength and discipline, a form of "toxic stoicism." However, true resilience involves feeling emotions deeply and acting despite them. Choosing to be vulnerable—speaking your truth when it's scary—is an act of courage, not weakness.

Ignoring your feelings doesn't make them vanish. Instead, they go "underground" and manifest later as burnout, frustration, or depression. The practice isn't to fix emotions but simply to name them without judgment, which is a key skill for preventing burnout.

When his son was crying after being momentarily left behind, psychologist Greg Walton simply said, "You were scared you'd be left behind." Acknowledging and naming the specific fear validated the emotion, allowing the child's body to visibly relax.

UCLA research shows that consciously labeling a negative emotional cue (e.g., thinking “that was an eye-roll”) calms the amygdala’s threat response. This mental act restores physiological control, stopping a downward spiral in high-stakes situations like presentations or negotiations.

Coping mechanisms like distraction, over-preparing, or avoiding eye contact actively interfere with the brain's natural process of emotional habituation. To overcome anxiety, you must allow yourself to fully experience it without resistance, so your brain can process the feeling.