Article summary

In this article, you’ll receive a three-step guide to releasing stuck emotions and feeling at ease. We’ll discuss the importance of acknowledging and processing stuck feelings, with the help of one or two poop-metaphors. Prepare to feel thoroughly relieved by the end of this article.

Do you know how to consciously poop out your emotions?

(In case it was in any way unclear, this article makes heavy use of poop-related metaphors. You have been warned.)

If you’re like most people, you’re incredibly backed up, emotionally speaking. One reason is that we have very strong social norms against feeling and displaying a large part of our emotional range. 

You may have experienced this yourself: You’ve let your feelings get really pent up, and then someone triggered you and you exploded all over the other person in a tidal wave of emotional diarrhoea. Not a pretty sight. 

If you don’t know how to handle your emotions in a conscious and adult way, it’s like you’re backing yourselves up and wearing diapers, instead of learning how to go to the toilet. 

In this situation, it’s like you let the emotions out whenever they overflow, often in inappropriate or unhelpful ways, instead of consciously taking care of them at the appropriate time and in the right place.

For example, Mia is having a bad day and is rude to her coworker - This is basically emotional diarrhoea in public. It’s unprofessional, and shouldn’t be taking place in the office in front of people who have nothing to do with why Mia is upset in the first place.

 Bottling it all up isn’t the answer either, as that’ll cause more constipation, which we all know is extremely unhealthy. Plus, there’ll be even more emotional crap that’ll explode out at some inopportune moment in the future…

There was a time when wearing emotional diapers was appropriate

It’s obviously appropriate for babies to wear both physical and emotional diapers, but not for adults (unless they have some kind of unspeakable problem). Little kids are developing their capacity to control when they go potty, and likewise, they’re learning to manage their brains and emotional expression. This is entirely appropriate, and they need people to model how it's done.

Unfortunately, most of us are never really taught how to emotionally release our emotions, at least not fully. (You may for example still have memories from years back that still upset you, even though you “should be over it by now”.)

So if we can’t fully digest and release our emotions consciously, at the appropriate time, we are essentially still having to wear emotional diapers as adults. This means that we have backed up feelings that we release at inappropriate times, in unskilled ways. 

Understanding emotions in a new way

Emotions are not problems. They’re here to be felt. They’re your experience of life. They’re part of your total intelligence. If you resist them, you resist your personal reality. You also deny yourself access to important information. All in all, resisting emotions creates tension and all kinds of problems in your life.

When you let your emotions flow freely, in appropriate settings, you’re way more grounded, and in connection with your own truth. As a bonus, when you skillfully express your true feelings, your life gets better and better as you and others adapt it to how you truly feel.

Each emotion has something to tell you. And it’s gonna stick around until you hear it out fully. Sometimes it’s a small thing like “I really didn’t like how that random person behaved”, or something big, like “That relationship was actually really important to me at the time, and it really hurt to lose it.” 

If we don’t acknowledge how we feel, we end up trying to navigate life without all the information we need to make good choices. 

Depression & anxiety are a result of emotional constipation

Emotional constipation, ie. pushing away your feelings, leads to depression and anxiety. 

If you block the flow of your difficult emotions, all your emotions get blocked. That’s what leads to the flat greyness of feeling depressed. 

Old pain that’s unacknowledged and pent-up leads to feelings of anxiety, as you misdirect your attention to things you fear in the future, instead of getting to know what already happened to you.

How to access, digest, and release your stuck feelings

It’s not enough to try to push out your feelings and force yourself to let them go. 

Your feelings won’t go anywhere unless they have a better place to go to. 

Imagine a kid who’s upset. If you try to get them to “let go” of how they’re feeling, by trying to talk them out of how they feel or pressuring them to feel differently, they’ll just clam up more. Maybe they’ll smile and “be ok” but deep down they’ve just started a journey of emotional constipation that’ll take them to a therapist’s chair in their 30s.

It’s the same for us adults. Try to force your feelings to leave, and they’ll just get even more stuck. Instead, you need to provide a safe and welcoming haven for your feelings to flow out into. That might be with a good therapist, a great friend, a parent who’s a wise and good listener, and of course, ultimately with yourself. One huge benefit of being in that safe and welcoming environment for yourself is that you’re always and already there! 

Your 3 steps for emotional release

So what exactly do your feelings need, to be able to come out? 

Here are the steps: 

Step 1: Prepare yourself to go potty

- Embrace the right attitude to access your feelings

To create a safe and welcoming environment for your feelings to come out, you need to start with your mindset. (This mindset shift is what this article has been building up to!) 

Get curious about how getting to know and respecting your emotions can improve your life. 

Stop trying to release them to make them go away. Instead, try to release them to have the opportunity to know yourself better. You’ll never stop having feelings, pleasant and difficult ones. They’re as much part of you as your arms are. Embrace all your feelings, embrace their intelligence, and embrace the fact that you probably don’t like all of your feelings.

Don’t take your thoughts and feelings literally. Treat them like inner kids who say they hate you when they’re upset, but actually really need you to help them. You’re the adult in the room. Behave like one. Get to the bottom of why you feel what you feel, through relentless warm curiosity. It might take some time, and that’s completely normal.

Step 2: Digest your emotions by hearing them out and seeing them fully

- Get uncensored to get to know your feelings Fully

To really know how you feel, you need to allow yourself to be fully uncensored. Notice anything that shows up: Shame, you got it! Rage, bien sûr! Mortifying embarrassment, of course! No emotion should be left out in the cold. 

Remember that it’s always safe to think and feel whatever you feel. It’s just an experience, just like sitting on a chair is an experience. You can just notice the emotions with the attitude of a curious scientist, making notes of what you find. It’s only your actions that can cause harm, so be mindful of acting wisely. For now, just let yourself know how you truly feel.

A crucial step to not forget: You also need to get uncensored and acknowledge any resistance and dislike you have toward your difficult feelings. Just notice those too, with the same warm curiosity!

- FEEL the feelings in your body

Feeling the emotions in the body and letting the sensations move through you. The reason this is important is that we often unconsciously resist our emotions by tensing up the body. Often we’re not even aware of doing this. So to fully feel a feeling and let it go, you need to relax open to it and let it out.

To do this, notice what sensations show up when you’re feeling an emotion, and open up to it physically as much as you can. Get really curious about the sensations, and follow them if they move and change. You might feel the emotion as a headache, or tension in your jaw for example. This part is highly personal and often changes.

If you’ve mainly been living in your head, you can learn to bring your awareness more to your body. To practice this, you can try out body-scan meditations, that help you feel your body from the inside. You can also practice getting really consciously present in your body in daily life, like when doing the dishes, working out, having sex, dancing etc. I promise, being aware in your body gets so much easier with practice!

- Validate intellectually: “It makes sense”

When you’ve really heard yourself out, by being uncensoredly honest about how you feel, and felt the sensations in your body - ask yourself if it makes sense to you that a part of you feels this way. If it doesn’t yet make sense, odds are that you haven’t dug deep enough, to get to the core of what you feel and what happened that caused it. 

When you do realise what you’re feeling and why, make sure to let this part of you know that it makes sense to have reacted the way you did. Check in on how this part of you feels as it gets validated by yourself.

For example: “Ok, yeah it makes total sense that I would still be upset at that thing from the past because it actually was a much bigger deal than I realised until now. I’m glad I now know, so I can avoid that happening again. Although what happened sucks, it feels like a relief to be aware of it.”

Step 3: Release your feelings by comforting them

- Give and receive warmth and comfort

As mentioned before, your feelings won’t fully release, until they feel fully seen, understood, and comforted. You’ve now arrived at the last step. You’ll do this one in three parts:

1. Feel your stuck feeling again
   
   
2. Feel your own compassion toward the parts of you that have been carrying this stuck feeling. Notice how hard it’s been to have had this feeling be stuck in the past.
   
   
3. Feel the stuck feeling again, but this time, be simultaneously aware of how this part of you feels as it receives your own compassion and comforting energy. Let your own compassion shine on the stuck emotion and experience both giving and receiving this warm, loving, and patient energy.

When this part of you that was carrying the stuck feeling feels genuinely seen, heard, relieved and at ease, you’ve succeeded with your emotional release. 

If you don’t get all the way there the first few times, don’t worry, you’ve already done a great job moving in the right direction! Remember that change can be very gradual, and then all at once. Show yourself grace.

For those dealing with traumatic stuck emotions

(A note on trauma: If connecting with your feelings brings up anything that feels totally overwhelming and terrifying, or you find yourself shutting down, you’re dealing with a trauma. 

In that case, please seek the help of a trauma-specialised therapist, for example, someone specialising in Internal Family Systems therapy. They’ll be your support person to help you digest and release your overwhelming stuck feelings. Otherwise, you’re good to go!)

How to get used to not wearing emotional diapers

Doing this emotional digestion and releasing exercise might feel like a big deal and like something difficult and weird at first. But the more you do it, the more skilled you get and the more automatic it gets. (It’s like when you learned to go to the toilet as a kid. First, it was a big project that required a support person, and now you can (hopefully) do it automatically by yourself, several times a day.)

I’ll give you an example of how you might get used to this process: When I started checking in with my own emotions, I’d do it in conjunction with my morning meditation. I’d check the instructions I had, and follow the steps. It was a whole thing!

Now I do it quickly and automatically, several times a day, as a part of daily life, whenever I notice I’m not feeling at my best. I might do it while doing the dishes, while walking outside, or when sitting at a café. If I notice that there’s a bigger emotional issue that I need to explore and express, I’ll take care of that in the privacy of my home, as some bigger feelings may come up, and I want my box of tissues handy. 

Common objections and answers

Here are a couple of points I want to make to avoid any unnecessary misunderstandings.

“What about systemic injustice? Are you saying I should just “let go” of how I feel about that?”

I don’t want to make it sound like difficult feelings are only to be resolved in ourselves. There are obviously systemic, societal reasons that cause a lot of emotional pain in people, and those societal causes need to be addressed. So to be super clear, I’m not talking about bypassing your emotions to be ok with shitty situations. I’m talking about empowering yourself to be more able to take action in your life, by better being able to care for yourself. 

In my experience, the more masterfully you can handle your emotions, the more powerful you’ll be. Therefore you’ll be better able to direct your energy in whatever way is wise for you. You’ll be more able to act from a state of strength, openness and vision, rather than from unprocessed pain, closure and fear.

“Am I supposed to be able to do everything myself? That sounds downright toxic.”

I also don’t want to give the wrong impression that I’m advocating for hyper-individuality, and discounting social support. Quite the contrary! I think it’s extremely important to ask others to help you, to listen, validate and offer you comfort, with enthusiastic consent. All I’m saying is that in my experience, the person you really want to get redemption from (and who can offer it most fully) is your adult self. If you haven’t previously had the experience of truly caring for and fully releasing some of your own stuck feelings, you may be very surprised at how amazing it feels! 

Final words

I apologize in advance, as I can’t promise that you’ll never have to read a poop metaphor from me again. However, I hope this metaphor sticks with you, and helps you and many others, a long time into the future!

Reflection

What did you learn from this article?

Is there anything you want to integrate into your life?

If so, what would be a first, really easy step you could take in that direction?

Good luck with your emotional digesting and releasing!

Sending you lots of love,

Sara