3 Reasons why “Just Be Cool” is Bad for You

“Just be cool” – We hear it all the time when people get worked up about something.  The idea has permeated our culture and we Americans pride ourselves on not being “overly emotional”.   But what if that way of being actually did us more harm than good?

There is definitely a time and place to be cool, and there are certainly a lot of advantages if you can be level headed when making important decisions.   But if advice to be cool means that you have to stuff your feelings in order to create peace, then the feelings you’ve suppressed will have other ways of creating havoc in the body.   Here are some of the ways suppressing our feelings can hurt us:

1.)   We Miss Important Signals

I believe the reason why we were made to be emotional beings is to help us make good decisions about our environment.  Developing conscious awareness of our emotions and honoring them helps us develop our intuition about what is good for us.  If we try to suppress them, then we are also suppressing our intuition.   Read and listen to Listen to Your Body, the Secret to Getting Your Needs Met to learn more about why listening to your intuition could save your life!

2.)   Emotions Leak into Our Behavior

As a kid I was frequently yelled at by my volatile and angry father.  I decided that, unlike him, I wouldn’t take my anger out on other people,  so I seethed instead.  The anger, the frustration, the bitterness and the despair turned inward, and it contributed to depression, self-loathing, and shame.  I didn’t realize it at the time, that as hard as I was trying to be cool, I was resonating with anger.  People frequently misread my intentions, and I didn’t understand why it was so hard for me to connect.  It turns out the anger was coming out in different ways below my level of consciousness.  Now that I’ve released so much of the anger and trauma, my relationships with others are much easier and way more fun!

3.)   Suppressed Emotions = Stress to our Bodies and Minds

From my work as a holistic healer, I’ve learned that the underpinnings  of stress are accumulative trapped emotions, and negative beliefs and energies (like sabotage, cording, etc ).  If we don’t have a healthy way to let them out of our bodies, then they accumulate to impact the way we handle our daily life, and our susceptibility to illness and disease.  The effect of stress on our bodies is pervasive.  It impacts our nervous system, our immune system, our vascular system and even our muscular system.   It effects our reactions, our behavior, our ability to fight infections, our ability to recover from injury, and increases our risk for most chronic diseases, both physical and mental.   I regularly help clients increase their immune function or decrease stress and pain just by releasing trapped emotions.

If suppressing our emotions is worse for us in the long term, should we feel completely free to express how we feel?  That depends on how strong your feelings are.  If you are connected with your feelings and you can say them in a way that honors and respects your needs as well as those of the listener, then yes.  But if you are filled with rage, and can’t say anything nice to the person, then using other methods to acknowledge and release your emotions before engaging with this person would result in a much better outcome.

Would you like support in releasing your negative emotions so that they don’t reek havoc on your behavior and your long term health?  If so, listen to my interview, Releasing Subconscious Barriers:  The Key to Health and Happiness, and give me a call at 1855 ENERJOY if you would like to take advantage of my free 1 hr consultation.

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