What exactly is emotional suppression?

[Eternal]

For the longest time throughout my whole life, I felt like I couldn't be my self. Beliefs, thoughts of unworthiness etc.  Like I am not good enough just by being me. I really felt and believed that I had to be this 'other' person and I am inherintly not good enough. I felt like I had to perform around others, not in a good way. Internal pressure of feeling like I always had to say the right thing. I am all good now but I am wondering what is the cause of it. 

 

Is it emotional suppression or repression? How exactly do these untrue beliefs about myself form which create a lot of mind activity/conceptualization etc.. 

 

For the longest time, I felt like I had no way out of the prison I created for myself. I really felt so trapped etc.. and probably a lot of other people currently feel like that. 

 

Interested in knowing your guys opinions on emotional suppression, repression and how it seems so hard to get out of it etc...? When it's going on anyway.  It's what everyone seems to do. Either craving a new experience or averting from current experience

 

Of course everything is ultimately whole ultimately but during it, it really does not feel that way. There is always light but it gets covered up by darkness and it really feels like there is no light. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Eternal

[Loop]

The need for safety. 
We believed we weren’t safe so we repressed how we really felt, & continue to do so. 
 

The trying to ‘get out of it’ is exactly the suppression/ repression. 
 

Addiction is directly related to emotional suppression/ repression. Always gotta get the next thing, avoid what is so now. Anything to not feel what we really feel, because that seems dangerous. Perhaps we felt someone we needed to help us survive as a kid wouldn’t accept us if we acted a certain way, or expressed what was really felt. 
 

Ask “What do I get out of believing I am not good enough”?

Sit with it for a bit, don’t just quickly do this. You might find a command saying you need to act a certain way to get something. Might just feel contractions and pain. Watch how the body reacts to the question. 

The repressed doesn’t care about what is true. Just wants to be felt & heard so to speak. 
 

[Eternal]

1 hour ago, Loop said:

The need for safety. 
We believed we weren’t safe so we repressed how we really felt, & continue to do so. 
 

The trying to ‘get out of it’ is exactly the suppression/ repression. 
 

Addiction is directly related to emotional suppression/ repression. Always gotta get the next thing, avoid what is so now. Anything to not feel what we really feel, because that seems dangerous. Perhaps we felt someone we needed to help us survive as a kid wouldn’t accept us if we acted a certain way, or expressed what was really felt. 
 

Ask “What do I get out of believing I am not good enough”?

Sit with it for a bit, don’t just quickly do this. You might find a command saying you need to act a certain way to get something. Might just feel contractions and pain. Watch how the body reacts to the question. 

The repressed doesn’t care about what is true. Just wants to be felt & heard so to speak. 
 

 I get ya.

 

Why does this community heavily emphasize on the emotional expression side of things while other spirtual teachers focus more on truth-realization etc.. and putting attention back on awareness

[Loop]

9 minutes ago, Eternal said:

Why does this community heavily emphasize on the emotional expression side of things while other spirtual teachers focus more on truth-realization etc.. and putting attention back on awareness

 

There aren’t really spiritual teachers. The Teacher is Feeling, Emotional Guidance. 
 

Constantly going back to awareness can actually become an emotion repression mechanism. Not saying there is anything wrong with resting as awareness, it is a foundational practice. Although every practice & every thing we think is true can be used as a repression mechanism.  
 

To come out of repressing is to feel safe & express. Which doesn’t actually have anything to do with what is true or false. Truth is there when we don’t need to search. When there is no addiction to attaching or pushing anything away. 
 

Ego & identification is actually the fundamental repression mechanism in my opinion.  
 

[Eternal]

22 minutes ago, Loop said:

 

There aren’t really spiritual teachers. The Teacher is Feeling, Emotional Guidance. 
 

Constantly going back to awareness can actually become an emotion repression mechanism. Not saying there is anything wrong with resting as awareness, it is a foundational practice. Although every practice & every thing we think is true can be used as a repression mechanism.  
 

To come out of repressing is to feel safe & express. Which doesn’t actually have anything to do with what is true or false. Truth is there when we don’t need to search. When there is no addiction to attaching or pushing anything away. 
 

Ego & identification is actually the fundamental repression mechanism in my opinion.  
 

Makes sense, I just never hear any spiritual teachers really mentioning it though. 

 

You'd think it would be more popular within the spiritual communities

[Phil]

9 hours ago, Eternal said:

 Why does this community heavily emphasize on the emotional expression side of things while other spirtual teachers focus more on truth-realization etc.. and putting attention back on awareness

The truth is unthinkable, unknowable and unbelievable. 

Feeling, awareness & truth are synonymous pointing words.

Focus on concepts / thoughts is ‘away from’ truth ‘into’ conceptualization. (Like focusing on trying to feel light). 

Focus on emotion / feeling is towards / direct, is putting attention back on awareness (feeling ‘back upon’’ feeling). 

Concepts are only ‘held’ to be pointings. No spirituality or nonduality teachers actually claim to have insights or know anything about, or understand truth. That would be a teaching of attachment & suffering, craving & aversion. 

 

It’s ‘hard to get out of it’ only because you’re not in it. Sort of like running from water cause you’re thirsty. 

Much is emptied & dispelled, but nothing’s added. 

What is already is. 

https://www.actualityofbeing.com/the-ten-ox-herding-pictures

 

Also, like wise with Self Inquiry.

 

“This is an enlightening meditation technique of self-realization. By realizing the truth, or true nature, the bonds of suffering are broken. Besides realization, self-inquiry delivers many of the same benefits as other meditation techniques, such as relaxation, natural enhancement of experiencing life, greater openness to change, greater creativity, and a sense of joy and fulfillment. Focus on the feeling of being "me," to the exclusion of all arising thoughts.”

 

[Loop]

On 3/8/2023 at 2:42 PM, Eternal said:

Makes sense, I just never hear any spiritual teachers really mentioning it though. 

 

You'd think it would be more popular within the spiritual communities

Sometimes we get caught in this idea that there is the ultimate practice, or we can just let everything be and it will be fine. Those who are attached to a practice, have taught a practice for years usually do not want to let it go, or allow it to evolve. Not to mention having an identity wrapped around being a teacher, or being awake, or enlightened. 

Admitting how we actually feel, not staying with a safer emotion, & not wrapping yourself around a practice, opens us to the deeper healing in a sense. 

I feel there is a balance between awareness based practice (Letting it all be as it is, feeling the self, self-inquiry) & shadow based practice (Investigating triggers, disowned shadows, somatic-inquiry). 

 

Dig into the triggers, find the stories attached to them, find the driver or commands that run them, as Awareness. Traumas are held in the body as contractions. Inquiry into who/ what is aware of it at the same time as uncovering the stuck emotional energies. 
Don’t push away thoughts or feelings, notice the emotional energies, notice the images & sounds.