You can’t bury them unless you process them
Have you ever felt like your life resembles a zombie movie?
Not literally, I’m guessing.
I sure hope not.
But, what if I asked you if you feel like you’re dragging around a bunch of crap from the past? Crap like thoughts and feelings that pop up at the worst possible time, manifesting themselves in ugly, sometimes aggressive ways?
Maybe it’s stuff you thought you dealt with. Or stuff you didn’t want to deal with.
Perhaps you’re just tired of hiding from it, wondering when someone will trip the magic button that sets off the trauma center in your brain and sends you on an emotional roller coaster ride.
Does any of this sound like you?
If so, you, my friend, may be suffering from an attack.
The assailant I speak of lives inside our minds, often hiding and playing dead (or playing possum if you’re from the rural midwest. Shout out to the country folk!) The attacks are so destructive for 2 reasons: 1) they sneak up when we aren’t expecting, and 2) they cause us to respond irrationally.
Boom.
Zombie Feelings
What the Heck Are Zombie Feelings?
When you don’t process and release your feelings they will come back to haunt you. You may think you can ignore them, burying them in the deepest recesses of your soul, but at some point, they will rise again.
When they do, it won’t be pretty.
Have you ever had an intense emotional reaction that seemed to come from nowhere, leaving you bewildered as to why you reacted so strongly? It was probably an attack of zombie feelings.
When we try to bury or ignore feelings by stuffing them in the dark corners of our minds, they tend to pop up in the most unexpected times, often in harmful ways.
A few years ago, my marriage was coming apart at the seams. It was over, but I refused to acknowledge it and own it. I was a jittery, angry hot mess of unprocessed feelings with a hair trigger. My approach to the situation was to suck it up and play through the pain.
But, it wasn’t working. I couldn’t understand why I kept failing to press on and put the mess of my personal life out of my mind. Every time I thought I had it handled, it would pop back up in a rash of more intense emotions sometimes even in outbursts in response to situations entirely unrelated to my divorce.
“Feelings buried alive never die.”
Karol Truman
A good friend told me I needed to process my feelings, “feel all the feels,” as she put it. Sounds great. But, I had no idea how to. I felt like a sack full of unwanted feelings, desperately trying to drop them off any place I could. It seems like all I did was spend my days trying to overcome them.
How to Process Your Feelings
I remember thinking all I did was have feelings. Then I got frustrated and a bit angry if I’m being honest. I’m an emotional wreck, and you’re telling me I should have more feelings? That doesn’t seem right. Eventually, I was able to wrap my mind around what my friend was trying to tell me.
Here’s what I did to finally understand how to deal with my feelings so they didn’t keep hijacking my life.
Give yourself permission to feel
I struggled with this, as I believe a lot of people – especially men – do. I realized I didn’t think it was manly to acknowledge my feelings, and I was angry at myself for having feelings.
There’s a self-defeating loop for you.
I had to get to a place where I was comfortable acknowledging my feelings. To know that doing so didn’t make me less than I should be. It made me human, which is a good thing. After all, last time I checked, I was a human.
Identify your feelings
If you had asked me how I felt during this time, I’d have responded with “fine.” But, we would have both known I wasn’t fine. My vocal tone, body language, and the flood of ruminating thoughts were all screaming anything but “fine.”
If I was being honest with myself, I’d have said I was feeling terrible. I felt terrible physically because I wasn’t taking care of myself, primarily because I wasn’t dealing with the actual feelings driving my overall malaise. While the general feeling – “terrible” – was true, you can’t process terrible.
I had to get specific, to get to the root of the issues.
Contrast “I feel terrible” with the following examples:
“I feel sad for the loss of the future I thought I had. Angry about the betrayal I experienced. Scared for what my current situation means for my future life. Worried about how this may affect my relationship with my sons. Concerned that others will view me as a failure.”
Those are feelings you can work through.
Get as specific as you can. Journaling all of this helped me immensely. Here are some other things that helped me to realize when it was time to evaluate and process my feelings.
Become more aware of what’s going on in your body
Zombie feelings sneak up on you. They will often manifest physically in your body before you even know how you’re feeling. Then, when you least expect it, they strike.
Pay attention to your body, and you’ll find the clues to an impending attack. Shallow breathing, a quickened or heavy heartbeat, stomach issues, and tight muscles are all good clues you’re carrying unprocessed feelings.
I carry a lot of tension in my neck and shoulders, which is pretty common. Another area to pay attention to is your jaw. If it is clenched, you are likely having a physical reaction to something that you need to deal with emotionally.
When zombie feelings attack, evaluate the current events of your life
What triggered the response?
What has happened over the last few days/weeks that may have contributed to the reaction?
Who were you with when you experienced the response?
Again, journaling out all of this to get specific about your feelings is a great step.
Once You’ve Named It, Process It
Now that you’ve gotten specific about the exact feelings you have been ignoring, it’s time to process them. This can be the scariest part because you have to allow yourself to fully experience these feelings. Sit with the sadness, dance with the anger. Feel whatever you are experiencing in your body, mind, and soul.
This process may take a while. But, at some point, the next step is releasing those feelings. There are several ways to do this, and it may take more than one time.
The tactic most helpful for me was to journal this all out and sit with those feelings. When I felt I was ready, I’d light my journal (helpful to use a cheap notebook for this…) on fire, watching those feelings turn to smoke and ashes with a scotch in my hand, feeling the emotional release.
Fan the flames and let it go.
How you release the feelings will depend on you, but other things I have seen work are punching a heavy bag, talking it out with a friend, or spending some extra time on self-care.
If you find yourself struggling to let go of the feelings, it’s time to enlist some help. A therapist or a trusted friend may be just the ticket to help you move past it.
Give Yourself Some Grace
It may take multiple times of letting go to truly process a feeling. You may mess up in the process. You need to treat yourself as you would a close friend or family member who is struggling. Forgive yourself. Eliminate negative self-talk and limiting beliefs.
Ignoring this step can lead to unprocessed feelings about your unprocessed feelings. Trust me, it’s a rabbit hole you don’t want to dive into.
Using this as a time to eliminate uncertainty about your feelings and how to process them and move past them will pay huge dividends in your journey to growth and enlightenment.
These strategies worked for me. I’d love to hear what works for you. Drop me a line here and we’ll continue the conversation.