Episode 49
If you’ve ever asked yourself ‘why am I so broken?’ This episode is sure to be eye-opening, educational and hopeful. Matt Bush, Co-Lead Educator of NSI Certification and Founder of Next Level Neuro joins us for a deep discussion about the dangers of repressed emotions, healthy expression and your nervous system.
Our bodies and nervous systems are brilliantly designed with natural processes to express emotions. Yet if you have complex trauma you may have learned at an early age that it’s not safe for you to express emotions.
Did you know there’s a strong relationship between the immune, endocrine, central and peripheral nervous systems? The study of this is called psychoneuroimmunology and it has a lot to teach us about the importance of expressing our emotions.
Matt teaches that “expressing our emotions regulates the emotion and it also regulates our physical body to reduce the build up of stress. …Essentially, if we’re not expressing emotions, then the nervous system stays in an activated stress response, or threat response, and we’re gonna build up stress hormones in our body. We’re gonna have more adrenaline, higher levels of cortisol.
Eventually we’re gonna dip into what’s called cortisol bathing, which means we get really good at being in survival mode and really bad at thriving in life. (raise your hand if you can relate) That increases the risk within the nervous system of stress related neurological deficits, and then eventually even neurological disease.
This risk increases when we don’t get to express emotions.The flip side of the coin is we can express, we can deactivate stress hormones.
And the stress state of our nervous system turns down that survival response and we can return back to a state of balance in homeostasis. So it’s really a regulating type of thing to express emotions.”
We feel anger when the prediction our brain has made doesn’t match with what actually happens. Our nervous system activates, our hormones change, cortisol and adrenaline spike and the metabolic system heats up. It becomes difficult to be in the present moment.
When this happens over a long period of time it leads to dissociation, depression and anxiety… ultimately, survival mode.
The good news is there are productive and safe ways to express your emotions, particularly anger.
In the beginning, it’s vital to release your anger in a structured, supported environment. We are here to support and guide you using NSI tools to first create safety in the body. We’ll teach you how to gauge the appropriate dose of emotional release and support you through safe emotional release.
Highlights in this episode:
- Why it doesn’t matter to your brain if a threat is real, imagined or perceived
- Surprising definitions of anger
- Jennifer beautifully explains how learning to trace her protective outputs back to a triggering feeling helps her to discharge emotions
- Elisabeth shares a personal story of how growing up with a dissociated mother kept her from expressing emotions
- The difference between suppressed and repressed emotions
- How emotional repression conditions our brain and nervous system to view the world differently
- The connection between anger and autoimmune disorders, unexpressed anger, early childhood sexual abuse and boundaries
- Releasing generational anger
If you’re a coach, therapist or healer and you want to bring more NeuroSomatics into your practice then we’re now enrolling for the next round of NeuroSomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification. The link to schedule a free consult is in the show notes. We would love to have you join our amazing community of practitioners who are bringing applied neurology, somatics, and emotional expression into all areas of healing and growth.
Listen to more episodes of Trauma Rewired HERE