Emotional Constipation

...if there were such a thing, what do you think 'emotional constipation' would be?

Here's a stab at it:  The inability or unwillingness to recognize or utilize what our emotions indicate to us.

It leads to a number of things:

• Explosiveness
• Addictions
• A kind of forfeiting of goodness to which perceived bad feelings can lead

I was talking to my daughter the other day about the tendency we have to keep things inside. While there is a place for common sense and controlling our tongue, I think many times our silence is not so much prudence as it is self-protection. We don't want others to see some of the things that go on inside us.

The truth may more be, though, that we don't want to see the things that go on inside us either.  And, what we don't realize is that the self-protection we broker with regard to others and their view of us is really a weapon against ourselves. Our silence can cause us not to speak to ourselves, or perhaps put a differently, to not put words to the reality we are experiencing. When that happens, we form a kind of denial about things, about life, about ourselves. Denial at this level can be damaging to who we are, because it allows a false sense of self to grow.

When our kids a little, we say "don't hit, use words".  What we don't often realize as adults is that we often learn to not do either one.  ...and the result is often an experience of someone who is constipated.  Pretty uncomfortable.