The Things You Don’t Name Cease To Exist
All those things that you don’t name, cease to exist. Naming your emotions is the first step to freeing yourself from the pain they can cause. If you don’t name them, they can harm you.
Where does unspoken fear go? Where does your mind store the emotions you have released? How do you handle the things that cause you pain when you avoid them? Where is the final resting place of the dreams that never come true?
However, just because they cease to exist doesn’t mean they lose their power to harm you. They keep hurting you the same way they did when you didn’t talk about it.
Even if you don’t talk about what bothers you about other people or what makes you angry, those things stick with you. You still feel the pain when others attack your confidence and belittle you. However, if you don’t talk about these things, they almost cease to exist.
How can you describe your fears if you don’t name them? After all, when you name them, you give them a shape. And that gives you the opportunity to deal with them and overcome them. If you don’t, your fears will still be there.
Many thoughts can be meaningful to you. However, if you don’t name them, you will never address them. The thoughts then remain powerful but they only exist in your own mind.
How do the things you don’t name affect you?
Did you know that a third of people who see a doctor have symptoms for which there is no medical explanation? The pain is not physical but psychological.
This means that psychological pain hurts just as much as physical pain. It stays inside of you with no possibility of escape. It then damages your body. All those things that you do not name and release, then also cease to exist for others.
The more time you spend alone with your pain, the more the pain grows within you. If you don’t let it out, you increase your chances of getting sick.
This is true when you see but don’t speak, when you hear but don’t help, or when you are sick and don’t try to heal yourself. These are ways you make your body and mind sick.
Suffering alone tears people apart from the inside. That is why there is no better remedy than naming the things that kill you from within.
Name your fears, your dreams and the injustices in the world. When you name them all, you have the power to do something about it. You can work on it and confront it. You can own them.
Why is it bad to suppress your emotions?
People can’t understand the things you don’t name. Nor can they see the burdens that you do not name. The result is that you cannot share the weight of those burdens with anyone. Eventually they will torment and haunt you.
Emotions are very important. That is why it is essential that you learn how to arrange them. After all, this is necessary for the sake of your mental and physical health.
Scientists Philippe Goldin and James Gross have written an article on this subject. It has appeared in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
According to them, emotions are linked to the activity pattern of your brain. It doesn’t matter whether you express your emotions or not. On the other hand, they also found that the suppression of emotions activates the insula and the amygdala.
Expressing your emotions relieves some of your pain. It also mitigates the damage they have done to you. When you identify the emotions that certain situations evoke in you (fear, joy, anger, etc.), you will get closer to being able to handle those situations intelligently.
You heal yourself when you let go of everything. When you empty what is inside of you, you make the problem smaller. That’s because you are able to share it. When you name something, you give it a physical form. After that, you have no choice but to deal with it.
