Buried emotions cause frequent triggers

When we bury a negative emotion, there are two important impacts that happen.

a) Once we bury a negative emotion, this emotion can then get triggered/activated anytime we are in a situation that reminds us of the moment when the emotion was created. For example, if we fail an exam when we are 12 years-old, we may tell ourselves “I failed because I’m a worthless idiot”. This can create an emotion of unworthiness that we unconsciously bury because it’s too painful to feel. From this moment on, we may automatically get triggered with a feeling of inadequacy anytime we are taking an exam or get a less than perfect score. When an emotion is buried, it can be activated and felt even without thinking anything at all. If our parents yelled at us or got upset with us, we may believe “They are mad at me because I’m bad”. If we bury this unworthiness, we can then feel the trigger of unworthiness anytime someone looks at us or talks to us with the feeling of being mad or upset with us. This can happen without any thinking.

b) When we bury a negative emotion, we are essentially burying pain in our body. Whenever there is a possibility of pain, we can experience fear of having to feel that pain. The higher the probability of pain and the more intense that pain is expected to be, the more intense our fear will be. If we unconsciously know that unworthiness will be triggered if we perform poorly on an exam, we will naturally experience fear of this scenario. If we believe that performing poorly on an exam will cause our parents to be upset with us, and unconsciously know that this will trigger our unworthiness, then we will naturally experience fear of this scenario.