Allow vs. Avoid: How We Suppress Emotion and Block Aliveness

Are you suppressing your emotions?

As we go through life, we encounter a wide range of sticky, uncomfortable feelings. And when something feels too overwhelming to face, it’s easy to distract ourselves—to pop out of presence and turn to food, shopping, entertainment, scrolling. Even things that look productive can be subtle forms of avoidance.

I think of my 7-year-old niece, who just two days ago had lost her shorts. The waves of emotion she experienced—grief, sadness, frustration—came crashing in, one after another. Wailing, crying, shaking. Then she’d calm. Then another wave. The emotions were full-body, mind, and spirit. So alive. So unfiltered.

It made me realize: this is something we rarely see in adults.

We’ve learned to suppress our emotions. Conditioned ourselves not to feel them intensely. To block them. Avoid them. But in doing so, we lose our aliveness. We build walls inside. We disconnect from the depth of what it means to be human.

There is a middle way.

We don’t have to throw tantrums like children—but we also don’t have to numb out. We can feel. We can allow. We can let the emotions move through us.

Fear, anxiety, joy, grief, wonder, disgust, love, laughter—yes, and discomfort. It starts there. Discomfort is what we try to avoid most.

But what if we could just sit in it?

That moment when the urge arises to grab your phone… what if you paused instead?

That moment of boredom… what if you breathed into it?

This is why we practice mindfulness—not to get rid of feelings, but to let them rise and fall.

To make space.

To process memory.

To allow emotions without clinging to them or pushing them away.

Like waves on the ocean: they build, they crest, they crash, and they return.

And in allowing that natural rhythm, we begin to trust again—in our bodies, in our souls.

We learn to feel deeply without being swept away.

We remember our own wisdom—the ancient knowing that lives in our breath and bones.

This is embodiment.

This is how the mind, body, and soul begin to harmonize.

This is how we return home to ourselves.

We breathe.

We soften.

We settle into our inner home.

Not driven by anxiety.

Not pulled by compulsion.

Not in flight.

But home—at last.