Talking about feelings and emotions can be very easy and natural for some people but, for others, it may not make sense.

Emotion happens on the stage of our body, whether we like it or not. Faced with an emotionally competent stimulus, the body reacts physiologically, causing changes such as a faster heartbeat, sweating, difficulty breathing and contraction or relaxation of muscles, as well as changes in the functioning of the intestine and kidney, among others. These changes occur because the body enters a state of fight, flight or freeze to “fight off” a possible invader, a threat.

Paying attention to and recognizing these physical changes is a very important first step: it makes us attentive to the changes that occurred and prepares us to direct our attention to what the stimulus (internal or external) was that caused a given reaction.

Once the physical changes are identified and the stimulus recognized, we will be able to name what we feel and take steps of self-care and protection in light of what happened.

However, at times we are not given permission to feel certain emotions or to get in touch with feelings and express them in general.

Phrases like “swallow those tears,” “fighting is ugly,” “don’t argue with me,” “celebrate more quietly,” “your joy is getting in the way,” “stop being a scaredy-cat” and “it was nothing” make us understand that what we are feeling at that moment is not important, or cannot be felt or expressed.

When we cannot feel an emotion such as anger, joy, sadness or fear, or express affection, we choose another to express in its place, one that is allowed in that setting or relationship. Instead of anger, I feel and express sadness (anger is ugly, sadness may be felt). Instead of joy, guilt or fear comes.

This learning begins in childhood, in the relationship with the people responsible for meeting our basic survival needs (physical and emotional), and stays with us for the rest of our lives, if nothing is done along the way.

And if we do not know how to recognize what we are actually feeling, or if we give it the wrong name, we will behave in a way that will not meet our main need, and that can lead us into various toxic relationships.

Suppressing emotion can be as harmful as being unable to name and express it. If we do not give vent to what we feel, our body will “explode” in some way, like a pressure cooker. A sealed pressure cooker needs a release valve: if the air cannot escape, at some point it explodes. The same happens with our body. Without an adequate outlet for emotion, it accumulates physiological changes that can contribute to problems such as asthma attacks, insomnia, skin allergies, stroke, heart attack, gastrointestinal and kidney problems, among many other possibilities.

Talking about emotion, feeling what we feel, can be threatening or give us the sense that we are not moving forward, a setback in life. But calibrating emotions and fitting an act of self-care can make a difference in our physical and emotional health and in living well with ourselves and the people around us.

Curious about the subject? Antonio Damasio, Eric Berne, Fanita English, Claude Steiner, Richard Erskine and Marilyn Zalcman are authors I admire and who speak with great consistency about the topics covered here.