“I need to express my feelings!” Have you ever told yourself that before? It’s easier said than done at times, especially when you’ve suppressed your feelings in the past. Societal norms can even discourage emotional expression, too. However, expressing your feelings in recovery from addiction is critical to cultivating healthy well-being and keeping addiction triggers at bay.
How Expressing Feelings in Recovery Benefits You
Eat, sleep, feel: like your innate feelings to survive, your emotional feelings are key to a healthy life. The University of Kansas describes emotional expression as acknowledging your feelings (anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, and joy). By doing so, you can understand your emotions, truly feel them, and move forward.
Sadly, many people ignore or discount their emotions, which only leads to internal turmoil and emotional distress. However, expressing feelings in recovery not only benefits others, it also provides psychological benefits to you as well, including:
Better Mental Health
Mental health and emotional health are very much intertwined. And in many ways, emotional health is a person’s ability to express feelings appropriately. However, addiction can generate difficult emotions that can easily get buried. This habit may continue into recovery as well. As you learn how to express your feelings though, you’re no longer weighed down by anxiety, fear, or shame. Your emotional health gets better, paving the way for better overall mental health.
Emotional Healing
When you open up and express your feelings to others, ruminating on negative thoughts and self-criticism begin to subside. Expressing feelings in recovery also allows you to process your feelings associated with challenges and uncertainties in recovery. Abstract emotions and the long-term effects of childhood trauma, for example, don’t feel as complex when you put them into words. This creates space for you to finally heal from difficult emotions.
Enhanced Self-Awareness
Expressing feelings in recovery allows you to learn more about yourself, your emotions, and how you respond to them. Perhaps you become more aware of the self-judgment you naturally have when you share and can work to practice mindfulness in recovery instead. Maybe you recognize triggering emotions that lead to drug or alcohol relapse and can take steps to remedy them earlier. In time, the self-awareness that comes from emotional expression builds up healthy resilience in recovery.
How Emotional Expression Benefits Your Relationships
Expressing feelings in recovery also supports the relationships you have with others, which, in turn, supports your recovery. The positive impact of expressing feelings in your relationships includes:
Deeper Relationships
Can you think of a discussion you had with a friend that made you feel closer to them? It’s likely because you both connected through emotional expression. Being vulnerable and practicing honesty in recovery generates more meaningful relationships rooted in emotional depth. These types of relationships support your recovery in multiple ways by:
- Cultivating emotional safety
- Establishing attunement and support between others
- Reducing potential mix-ups or confusion among relationships
- Allowing you to set healthy boundaries in recovery
- Forging lasting connection through mutual experiences
- Expanding your peer support as a whole
Clear Communication When Conflict Arises
Expressing your feelings to others helps them understand your emotions. This prevents resentment from festering with the person involved, as you’re able to get your feelings out in the open from the start. You learn to express feelings in a way that doesn’t verbally attack the other person, which reduces rifts or defensiveness.
At the same time, emotional expression creates clear communication in the face of conflict, allowing you and others to solve the issue together and mutually dissipate tension. It’s much easier to remedy the situation when you know where you stand with the other person.
How to Express Your Feelings
As you read this, know that you have permission to express your feelings in recovery. When you do, follow these three steps: pause, breathe, and think before reacting. In time, you will get better at sharing your feelings tactfully and not impulsively.
If expressing feelings in recovery sounds terrifying or triggering, it’s best to start small. You may want to practice expressing your feelings privately in a journal on a regular basis to get used to it. If you feel weary or dysregulated as a result, remember to utilize healthy self-soothing techniques in the moment.
As you’re learning how to express your feelings, it’s a good idea to intentionally place yourself around people who are already practicing healthy emotional expression, too. Not only can you learn from their example, but you’ll also get more comfortable expressing yourself when you see that it’s a normal part of life.
Equipped for Lasting Recovery
Expressing feelings in recovery empowers you to cultivate the healthy well-being needed to enjoy a life of long-term sobriety. And at Sana at Stowe in Stowe, Vermont, our holistic addiction treatment programs are here to help facilitate the healing and practical skills development required to overcome addiction and reclaim your life. To learn more, call us today.
