Have you ever felt so nervous that you couldn’t seem to get things right? Did you have to give an important speech and the words just wouldn’t come out? Have you experienced a situation so shocking that it left you paralyzed? Did you receive such bad news that it took you several days to accept what had happened? Have you been unable to recover from a breakup? Have you lost someone important and just can’t seem to move on? These are all examples of emotional blocks.
When we become emotionally blocked, we stop thinking clearly, and sometimes we can’t even respond physically; we simply freeze. In fact, we must keep in mind that in nature, paralysis is a valid response to extreme fear when escape from the situation is impossible.
What is an emotional block?
When a situation affects us deeply emotionally, our mind activates a defense mechanism that allows us to survive the problem; this is known as emotional blockage. This way, we cushion the impact of the situation and protect ourselves from the painful situation.
Emotional blockage often occurs when we’re forced to deal with a highly emotional situation, but we don’t have the psychological tools to cope. In these cases, our mind prefers to retreat, to stop thinking about what happened and avoid further harm.
Typically, after a certain amount of time, we are able to bring these repressed emotional contents to light, process them, and incorporate them into our life story; in other words, we accept what happened and move on. The problem begins when we are unable to break free from this emotional blockage because, although these bothersome contents are not active in our conscious mind, they interfere from our subconscious and prevent us from achieving inner peace or can even lead to psychosomatic illnesses.
The defensive emotional block
From this perspective, emotional blockage is a positive thing because it protects us from a situation we consider potentially dangerous to our physical or psychological well-being. It prevents us from continuing and causing harm to ourselves or even becoming victims of particularly intense stress that leads to trauma.
The classic example of a defensive emotional block is when we suddenly lose a loved one or a relationship abruptly ends. When we receive the news, we likely don’t accept it but instead continue with our normal lives because our mind has blocked that information.
Meanwhile, our subconscious processes it. In this way, we can enter a period of emotional buffering, and only when we’re ready does the actual psychological grieving process begin. In this case, the emotional block is a tool for adapting to the new reality. We put our feelings aside to deal with them later, when we’re able to cope with them.
Obviously, emotional blocks don’t only occur when we face negative situations; they’re also a response to news so good it seems unbelievable. In these cases, we also need a period of time to assimilate the idea, and in the meantime, we act as if we haven’t heard it. We may freeze or continue with our normal lives, as if nothing had happened.
Obviously, some people are more resilient than others, which means that some have greater psychological resources to cope with adverse situations. Therefore, a situation that may cause emotional blockage for some people may be handled more naturally by others because they have more resources to deal with it assertively.
When emotional blockage becomes a barrier
We don’t always manage to overcome emotional blockages. Sometimes they become an obstacle that prevents us from continuing along the path we had planned. They transform into limiting beliefs and express themselves through pain, guilt, anger, fear, and sadness.
It can happen when a person is dumped by their partner but hasn’t fully accepted the breakup, so they can’t rebuild their romantic life and instead remain trapped in a loop of nostalgia and memories. It also often occurs in those suffering from post-traumatic stress. Although the traumatic event has often been repressed from the conscious mind, flashbacks are glimpses of what happened that prevent them from moving forward normally.
Why does this happen? In some cases, people prefer to stay in their comfort zone; that is, they choose to dwell on the past, even if it’s painful, because they’re much more afraid of facing the future. We create a fragile balance in the past where we take refuge, and we end up clinging to that illusory security, which we prefer to the uncertainty of the future.
However, we must be aware that we cannot grow until we confront emotional blocks because they act as barriers that limit us emotionally and cognitively.
Resentments, unhealed wounds, things never said, and, in general, everything that’s bottled up and carries an emotional charge, do a lot of damage to us. Sometimes this damage translates into health problems, but other times it manifests itself through relationship problems or through frustration and low self-esteem.
Think of an emotional block as a heavy rock you carry up a mountain, preventing you from walking freely. Sometimes this stone forces you to pause along the way to reflect and regain your strength. However, there comes a time when, if you want to move forward, you need to get rid of it once and for all.
It’s important to understand that momentarily disconnecting from the problem can be helpful in protecting ourselves, but if we don’t adapt to the change after a reasonable amount of time, we end up dying inside, prisoners of the past.
Symptoms of emotional blockage
Each person may experience emotional blockage differently, although in many cases it is common for it to appear:
- Feeling fatigued or empty inside. This exhaustion can be the expression of all the psychic energy you’re using to repress the emotions that are hurting you. Therefore, if you suffer from an emotional block, you’re likely to feel tired all the time, or experience a deep emptiness and apathy, with no desire to do anything.
- Pretending a problem doesn’t matter to you. Emotions are indicators of how much we care about something, so when we block them out, we lose that inner “compass.” Therefore, pretending that an important problem doesn’t really bother us is often one of the main indicators of an emotional block.
- Recurring thoughts about a past situation. Emotional blocks don’t always erase what happened; sometimes they trigger that memory. So if you’ve been obsessing over something from the past and can’t stop thinking about it, you’re likely stuck in that chapter of your life.
- Delaying important decisions. One of the clearest symptoms of emotional blockage is continually putting off important decisions. Procrastination should be a warning sign, as it often indicates that you feel too trapped or powerless to move forward.
- Feelings of guilt. Emotional blockages are often accompanied by an intense sense of guilt. You’re likely to blame yourself, in one way or another, for what happened. In fact, guilt is a paralyzing feeling that keeps you trapped in the past.
- Addictive behaviors. We often try to control our emotions by turning to addictions, which can range from tobacco to food. These behaviors activate our brain’s reward system, making us feel good and mitigating the effects of the negative emotions we experience.
- Health problems. Emotional blockages often manifest with physical symptoms, ranging from emotional headaches to a worsening of previous health problems.
How to overcome emotional blockage?
“Loss and trauma can shatter our lives, devastate our relationships, and subvert our identity,” wrote psychologist Guy Winch. Adding to the pain of what happened is the fact that the experience often also shatters our assumptions about the world. We realize it’s not as safe a place as we think. Facing that reality is difficult. But if we want to move on with our lives, we must.
We need to take the time necessary to heal, but we shouldn’t turn suffering into a place to camp and take root. Practicing radical acceptance is a good strategy for overcoming emotional blocks and moving forward, but in many cases, due to the depth of the wounds, it may be necessary to seek the help of a psychologist.
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