The Feelings We Were Taught to Hide

On the emotional rules we inherit, the burdens we learn to carry, and the courage to reclaim our own lives

My earliest memory is of sitting alone on my grandmother's front steps in Lynn, Massachusetts. I couldn't have been more than three years old. The wooden steps were slathered in thick gray paint. There were tiny holes in them, perhaps for drainage, and I remember pushing thin sticks into those holes, watching them disappear into the blackness beneath the staircase. I remember being profoundly sad.

I cannot tell you why. I have very few memories of my childhood, and this one offers no explanation. There are no adults in the picture, no neighborhood children playing nearby. Just a little girl, some sticks, and a sadness she couldn't possibly have understood.

But I remember something else. My shoes were magnificent. They were black and white, rather like the shoes Bert and Ernie wore on Sesame Street. I adored them. And somehow, in the midst of that enormous sadness, I found comfort in looking down at my beautiful shoes. It would take me decades to recognize the significance of that small detail.

Over the years, I accumulated an enviable collection of fabulous shoes. Buying them became a balm for sadness, frustration, and disappointment. Wearing them became something else entirely: armor. If someone noticed my fabulous shoes, perhaps they wouldn't look too closely at the woman wearing them. Perhaps they wouldn't see the shame, the guilt, or the things I was trying so desperately to conceal.

I wonder how many of us have developed our own versions of those shoes – a meticulous appearance, a successful career, an impeccable home, an endless capacity to help others, a sense of humor that makes everyone laugh before they notice we're struggling.

We learn to present the parts of ourselves that feel acceptable, while quietly protecting everything beneath the surface.

The Emotional Rules We Never Agreed To

Long before children understand the complexities of human relationships, they begin learning which emotions are welcome in their homes. Some learn that anger will be met with anger. Others discover that sadness makes people uncomfortable, that disagreement invites punishment, or that expressing a need creates more trouble than remaining silent. These lessons are rarely delivered as formal instructions. They emerge through countless interactions, until a child begins adjusting their behavior in anticipation of how the adults around them might respond.

In my childhood home, you did what you were told. Period. My mother's anger could be volatile and frightening. Questioning her authority or challenging her expectations could unleash a fury I had no desire to provoke, so I learned not to object. Certain feelings were safer when kept to myself.

My beloved aunt once told me that, as a toddler, my emotions could become so overwhelming that I would hold my breath until I passed out. I have no memory of those episodes, but the story has always stayed with me. I think about that little girl, overcome by feelings she had no way of understanding, and the woman she would become: someone who could articulate the most complicated emotions with remarkable clarity, yet remain utterly silent in the presence of those who had caused her pain. There is something heartbreaking about how early we can begin learning to accommodate other people's emotional lives at the expense of our own, and how thoroughly those lessons can follow us into adulthood.

When Being Capable Becomes an Obligation

I was seventeen when my youngest brother, Matthew, came into our family. He was born with a hole in his heart, and the circumstances surrounding his adoption were complicated. He was also, and remains, one of the great gifts of my life. His name means gift from God. I've never known a name to suit someone more perfectly. I was fiercely protective of him from the beginning. I still am.

But I was also a teenager, with schoolwork, friendships, extracurriculars, and a life of my own. My mother often went out in the evenings, leaving much of Matthew's care to me. My dad adored him but knew little about caring for an infant, so the responsibility often fell to me. I can still picture myself with Matthew nestled against my left shoulder, writing high school papers with my right hand.

I loved that wee baby beyond measure. I also never believed I had the right to object to the arrangement. Those two truths have lived beside each other for nearly four decades, and I think they illustrate something important about the roles we assume in families. Responsibility can emerge from love. It can also be imposed through expectation, fear, or the absence of someone else willing to shoulder it. When those experiences become intertwined, we may grow into adults who have enormous difficulty distinguishing what we lovingly choose to give from what we feel obligated to provide.

Years later, when my dad developed Alzheimer's disease, I found myself in a familiar position as I arranged his countless medical appointments and tried to keep him engaged with his friends and the world as his memory and independence diminished. I loved him and wanted him to experience companionship, dignity, stimulation, and joy for as long as possible. Yet once again, someone else's absence had become my responsibility.

There is a peculiar trap in being the capable one. The more effectively we manage difficult circumstances, the easier it becomes for everyone else to assume that we will continue managing them. Our competence becomes their reassurance and our exhaustion becomes invisible.

Somewhere along the way, we may begin to feel guilty for experiencing perfectly human emotions about responsibilities we never freely chose. We may mistake resentment for selfishness, frustration for ingratitude, and the desire for relief for a failure of love. Eventually, we become so accustomed to dismissing those feelings that we barely recognize them when they arise.

The Emotional Cost of Carrying Everything

I have a particular image for the responsibilities I've accumulated over the years: buckets. Endless buckets filled with family obligations, professional responsibilities, financial pressures, and other people's needs, crises, and expectations. Some buckets contain things I have lovingly chosen to carry. Others were handed to me so long ago that I can scarcely remember when I accepted them. Most were never truly mine, yet the thought of putting them down stirs an extraordinary mixture of emotions.

Fear comes first. I've witnessed what happens when people fail to fulfill their responsibilities, and I know that real consequences can follow when someone walks away. But there is relief, too, in imagining a life with fewer demands, followed almost immediately by guilt, as though the desire for relief requires an apology. Beneath it all lies a more unsettling uncertainty: If I stopped carrying everything, who would I be? Would I still be loved, valued, or needed? What would I do with the space that opened up?

I am fifty-four years old, and I am world-weary. There are evenings when I collapse onto the couch, too exhausted to create something, read something beautiful, or enjoy one of the rich, philosophical conversations I so deeply love with my husband and son. That frightens me because I love being alive. I love theatre, books, music, gardens, extraordinary conversations, beautiful places, and the delicious anticipation of an adventure. I love learning, creating things with my hands, and exploring the endless mystery of human experience. Yet so much of my daily life has become an exercise in managing obligations that I barely recognize the woman who once had the energy to pursue those pleasures.

I feel the march of time, and I'm beginning to understand that I cannot continue postponing my own life until everyone else's needs have been satisfied. There may never be such a moment. I want time to care for my health, to laugh, create, explore, and be fully present with the people I love. Above all, I want to learn how to say, without apology - This is more than I can carry.

Perhaps one of the most painful consequences of suppressing our emotions is that we become so practiced at protecting ourselves from other people's reactions that we gradually lose the freedom to respond honestly to our own lives. Our sadness goes unattended, our anger unexpressed, and our exhaustion becomes another inconvenience to overcome. Meanwhile, our desires are quietly postponed until some imagined future when there will finally be enough time, energy, and permission.

Reclaiming What We Were Taught to Hide

Emotional release is a phrase we use frequently in the world of holistic wellness, often evoking images of tears, cathartic breakthroughs, or the sudden lifting of a burden. Those experiences can be meaningful, but I am beginning to think that emotional release may also involve something quieter and considerably more challenging: acknowledging feelings we've spent years dismissing, allowing ourselves to experience anger without converting it into guilt, and recognizing that love does not require limitless availability.

At Emerald Heart Sanctuary, we offer experiences such as Integrated Energy Therapy, Reiki, and the Harmonic Egg® that create opportunities for stillness, relaxation, and personal reflection. While these practices cannot rewrite our histories, resolve difficult relationships, or replace psychological or medical care when needed, they can provide intentional space to turn our attention inward, become curious about what we're feeling, and consider what we may be ready to change.

I'm still learning to give myself that same attention. I haven't had all the difficult conversations, put down all the buckets, or reclaimed every part of the life I've postponed. But I am beginning to question the belief that my value lies in how much I can endure, how many people I can support, or how effectively I can conceal my own distress. Perhaps emotional release begins with listening to the feelings we've silenced and reconsidering the rules we've lived by for so long.

I think about that little girl sitting on the gray-painted steps, watching sticks disappear into the darkness beneath her grandmother's staircase. I wonder what she needed that day. I cannot go back and ask her, but I can begin asking the woman she became. And perhaps, after a lifetime of tending to everyone else's needs, I can finally make room to hear her answer.