45 | 3 Reasons Suppressing Your Feelings Isn’t Emotional Regulation (and What To Do Instead)

Have you ever been told to “just stay calm,” “bite your tongue,” or “keep it together”? On the outside, that looks like strength. But inside, it’s suppression—and suppression is not emotional regulation.

In this episode, I’ll share three powerful reasons why pushing down your feelings keeps you stuck in overwhelm, disconnection, and the same old arguments—and what to do instead. We’ll talk about:

• Why stuffing your emotions down builds pressure that eventually explodes.
• How reacting to surface behaviors (the slammed door, the sharp tone) keeps you fighting about the smoke instead of naming the fire underneath.
• Why ignoring the “elephant in the room” only makes it bigger—and how giving your feelings a voice actually builds connection.

You’ll walk away with a simple framework to start practicing real emotional regulation: not pretending you’re fine, but noticing, naming, and choosing your next move with clarity.

👉 Grab your F R E E P.A.U.S.E. Guide: 5 Triggers Keeping You Stuck (and How to Break Free). ✨ Click Here Now. ✨

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🎶 Instrumental Acoustic Guitar Music by Viacheslav Starostin (original_soundtrack),

W E B S I T E - LisaCovert.com

I N S T A G R A M - @lisamcovert

Transcript

Have you ever been told, “Just stay calm”?
 Bite your tongue.
 Keep it together.
 Smile through it.

Most of us have. And somewhere along the way, we started to believe that was emotional regulation — staying calm at all costs.

But here’s the truth: that’s not regulation. That’s suppression.

On the outside, it looks like control — you look put-together, maybe even strong. But inside? Suppression builds storms. The clenched jaw. The racing thoughts. The explosion waiting to happen when one more thing goes wrong.

Real regulation isn’t about never feeling the trigger. It’s about feeling it without becoming it. It’s learning to create just enough space between the emotion and the action so you can choose your next move instead of being hijacked by it.

Here’s the thing: suppression and regulation are not the same.

Suppression sounds like, “I’m fine.”
 Meanwhile your jaw is tight, your chest is heavy, and your mind is rehearsing everything you’d like to say but won’t. You push it down and call it strength. You tell yourself, “Look, I didn’t explode. I held it together.”

But here’s the problem: when you keep swallowing your feelings, you’re not building strength — you’re building disconnection. You disconnect from what’s really going on inside you. And the longer you disconnect, the more likely those feelings are to come out sideways — as in sarcasm, snapping at your kids, in late-night numbing, or in the silent walls that grow between you and your partner.

Regulation, on the other hand, doesn’t mean you never feel the trigger. It means you notice it and name it in real time. You catch that wave before it crashes. Instead of pushing it down or spewing it out, you create a little bit of space between the feeling and the reaction. And in that space, you get to choose.

It might sound like:

• “I feel my chest tightening right now — I need a second.”
  
  
• Or “I notice I’m starting to shut down. I don’t want to, but that’s where I’m at."

It doesn’t have to be polished. You don’t have to nail the perfect script. The act of noticing and naming lets you stay in control of your choices. It keeps you human instead of volcanic.

But let’s be real: naming your feelings can feel risky. Maybe you’re thinking, “Okay, but if I actually say what I’m feeling out loud… won’t that just make the conflict worse?”

Here’s where most of us get stuck: we start fighting about the behavior instead of the feeling underneath.

The slammed door. The tone in their voice. The sharp reply.
 And then, before we know it, the fight is about that — not about what started it.

The truth is, underneath almost every blow-up is something deeper: hurt, fear, disconnection. But when we only react to the behavior, we end up circling the surface over and over again. It’s like arguing about the smoke while ignoring the fire.

What changes the game is narrating the feeling. Saying out loud what’s happening inside instead of making them guess.
 It could sound like:

• “I’m overwhelmed right now and I’m trying not to shut down.”
  
  
• Or “I feel hurt and I don’t want this to turn into defensiveness.”
  
  

Do you hear the difference? That’s not weakness. That’s strength. That’s you inviting the other person into your inner world instead of building another wall between you.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: Okay, but if I actually name my feelings out loud… won’t that just spark another fight?

But Let me give you a real-life example.
 The other night, my husband made one of those little comments — you know the kind, where it’s not technically mean, but it carries this undertone. And instantly, I felt myself tighten up. My jaw clenched, my voice got sharper, and within minutes, we were going back and forth about how he said it. Not even what he said — but how.

And here’s the kicker: we weren’t even talking about the actual issue anymore. I wasn’t saying, “That comment made me feel unseen.” I was just reacting to the surface — the behavior. And he was reacting to mine. Which meant we were in a loop, arguing about the delivery instead of the heart.

Maybe you’ve been there too. Your partner forgets to take the trash out, and suddenly it’s not about the trash at all — it’s about respect, or feeling like the load always falls on you. But the words flying across the room? They’re about garbage bags. And it leaves both of you frustrated because the real need never gets named.

What changes the game is narrating the feeling. Saying out loud what’s happening inside instead of making them guess.

Hold onto that question, because after the break, we’re going to dig into exactly that.

Let’s press pause for one minute, because if you’re listening to this, I think you need to hear this too.

Listen, I know your time is stretched thinner than your patience some days. You’re already doing all the things—trying to hold your house together, your job, your kids, your sanity—and figuring out how to actually feel better? That just feels… impossible.

But here’s the thing—getting out of overwhelm doesn’t have to be another thing on your to-do list.

That’s exactly why I created the Empowered Living 6-week course. It’s simple, it’s practical, and it’s designed for real life. You get plug-and-play tools, short video lessons you can do at your pace, and the exact steps I took to finally feel grounded again—without spending months in therapy or years reading self-help books.

This course gives you the reset, without the overwhelm. No fluff, no extra noise—just the clear, simple roadmap to go from burned out to feeling in control again.

Check it out now at lisacovert.com/empowerliving—I promise, your time’s about to feel a lot more like yours again.

Here’s the thing about elephants in the room: ignoring them doesn’t make them disappear. It just makes them bigger. Every time you pretend you’re fine, every time you swallow your words, that elephant takes up more space — until you’re disconnected not only from your partner, but from yourself.

The solution? Give the elephant the podium. Speak its truth before it turns into a tornado.

Let me take you back to that moment with my husband. At first, I wanted to fight about the tone of his comment. But I caught myself. I pulled back, gave myself a second, and got honest: the fire underneath wasn’t about his tone. It was about feeling unseen.

So instead of letting that argument drag into hours of cold silence or days of ignoring each other, I named it. I said something like, “That comment hit me in a way that made me feel invisible, and that’s what I’m really upset about.”

And you know what? The tension dropped. Because I wasn’t lashing out about the garbage or nitpicking his words. I was narrating the truth. And when I did that, I wasn’t exploding — I was connecting. I was letting him into my inner world instead of making him guess.

That’s what happens when we clean up our inner dialogue. When we pause long enough to ask, “What’s the fire here?” instead of fanning the smoke. That’s when the elephant shrinks, and the relationship has room for honesty again.

Now, I know the fear that creeps in: But what if my feelings are too much?

Here’s the truth I want you to take with you: your feelings aren’t the problem. Your relationship with your feelings is.

When you stop suppressing and start narrating, you create space to respond instead of react. That’s what emotional regulation really looks like — not pretending you’re fine, but being honest about what’s happening inside and choosing what you do with it.

And here’s a simple way to try it:
 Instead of snapping about the tone, you could say, “That comment hit me in a way that made me feel invisible, and that’s what I’m really upset about. Can you [fill in the blank] — maybe check in with me, or point out what I am doing well — because that helps me feel more seen and less triggered in these conversations?”

See the difference? You’re not hiding your feelings, and you’re not dumping them either. You’re naming the truth and opening the door for a real conversation. That’s what builds connection. That’s what helps the problem actually get solved instead of just recycled.

And if you’re thinking, “I want more of this — I want to practice until it feels natural,” I’ve got you.

👉 Grab my free P.A.U.S.E. Guide — it will help you spot the 5 triggers that keep you stuck in suppression and overwhelm, and show you how to start breaking free.

And if you’re ready to go deeper, the Empowered Living course is where I walk you step by step from suppression into self-trust and alignment — so you can stop spinning in the same old fights and finally feel grounded in yourself again.

Because the calm you’re craving? It doesn’t come from ignoring the elephant. It comes from giving it the podium, and then choosing your next move with clarity.