Emotions Don't Disappear: How Your Body Carries What You Don't Feel

In this episode of Pickleball and Partnership, we delve into the significance of truly feeling your emotions rather than suppressing them. Using personal anecdotes, Charlotte explores how unprocessed emotions linger in our bodies and impact our behaviour on the pickleball court and in life. 

Key topics include the 90-second rule for emotional waves, the body’s role as a messenger, and the importance of loosening both physical and emotional grips.

 Learn how to turn discomfort into growth and align yourself more authentically with your true feelings. Join Charlotte for an insightful journey towards emotional fitness and freedom.

00:00 Introduction: Embracing Emotions

00:29 Welcome to Pickleball and Partnership

01:29 Understanding Emotional Suppression

01:56 Personal Stories of Suppressed Emotions

07:44 The Impact of Unfelt Emotions

08:04 Emotions on the Pickleball Court

13:16 Healing Through Emotional Awareness

14:00 The 90-Second Rule

16:18 Practical Exercise: Emotional Fitness

21:58 Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts

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Music: Purple Planet Music
Thanks to Purple Planet Music for Pickleball & Partnership Intro and Outro music Purple Planet Music is a collection of music written and performed by Chris Martyn and Geoff Harvey.

Transcript

Charlotte J: 0:00

What did you do the last time you felt something big? Whether it was anger maybe, or sadness, or guilt or jealousy, maybe it was even joy that felt too much. Did you let yourself feel it, like really feel it, or did you quickly move on? Maybe you distracted yourself, maybe you brushed it off with a, oh, I'm fine. I'm fine. Welcome back to Pickleball and Partnership, where we are talking about the game of pickleball and the life that teaches us who we really are. If that sounds like your cup of tea, pull up a chair, grab your paddle and join me as we dive in. So in last week's episode, we explored what keeps us looping in old patterns, our nervous system's, love of familiarity, and the identity that hasn't caught up to our vision. If you missed last weeks, the key takeaway was this. You can't think your way out of patterns that live in your body. And that brings me to today, because once you realise you are stuck, the next question becomes, well, why is it so hard to feel my way forward? So the thing is, most of us were never taught how to feel. Actually, I think I would take this one step further and say most of us were taught how not to feel. We were taught how to behave, to push those feelings down and instead be polite, put a smile on our face, be positive, to calm down. I can, remember as a very young child, maybe five or six years old, coming home from school and telling my Mum that I really wanted this pair of Adidas shorts that I had seen somebody else wearing, and I felt jealous. I didn't know it was jealousy at the time, but I felt this surge of jealousy because I wanted something that somebody else had. That feeling felt very real for me. As a small child, it felt very big and overwhelming, but I didn't know what it was. I don't feel as though I was given the space to explore that, to understand what was coming up for me. I think instead, I was told, don't be selfish. I should be happy for somebody else that I can't have what everybody else has, and the impression that I got, the message that I got from this was that I shouldn't be feeling what I'm feeling I wasn't being a good girl if I wanted something that somebody else had. And so I remember not understanding that, not, knowing where this feeling within me, where it had come from, and that, oh my gosh, there must be something wrong with me if I'm feeling this, because it really feels very powerful and I learned that jealousy was bad and that my feelings about that, my jealous feelings actually made other people uncomfortable that was an emotion that definitely I should push down, that I should suppress. Another example is anger. Growing up with two brothers, it definitely was not okay for girls to feel. Anger. Anger was something that could easily get out of control. I was taught at a very young age that if I started to feel the feelings of anger, I needed to shut that down. Quickly, I needed to calm down. I needed to shut that down, that I was overreacting, that I would get lost in this, and then goodness knows what might happen. And I saw that play out by my dad because I saw him react to situations. I saw him get angry and I saw him lose control I wasn't given the space to understand anger, to know where anger was coming from. Certainly, it took me years to get that anger was this secondary emotion that I was feeling angry because of, an initial emotion. Maybe it was fear, maybe I was feeling scared and that. Showed up as anger. But I was not given the space to express my anger. What I was taught was that anger was bad, anger needed to be shut down quickly, and anger could quite easily lead you to lose control. And it was very much. If I was angry, I was overreacting and that I shouldn't be feeling this way, it's really not that big of a deal. I should be polite, I should stay positive and I should get over it. And the same with feeling upset. I think I learned in the same way from a young age that when I cried, when I had tears, when I felt upset by something that was not okay, I needed to stop crying. I needed to suck it up. Whatever had caused me to cry, whatever had caused me to, whatever had triggered that feeling of feeling scared or feeling sad or feeling confused to the point where tears were flowing. That that was not okay, that that made other people feel uncomfortable as well, that that was not an acceptable emotion and that I needed to get myself in check I honestly can remember going to bed at night and crying into my pillow, I thought there was something wrong with me, and I'm not blaming my parents. I think, our parents and myself as a parent, we do the best we can with the experience and the knowledge and the wisdom that we have. I know my parents love me very much, and I know my parents did the best they could, but talking about emotions, expressing emotions. Reassuring me that all emotions were valid and that it was okay and actually very sacred and safe and beautiful to feel these emotions. That was not how I was brought up at all. And so from a young age, our nervous system learn to suppress, suppress emotions rather than processing them. And here's the truth in that emotions that aren't felt don't just disappear. They actually take up residence So they live in your body, in your shoulders, in your jaw, in your stomach, in your breath, your diaphragm, your lungs. On the pickleball court, you can actually see that. Think about the last time you missed an easy shot. Maybe it was matchpoint, that hot flush of embarrassment that rises up in your chest. Oh my gosh. I have felt that. I grip my paddle even tighter my breathing. I. Stop breathing or it becomes very shallow. I step up to serve and my body just feels completely rigid. That's not just frustration in the moment. That's old energy, old emotion that's never been allowed to move, and here's what happens next. Either you push through and you force the next point. Or you find yourself spiraling into the story and you say to yourself, oh my gosh, I always choke under pressure. I am so tense and I just can't do this. Why can't I get it together? And either way, you're just not present anymore. Either way, you are in a place of fighting. And the same thing happens off the court with your partner in your relationships. Because when we don't process our emotions, we end up stonewalling. When we need to connect, we snap over the smallest things because we are carrying the big things and we go numb right? When someone needs us to show up. And our partner feels it because a suppressed emotion doesn't stay contained. It leaks out sideways in ways that we don't intend it to. We don't intend to react in the way that we do, and yet habitually we find ourselves reacting in the way that we always do. So where do these unfelt emotions actually go? I read. Several years ago, the most amazing book, by. Dr. Bessel VanDerKolk, called The Body Keeps the Score. Dr. Bessel VanDerKolk is a trauma researcher and he explains so beautifully that the body literally stores unprocessed emotions as memories in our cells. When we don't express and resolve emotional experiences, those emotions don't vanish. They actually manifest in the body as tension, fatigue pain and even chronic illness. So your body is not betraying you in these moments. Your body is not betraying you. It's actually speaking to you. Think about someone who constantly has tight shoulders. Their shoulders are pointing inwardly towards the center of their body. Their back is hunched a little bit. Maybe their neck is down. They're carrying this invisible burden. Or perhaps the person who avoids eye contact, they keep their head down. The body is reflecting a subconscious wish to stay unseen. It's like, please don't see me. Don't notice me. If I don't look at you, you won't see me. Or maybe you feel your chest tighten every time you're asked to speak your truth and you feel as though your heart is actually guarding old pain. Every ache in the body, every constriction, every contraction is a message asking for our attention. And here's where I love pickleball comes into this again, the pickleball metaphor becomes very powerful here because when we tighten up on the court, what happens? Our game falls apart. I mean, maybe it's just me, but when I tighten up, when I grip my handle of my paddle, even tighter, when my body tenses. My game falls apart. That's when I miss shots that normally I would hit very easily. We get into that state of overthinking and our partner, the person we are playing with, can feel that tension too, and they start to compensate. They tighten up and perhaps they overachieve. Perhaps they jump into poach when really it wasn't the place that they should be poaching, or maybe they start taking 85% of the shots and then they start missing shots as well. But the moment we loosen our grip, the moment we breathe and return to the rhythm of play, the rhythm of life, everything starts flowing again. Healing works the same way. So it's really not about fixing, it's rather about allowing. I also. Loved when I first heard about, the Neuroanatomist, Dr. Jill Bolt Taylor. Her work is incredible, and if you've never heard her story, please go and look her up because she's fascinating. She teaches us that when we fully allow an emotion, when we allow ourselves to stay present with it, the physiological wave of that emotion lasts for just 90 seconds. That's it. 90 seconds. Let that one land. And after 90 seconds, what keeps the feeling alive isn't the emotion itself. It's the story that we've attached to it, so that looping thought that says, I shouldn't feel this way, or they shouldn't have done that. And so what this looks like in real life is you miss that match point. You get that hot flush of embarrassment. If you breathe through it, just 90 seconds, it passes. It really does. Honestly, don't just believe me, go and try it. But if you start the story, oh my gosh, I always choke under pressure. I tighten up. Everyone saw me fail. I'm such an idiot. You will carry that for hours, maybe days, maybe even longer all that emotion really wanted was 90 seconds, and you gave it your whole week. You told the story when you went for coffee with your friend. You told the story on that social media post. You came home and you told your husband the story. You were then telling your kids about it two weeks later. So what if instead of judging our emotions, what if we practice just being with them for that minute and a half? What if next time frustration rises up on the court with your partner in traffic? What happens if you simply pause, breathe, and let it move through the body? 90 seconds. That's emotional fitness. That's emotional hygiene, that's healing, and that's what we're going to practice together right now. Oh my gosh. If you are up for it, if you are able, if you're in a place or if not, hit pause right now and get yourself into a place where for just three minutes we can join together and take a short pause. You can stay standing up. You can sit down. You can even imagine yourself walking onto the pickleball court, feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin. Your paddle is in your hand. Now take a deep breath in through your nose and slowly exhale through your mouth. Bring your awareness to your body. And notice where you might be holding tension right now. Maybe it's in your shoulders or your jaw. Maybe there's a tightness in your stomach or your chest. Don't try to change it. Just notice and imagine that each exhale is creating space. So you are not forcing its release. You are giving your body permission to soften. Now, think of an emotion you've been resisting lately. Maybe it's frustration or sadness, fear, guilt. See if you can just name it quietly in your mind and then simply feel it. Just like it's a wave moving through the body, so you don't need to fix it. You don't need to explain it. Simply breathe through the 90 seconds and let your body show you that you can stay present. And be safe even when you feel into that emotion on a deeper level. And that's the practice, that's the healing. And when you're ready, take one more deep breath in and let it go.'cause when we. Allow our emotions to be felt. What we do is we stop fighting ourselves. We stop living in this place, split between who we are and who we think we should be. And feeling isn't weakness. It really isn't. It's actually incredible wisdom and our emotions are. Absolutely guidance. Our emotions are guidance. They are energy in motion showing each of us where alignment is waiting to be restored. So where there is this imbalance, this dis-ease within the body that Sensation that imbalance, shows you where alignment is waiting to be restored. So my invitation to you this week is when something comes up, maybe you are on the pickleball court, during a heated rally, or maybe it's off the pickleball court, maybe you're in a conversation with your partner. Maybe you are having an interaction with your boss at work, or maybe you are guiding your child through something that's coming up for them. I invite you to pause before reacting. Breathe. Feel it in your body and ask yourself, what is this emotion trying to tell me? That's how you turn discomfort into growth. And the same way that we reset between points on the court. So the same way that we can take that moment to pause and reset, even if we've just won a point, but especially if we've lost a point, we can also reset between emotions in life. So you don't need to hold it all. It's about letting each feeling move through you. One point, one breath at a time. 90 seconds. And when you feel yourself tighten your grip, maybe you are gripping your paddle or maybe you are gripping onto life, ask yourself. What am I holding? That's not mine to carry. Because when we stop storing emotions in the body, when we're able to feel them as they arise, what we're actually doing is reclaiming that flow of life. We are reclaiming the flow within the body in our relationships, in the game of life. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for showing up and doing this work with me, and if this episode resonated, take a moment to share it with a friend who might need this reminder that, they don't have to carry it all alone. Here are the key takeaways from today's episode. 1. the 90 second Rule. Any emotion when fully felt without resistance passes through your body in just 90 seconds. What keeps it alive longer is the story you attach to it. Practice. Feel the wave, skip the narrative. 2. Your body is speaking, not breaking. Tension in your shoulders, tightness in your chest, shallow breathing, these aren't betrayals. They are messengers showing you where unfelt emotions are stored. Listen, before you medicate or ignore. 3. Suppression, leaks sideways. Emotions you don't process, don't stay contained. They show up as snapping at your partner. Stonewalling when connection is needed or rigidity on the court. Unfelt emotions affect everyone around you. 4. Loosen your grip to find your flow. Just like on the pickleball court, when you tighten up, everything falls apart. When you breathe and soften, the game flows again. This applies to your body, your relationships, and your life. 5. Feeling is wisdom, not weakness. Your emotions are guidance, not problems to fix. They are energy in motion showing you where alignment needs to be restored. The question isn't, how do I stop feeling this, but what is this trying to tell me? 6. You don't have to carry it all. Reset between points, reset between emotions. You don't need to hold everything. Just let each feeling move through you, one breath at a time, and ask yourself, what am I holding that's not mine to carry. And if you're ready to explore this work more deeply to reconnect with your true self and move beyond old patterns. You can find me on Facebook, on Instagram, or send me an email. So until next time, keep breathing, keep playing, and keep feeling, because that's where real freedom begins.