In This Strange Time, We Carry So Many Hidden Emotions

Here we are, in the midst of the pandemic, and in the middle of a brutally stressful economic and political period. Is it any wonder that we carry hidden emotions?

In the other posts in this series on “Emotions of the Pandemic”, I have dealt with various specific types of emotion that we may experience during the pandemic. However in this post, I discuss more generally the hidden emotions that have been generated in us in this time, and that we carry in unconscious, or semi-conscious ways, often in our bodies.

I’m writing this on November 8, 2020, the day after Joe Biden was declared to be the President-Elect in the United States’ election. It was very striking to see the reaction of many people in that country as they erupted into spontaneous outpourings of joy on the streets of major U.S. cities. Certainly, we were watching displays of relief at what many regarded as a dramatically improving political situation, yet it seems that there was more to it than that.

I think that, for many people in that country, and for many in our own country of Canada, and around the world, there was a release of emotion that individuals have carried pent-up inside since the pandemic arrived, bringing change to our lives so suddenly and forcefully. Many of us have been carrying huge reserves of fear, anger, anxiety, grief, resentment, and a whole range of other feelings, as a result of the strange, dramatic and, at times, hard-to-comprehend changes in our lives that we’ve experienced in the recent past.

If we’re to have any kind of well-being in the present time, and any ability to continue on our journey to wholeness, it’s essential that we come to terms with the burden of hidden emotions we have been carrying in our lives through this time. It’s important for our health, our growth on our own personal journeys of individuation, and our own ability to make meaning out of our lives that understand and come to terms with these often very powerful affects.

There are quite a number of ways that we could begin to process our feelings, and to express the things that we may not even know we’re carrying. Yet one of the most effective of these may be to express these feelings in the safe container provided by the relationship with a skilled, compassionate and trustworthy /a-midlife-transition. As Jung said, that which remains in our unconscious, we will experience as fate, because we will have no control over it. Yet the intense feelings that we can experience and own as ours can be fundamental to living our lives with creativity and freedom.

Wishing you every good thing on your individual life journey,