Many of us, even from an early age, carry profoundly deep emotional wounds. If we were subjected to abuse — emotional, physical, verbal, or sexual — if we were neglected, if we were bullied in school, if our love was rejected or left unreciprocated, we internalize those experiences. The hardships and rejections we endure don’t simply pass through us; they take root inside of us.

And often what grows out of that soil is anger and resentment — directed not only outward, but inward. We turn that judgment on ourselves, deciding we are stupid, incompetent, or unworthy of love. Without realizing it, we begin to mistreat ourselves. The emotions we’ve internalized, along with the harsh critical voices echoing inside, become a signal we emit into the world. And tragically, others often respond to that signal. We end up attracting people who reenact the very patterns of rejection and abuse that wounded us in the first place.

The Trap of Suppression

When life turns against us — the breakup, the rejection, the job loss — our first impulse is often to suppress. To push away grief, anger, fear, and loss because we don’t want to feel them. But when we suppress, we are actually rejecting and disowning parts of ourselves.

Suppressed emotions never just disappear. They become trapped in the body. Over time, they corrode from the inside out, hardening into resentment, heaviness, anxiety and despair. The more unprocessed pain we carry unprocessed, the more it stagnates, creating a downward spiral. We reinforce the very suffering we’re trying to avoid.

Unprocessed trauma literally lives in the body. Suppression keeps us frozen in the past, while presence facilitates digestion, transformation and integration.

The Practice of Emotional Digestion

What begins to shift everything is presence. When we give ourselves permission to feel — sadness, grief, hurt, fear, longing — and immerse our awareness in the depths of those emotions, they begin to move.

At times, the emotions can feel unbearable. I’ve had times when the grief or rage inside me felt incapacitating. But when I stayed with it, breathing from the depths of what I was feeling, something eventually broke open. The emotions poured out of me in waves. And underneath those waves was warmth — a current of love, appreciation, and compassion that had been waiting all along.

This is not abstract theory — it’s lived practice. When we breathe with our awareness immersed in pain and other distressing emotions, we're activating the innate healing intelligence that resides within our bodies and minds. The emotions begin to go through a digestive process. They soften, they diffuse, and they no longer dominate us.

The Physical Cost of Suppression

Anger, grief, sadness, and hurt, when suppressed, don’t just weigh on the mind. They damage the body. Suppression accelerates aging, weakens our organs, and erodes vitality. It is, in effect, a form of self-harm.

Presence, on the other hand, nourishes. Each time we digest our authentic emotional responses — whether a fresh hurt or the backlog of old wounds — we’re activating the body’s natural healing intelligence. Our organs function more smoothly, our systems stay balanced, and we remain more youthful and vital. Repressed emotions contribute to illness; processed emotions support health.

The Voices We Internalize

Another layer of suffering comes from the critical voices we internalize. The harsh words of parents, teachers, coaches, or peers — many of them wounded, ignorant, or at times outright cruel — echo inside us long after the original moment has passed.

We mistake their opinions for truth. Parts of us identify with them, and soon we begin attacking ourselves with the same judgments: You’re stupid. You’re worthless. You’ll never be enough. No one could ever love you.

But meaning is fluid. Those voices don’t define us. Often, they are nothing more than the projections of others’ unresolved pain. As I came to see, it’s worth asking: Does this thought serve me? Does the person who said this even have the authority to define who I am?

Years ago, reading Mind Lines by L. Michael Hall helped me recognize how dangerous it is to accept destructive interpretations of myself. To go along with those beliefs was an act of self-destruction. By examining my thoughts, I gained the freedom to choose my own interpretations — of myself, my emotions, and my actions — and to adopt beliefs that were kinder, more compassionate, and ultimately more truthful.

Boundaries, Not Bypasses

Cultivating love for ourselves also means setting boundaries. Stop tolerating people and situations that are harmful. Sometimes that means leaving. Sometimes it means standing up for yourself. And sometimes, yes, there are circumstances where we must endure — but even then, we can still carve out space to care for ourselves.

Boundaries can be simple: asking a gate agent for a better seat, telling a housemate to turn down the music, or asking for what you need in a relationship. Respecting others’ needs — and being willing to give in return — is part of the same process.

What doesn’t work is bypassing. Too many people lean on affirmations like I love myself, I am kind to myself without actually doing the deep work of processing their lived experiences and emotions. Affirmations may have their place, but if you skip over your authentic feelings, your subconscious will reject them outright. Yeah, sure, you’re full of shit, it will mutter, because your body is still carrying the unresolved pain.

There are no shortcuts. You cannot heal what you don’t feel.

The Lightness That Emerges

The more I’ve faced the issues concerning me head-on and have done the deep emotional processing — breathing into the heaviness, the grief, the anger — the more I’ve been able to digest. The further I’ve progressed in my healing, the less I’ve had to carry. Slowly, the weight has lifted. What was stagnant has begun to flow.

That inner lightness has given me more power to affect change in my life. It’s also changed who I attract. Instead of people who mirror my wounds, I began drawing companions who were kind, supportive, and loving.

This is the essence of self-love: a slow, steady practice of presence, compassion, and care.

Self-Care as Self-Love

Self-compassion isn’t only about emotions. It’s also about how we treat our bodies. If you’re eating fast food, sugar, drinking heavily — you’re doing self-harm. But if you choose foods rich in nutrients, if you rest, if you care for your body daily, that too is self-love.

When I began to receive deep tissue body work bodywork, work with gifted healers and later go on the vision quests, a traditional Native American practice that involves fasting alone in the mountains for four days and nights without food or water, I became far more cognizant of how unprocessed trauma lives in the body. During the vision quests, I relived the traumas. I could feel this extraordinarily powerful presence descend into my body and as that happened, the could feel the traumas and emotions attached to them being transformed.

A Lifelong Practice

Learning to love, accept, appreciate, and show compassion to ourselves is a lifelong process. Each time we face the issues that need to be dealt with, digest our emotional responses, and soften toward ourselves, the capacity grows stronger.

Self-compassion is not indulgence; it is survival. It transforms the cycle of self-rejection into a wellspring of healing. So when life breaks your heart, when your mind turns against you, when you feel the old voices rising up to condemn you — pause. Breathe into the depths of what you feel. Stay with it. Let it move.

Underneath the pain, there is warmth. There is care. There is love. And the more you practice, the more that love becomes the ground you stand on.

If you’ve been struggling with harsh critical inner voices that tear you down, carrying old wounds, or feeling cut off from love for yourself, know that you don’t have to navigate it alone. The individual sessions I facilitate enable people to develop greater love, acceptance, compassion, and appreciation for themselves.

The practices I teach along with the work we do on the table bring your emotions into awareness, making it possible for you digest what you’ve been carrying, you can begin to transform the heaviness, transforming it into fuel for growth, while opening to the warmth, love and compassion that has always resided deep within.

📞 Call or message me at (332) 333-5155, or visit benoofana.com and TeachMeToMeditate.com to learn more and schedule a session.

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