Growing Up Without a Language for Emotions

As a kid raised in the 80s, I didn’t really know what to do with my emotions. Honestly, I didn’t even know they were called emotions.
I just knew they felt big—and sometimes scary.
My parents didn’t know how to process their own emotions, let alone guide me through mine.
I remember being told I "better have a reason to cry." And if I got angry? I was told to "go for a walk" or "take it outside."

Don’t get me wrong—I was a happy kid.
I wasn't a robot, numb to feelings. I had plenty of them.
I just didn’t know how to express them, much less understand them.

It wasn’t until adulthood—watching the movie "Inside Out," no less—that I realized there are more emotions than just angry or sad.
And let’s be honest: joy? That didn’t even feel like it belonged in my emotional vocabulary.

Learning about the Emotion Wheel opened up a whole new world for me.
(Side note: when I introduce it in sessions, one of my clients calls it “using her big girl words.”)

The Hidden Power of Disgust

Watching "Inside Out," it wasn’t joy or sadness that caught my attention—it was the character of Disgust.
I thought I understood disgust. I thought it was just saying, “Eww” at something gross.
But as I dug deeper, I realized something bigger:
I was disgusted by having feelings.

It wasn’t just discomfort. It wasn’t just awkwardness.
It was a full-body, visceral sense of “this is wrong.”
I had internalized the idea that feelings were messy, inconvenient, shameful—something to be suppressed or hidden.

Feeling emotions made me feel broken.
And feeling disgust toward my own emotions made it nearly impossible to face them honestly.

Learning to Feel Without Shame

Here’s what I eventually came to realize:
Disgust toward emotions is not natural. It’s learned.

I learned it from my parents.
I learned it from society.
I learned it from a culture that treated emotions like weaknesses to be "fixed" or "dealt with."

But emotions themselves?
They’re just energy moving through us, asking to be felt, asking for attention.

It took me years to stop running from the disgust.
To sit with the messiness.
To listen to the emotions instead of shutting them down.
(Want help with that? Check out my Services page.) 

And when I finally did?
I realized: emotions aren’t the problem.
The resistance is.

The disgust and shame we layer onto our feelings—that’s what keeps us stuck.
When we stop resisting, when we lean in with curiosity, emotions lose their grip on us.

Now, when I feel that old tug of disgust rise up, I don’t run.
I ask:

"What’s really going on here?
What’s this feeling trying to teach me?"

And every single time, I'm met with a lesson in self-compassion, growth, and radical acceptance.

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Ready to Rewrite Your Relationship with Emotions?

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If you grew up feeling like emotions were “too much” or something to be ashamed of—you’re not alone.
But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

Book a session with me today and let’s explore what’s underneath the resistance.
There’s real freedom waiting for you on the other side.

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