What Would You Scream if No One Could Hear?
Rage journaling. Photo by Quinn Corte, 2024.
How are you?
“Fine, thanks,” You reply. “A little tired.”
No, how are you actually feeling?
“Oh,” You say, pausing. “To be honest, I’m overwhelmed. The kids keep getting sick, and I’m not sleeping because of my back pain. And I'm completely underwater at work.”
No, no. I want the unfiltered answer. If you knew no one would hear you, how are you feeling underneath it all?
“Ugh,” you say, as something squirmy rises up from deep within. “Well, if no one can hear…I’d admit I’m f*cking over it. I want out!!! I want to punch my douchebag boss. Parenthood is killing me, and I’m terrified I’ll be stuck on this hamster wheel forever and never get my life back.”
Bingo.
~
Let’s talk about repressed emotions.
Wait! Before you change the channel, listen up.
Whether you’re a feelings junkie (raising my hand) or feelings-avoidant, this could really help.
Because even if your middle name is Calm & Cool or Tough Cookies, you have feelings. Inside, you’re having a response to the injustices and disappointments and shocks of life. You just might sense those feelings and think they’re inconvenient or uncool. You may have grown up in an environment where it was not safe to have those feelings. Or you may have been socialized to believe that expressing emotions is weak.
Or (like me), you may be pretty good at feeling most feelings, but there are certain things you “shouldn’t” be feeling. Maybe you repress grief about an old wound because you think you “should” be over it by now. Maybe you believe a feeling is taboo or shameful—or you’re telling yourself that if if it was expressed, it would throw your entire life off track.
For all those reasons and more, we stuff down our feelings.
This isn’t our fault. Many of us haven’t been pushing down our feelings on purpose. We’ve been doing it to survive—and it works. How often do you receive a massive blow and then have to suck it up before a meeting? As a kid, did you ever squash your anger because you didn’t want to set off someone’s temper? Or as a parent, do you swallow your rage or disappointment for the “good of the kids”? Repressing emotions isn’t a failing—it’s a way of protecting ourselves and others.
And honestly, you might be so busy, so numb, so determined to stay positive, or so unaware that you don’t even know what you feel. That’s also an effective coping mechanism for navigating this very intense world, and nothing to be ashamed of. In that case, you may not be stuffing down your feelings. Your feelings are just plain stuck.
We need to Let This Shit OUT. Unfelt feelings fester, even when we aren’t aware. Not feeling our feelings could be holding us back from intimacy or change. The energy of repressing them could be giving us a short fuse or fast temper.
And here’s the kicker: unfelt feelings could also be causing your chronic anxiety or pain.
Emotions cause physical sensations. Think about how this happens in your life. Tension headaches after work. Gut feelings that something is wrong. Nausea before something scary. Bone-deep fatigue after a funeral. When emotions build up in our bodies over time without release, they can cause or exacerbate pain and anxiety.
Also: we need to alchemize our emotions into fuel. Anger can be transmuted into action and power and change. And those buried voices might be bursting to tell you something that will set you free.
So how do we let it all out?
I want to share a technique that’s radically helped me.
~
Rage journaling.
Wait! Don’t touch that dial! Before you roll your eyes and tell me, “Journaling is for teenage girls,” or “Novel idea, Quinn. I’ve been journaling since I was five,” just hear me out. This is different.
Rage journaling is adapted from a technique I learned from Dr. John Sarno and Dr. Nicole Sachs. They talk about how the root of (very real) chronic illness and pain is often emotional repression. Their patients have experienced profound health shifts by learning how to give their repressed feelings a voice.
I’ve been experimenting with it, and I’m blown away by the results. As a sensitive soul who feels a lot, this technique gives me actual physical relief. Here’s how I do it.
Rage journaling is an exercise to unleash your True feelings in writing. You write long-hand for 20 minutes without stopping or thinking. Uncensored. When the timer goes off, you rip it up, burn it, or take it to a public trash can. The only way this works is if no one—including you—ever reads it. Then you move your body to music, meditate, or do your favorite soothing self-care practice for 10 minutes. That’s it.
In the example dialogue I used at the top of this essay, you would be writing using that last voice. It’s not “how are you feeling?” And it’s not “how are you actually feeling?” It’s, “What don’t you want to admit that you’re feeling?” You speak from the part inside you that’s a child having a tantrum. A voice that’s dropping f-bombs and name-calling and scream-writing. The one who has never, ever gotten to speak up because what it’s saying is so vile, scary, or uncomfortable to admit.
Little by little, one day at a time, you get out your rawest emotions and nastiest thoughts from your present and from your past.
I swear, every time I do this, I feel lighter. The tension in my body unwinds a tenth of a percentage more. And doing the practice over time has helped me move through huge traumas much more quickly and effectively.
Let your pain have a voice. Honor the screaming, crying, annoyed, scared, fed-up parts of you, instead of silencing them.
Your feelings are valid. Yes, even those feelings.
So, if no one could hear you, what would you scream into the wind?
Your turn:
What's the one thing you could never admit?
How is it serving you to hold in your true feelings? How is it hurting you?
Who would you become if you released everything inside you?