Emotional Moving Day

Ten years ago I had an executive client with a particularly difficult CEO for a boss. The CEO was famous for shouting at meetings so loudly that the surrounding offices could clearly hear him through the walls. On top of this, he was usually shouting about topics or issues about which he knew nothing. His CFO stopped correcting him about the factual mistakes he would be screaming about because there was no point anymore as the CEO would not remember having screamed about them after the meeting. On one occasion, after a meeting where my client was screamed at over some arcane reporting form, he asked the CFO, who was sitting there the whole time, why he had not defended him. The CFO answered, "Oh we haven't used that form for three years. Why bother pointing it out, he will just be embarrassed and besides, he won't even remember he said it by tomorrow."

After a five year tumultuous relationship, the CEO was fired one day for "inappropriate use of company funds." My client was thrilled to be finally rid of the crazy CEO and was elated for two whole days. What happened next surprised him. On the third day after the CEO was fired, he experienced a wave of anger that seemed totally disconnected to anything in his life at the time. Memories started flooding his head replaying the numerous crazy meetings he had with the CEO. Memory after memory came and went and he even found himself cursing the CEO as if he were in the room. These memories and anger feelings continued off and on for several days and then just stopped. My client was concerned that he might be going crazy himself and talked to me. I explained that it was a form of post-traumatic stress release. He had been forced to stoically bear these angry rants by his boss because the power differential would not allow him to fight back, and only after the boss was fired could he release the tension he felt at the time. He was literally "boxing away" his anger at the boss until such time that he could feel safe in releasing it. That time came when the boss was no longer his boss. After a couple of days of yelling at his past traumatic memories, he had released his pent-up anger and felt normal again.

Similarly, a client called me the other day who was going through a divorce and was disturbed that she was having crying fits after the divorce was finalized. "Why am I just crying all the time when I am glad to be out of the marriage?" I recounted the client's story and explained that it was literally all the tension of every fight and frustration she had experienced in the last ten years in her marriage. "Your psyche realizes it is now safe to release these emotions, since y0u are finally away from your husband," I told her.

We often bear the pain of interactions in relationships without realizing how much much pain we have actually gone through. We simply take the pain and put it in a box somewhere inside our self. Power differentials, the difference of perceived or accepted power between two or more people, are often the cause of this. We cannot yell back at our bosses because they might fire us---power differential---so we bury the pain/anger. We cannot yell/fight back with our spouses for fear of some retaliation---power differential---so we bury the emotion. Sometimes we cannot fight back because we realize that we are the more powerful in the situation and it might cause harm to the offending person, so we box the emotion just the same. I know of 240 lb. men who have been sent to the hospital by their 120 lb. wives because they did not feel they could fight back as their wife hit them with things. It does not matter who has the true power in the situation, whoever is not able to fully express themselves will have to eventually release the suppressed emotion from the box. It might be five days or five years later, but it will eventually have to be released.

The good news in all of this is that we really do not even have to know what it is that we are releasing when it happens, only that the release is healthy and necessary. Insights connected to the release are helpful and interesting at times in the process, but ultimately less important than the sheer release itself. If the emotion is coming out unexpectedly, just let it come out and the insight might come later. Have faith that you are not going crazy just simply unboxing old emotions---think of it as your emotional "moving day." Who knows, maybe you can move some of those extra boxes out forever.