Currently I am reading a book by Jonathan Haidt called “the Anxious Generation”. He discusses 2 principal needs we all have in life: a sense of communion and a sense of agency. Notice in yourself what you are drawn more towards. Likely if communion feels safer for you, you have more of an anxious attachment style. If you feel more secure being autonomous, you likely have more of an avoidant attachment style.

In Emotional Repression Inquiry, we want to work on the fear of the need for either communion or independence that feels less safe for us. This preference was often created in childhood. We got love and safety from either being hyper-independent and taking care of our own needs, or alternatively, needing more hand-holding, encouragement and reassurance throughout life from a caregiver. Either need was likely encouraged in our family of origin and we received much reward for showing up the way we did! What creates sabotage for us as we get older is that we are still responding the way we did as a child for survival though it is no longer serving us.

I grew up in an extremely large family, so I learned to become hyper-independent and not trust or rely on others. Once I was able to make this program conscious, it took me to my buried emotions. Typically, these show up as anger, sadness, hurt and/ or fear. Once we process the buried emotions with the repression tools, the need for hyper independence or for validation from others naturally dissolves. And what I love about this is that we can verify it in the body! I have dissolved so many contractions in my body and the chronic holding of my breath that was the bracing against the fear of connection!

For the autonomous type, there may be a lot of fear of trusting others. Perhaps we were let down a lot in childhood, For the communion type, there may be a lot of fear that comes up in doing things on their own. We work with this energy. Do you recognize yourself in either of these patterns?

We go to the quality that has the most energy on it in emotional inquiry work. For the autonomous type, they might work on the program with a reverse inquiry such as: ”I can trust them” or “I can connect with others for instance. For the communion type, a reverse inquiry might be :”I can do this on my own” or “I don’t need their help”. As we ask this inquiry,  we then feel the resistance in the body which is a bracing against a feeling – whatever our buried emotion is and we process it.

Ideally, we can access both qualities of communion and agency in our life – with the Buddhist spirit of the middle path. If we tend to lean too much into one quality or another, we need to look at why. That attachment to one style or another can lead to so much sabotage in our life. Being too needy or lacking the connections we need in life to get our needs met are some possible downsides of our particular pattern. Making conscious why we lean into one quality- attachment or independence- is also part of our self-discovery work. We ultimately want to have a natural flow between both interdependence as well as inner authority. Doing repression inquiry ultimately brings the freedom to lean into both qualities without resistance.  

If you would like to learn more about this modality, feel free to book a free clarity call with me to see how this modality might work for you! Clarity Call Link