Emotions Are The Language of The Subconscious

Uncovering the hidden beliefs about worth, safety, and belonging encoded in your emotional responses

Hi dear people,

I am finally getting around to finish my series on Emotions, and today we cover the link between your emotions and deep core beliefs that live in your unsconscious/subconscious mind (I use these terms interchangeably).

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - Carl Jung

Let’s start with an example.

Two of your friends have planned a trip together to go visit a third friend who lives abroad. You find out accidentally in a conversation—after they had almost decided on the dates. They invite you but it seems to you that they didn’t consider you fully from the start. Your face gets red, the top of your head gets heavy, your heart beats faster and your stomach drops. You feel an intense sense of betrayal and anger, although you tell yourself it’s not a big deal: they invited you in the end. This reaction is out of proportion and so you shame yourself for feeling how you feel. You brush it off and try to talk yourself into calming down. But deep down, you still feel restless and to some extent, unsafe.

How can we work with a trigger like this one—or any other emotionally charged moment—to identify the hidden story carried by the body and psyche?

What most people tend to do when they’re emotionally triggered is stay caught at the surface level—focused on what happened and how they feel about it. They either undervalidate their emotions by telling themselves they shouldn’t feel this way, or they overvalidate them by becoming overly defensive, reactive, or even aggressive. Both responses keep us stuck in a loop, without real resolution.

While the facts of the situation and our emotional response do matter, they’re only part of the picture.

To truly understand our patterned reactions—why certain things affect us so deeply—we need to look beneath the surface. Under the emotion, there’s often a story, and under the story, a belief.

So what might the story be in the example above?

• “They don’t really consider me a close friend.”

• “If I mattered to them, they would’ve included me from the start.”

• “I don’t belong in this group like I thought I did.”

• “I must have done something wrong.”

If we remain at the level of the story, we run the risk of being victims to the situation: we give our power away to it or them, and strengthen the core wounds we (unconsciously) carry.

What might be the core belief, under the story?

• I’m not important.

• I’m not worthy.

• I don’t matter.

• I’ll never have meaningful friendships.

• I’m inherently unlovable.

Going a layer deeper allows us to bring into conscious awareness the beliefs we’ve formed around our core wounds—often rooted in childhood.

Carl Jung described these beliefs as living in the shadow of our experience—meaning they remain unconscious until we have the courage, skill and nervous system safety to turn toward them.

They might not show up in loud or obvious ways. But they do appear:
– in how we ask for what we want (or don’t)
– in what we believe we deserve (or don’t)
– in how we abandon our needs to please others
– in what we allow others to see—and what we hide
– in our need to be agreeable, likeable, or easy to be around

These subtle tendencies powerfully reinforce the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, what’s acceptable, and what it takes to belong.

Why is any of this important?

When we make the unconscious conscious, we are no longer a victim to how it impacts us. We create choice— to heal, reclaim our genuine needs and desires, and ultimately know ourselves better.

We re-establish a sense of innate worth and value that doesn’t depend on external factors or other people.

We gain clarity on the objective reality of the situation. In the example I shared earlier, going deeper might reveal one or both of the following:

• I need to feel that I matter in my relationships—and I need to communicate that.”
  This reveals an unmet need and the importance of expressing it, rather than expecting others to read between the lines.

• This keeps happening. I don’t feel prioritised—and I may need to reassess these friendships.
  This invites reflection on whether these connections truly align with the level of care and reciprocity you need

By turning towards our emotional responses and aiming to understand them, we come into radical relationship with our humanity. We tend to forget in today’s world that it’s ok to have needs and personal preferences—this is what makes us us.

With this kind of work, we become unapologetic about them.

Now over to you:

What emotional trigger might be calling you to go deeper? Share with us.

Love,

A x

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BELOW YOU CAN FIND MY PREVIOUS WORK ON THE TOPIC OF EMOTIONS

A Somatic Experience of Feeling and Processing Emotions

You Felt Your Emotions - But Did Your Nervous System Catch Up?

The Importance of Being Seen in Your Emotions