5 Impactful Ways to Break Down Your Emotional Walls [and Find Deep Love and Connection] ❤️

Does the fear of getting hurt get in your way of having close, loving relationships?

Protecting Your Heart

Experiencing hurtful feelings is a universal life experience. Along the way in your life journey, you were injured by unkind words or scolded by a displeased parent or teacher. You may have felt betrayed by a friend or lover or have had your heart broken.

As these experiences happened, you began to build emotional walls to protect your heart. Over time, your walls became taller, thicker, and stronger, and you discovered that the sting of being hurt wasn’t as painful.

It Starts in Childhood

Your emotional walls began construction during your childhood.

Did you grow up in a home where emotions weren’t safe to feel? There might have been some abuse or trauma that you experienced? Or maybe you learned how to manage your feelings to avoid conflict?

WHATEVER YOUR REASONS FOR BUILDING THEM, THEY WERE GOOD ONES.

You built walls so that you could better survive and cope in your world. These walls have allowed you to function and not fall apart.

There’s Pain in Vulnerability

BEING VULNERABLE FEELS SO DIFFICULT AFTER YOU’VE BEEN HURT.

In her book, Dr. Brene Brown writes about it, “The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connections, and Courage.” Brown writes that we associate vulnerability with emotions we want to avoid, such as fear, shame, and uncertainty.

She argues that when we avoid these emotions, we forget that vulnerability is also the “birthplace of joy, belonging, creativity, authenticity, and love.”

When you began raising your emotional walls, you may have felt very vulnerable to outside forces or to things you felt were out of your control.

Maybe your vulnerability came about when you experienced feeling unlovable, unworthy, or unimportant to significant others in your life. Whatever your experience was, it must have felt very painful.

Keeping Low Expectations

Sadly, once you’ve erected thick, strong emotional walls, feelings have trouble getting in or out. Expect nothing, lose nothing. Right?

You learn to expect little from others, and you settle for not expressing your feelings because talking about them makes you feel too vulnerable.

Though your walls have served as your ardent protector, they also come with a personal cost.

Missing Out on Beautiful Aspects of Life

When you put walls around your heart, it is difficult to feel the emotions of others, much less your own.

Feeling a sort of emotional numbness takes over. You may have trouble identifying your feelings about something.

When you guard your emotions, you miss out on beautiful aspects of life, including vitality and passion. You also miss out on having a loving, connected relationship.

Signs That You’ve Built Emotional Walls

• You don’t feel intense joy or deep sadness.
• In a relationship, your partner may doubt your love for them.
• You are an able manager of your emotions , so you can minimize the discomfort you feel when your feelings go unexpressed.
• You engage in self-sabotage in your romantic relationships, ending the relationship before you can get hurt.
• People may have told you that you are “hard to read.”
• Living a single life might be your preference.

Do any of these sound familiar? Try to dig deep and explore if it might be possible that you are living behind emotional walls.

Are your walls preventing you from forming a deep love connection or the ability to experience a vital and passionate life?

Here are 5 impactful ways to break down your emotional walls and find deep love and connection:

1. Find a good therapist.

A good therapist can help you explore the reasons you may feel emotionally unsafe in relationships. Once you uncover what’s working deep within your subconscious and unconscious mind, you can develop the skill to ask others for what you want and need to heal this childhood wound.

2. Explore the formation of your emotional walls. 

When you were born, you weren’t worried about getting your feelings hurt. Your emotional armor came later. Wearing it gave you the strength to cope with painful feelings Exploring the genesis of your emotional walls, and putting words to them, will help give you perspective, self-compassion, and the ability to heal.

3. Identify what emotional safety would look and feel like for you.

Creating emotional safety will most often look like the opposite of your childhood experience.

If, as a child, you had an angry parent, emotional safety might be fostered through calm voices and patience. Or, if you experienced unkind words, feeling safe might include positive words of affirmation. If expressing emotions was not allowed in your childhood home, feeling safe would consist of the ability to adequately express your feelings without being shut down, ignored, or invalidated.

4. If you have a partner or spouse, begin couples therapy.

Because so much of your childhood wound plays out in your relationship with a love partner, a good couples therapist can help you learn how to communicate in a way that fosters emotional safety and healing.

Couples counseling is an excellent place to start this process and to learn how to build your new muscle to express emotion.

5. Build up your ability to be resilient.

Building up your ability to be resilient will allow you to bounce back from painful emotions. In an article by Tara Parker-Pope called “How to Build Resilience in Midlife,” Parker-Pope identifies these techniques for rebuilding resiliency:

• Practicing Optimism
• Rewrite Your Story
• Don’t Personalize it
• Support Others
• Take Stress Breaks
• Go Out of Your Comfort Zone

Deciding to tear down your emotional walls requires commitment and practice expressing your feelings through communication in an environment that feels emotionally safe.

YOU CAN DO THIS!

You don’t have to miss out on the most beautiful aspects of your life. Learn how you can create emotional safety, be more comfortable with vulnerability, and develop healthy expectations as you begin to understand the value and importance of self-expression.

You can regain a life lived fully, vitally, and passionately, AND reap the benefits of a deeply connected relationship with your partner and loved ones.