The Busy Trap: How Overcommitting Masks Emotional Avoidance

Have you noticed how scary it can be sometimes to slow down and actually feel your feelings?

Busyness can be a shield against your own emotions.

I grew up in New York City, where hustling from one activity to another was the norm. My mother put me in many academic activities from Chinese language courses to dance classes. My parents rarely slowed down to get me emotionally ready for the next activity and to help me organize my thoughts and feelings after the conclusion of events.

My template for scheduling activities was to go go go, non stop. Something that I remember thinking was: we rest when we sleep. Heck, we see it with our immigrant parents. They don’t slow down, even after they retire.

I remember rushing from one activity to the next, with a subtle numbness creeping in— a persistent sense of disconnect from myself and my surroundings.

At first, I thought these feelings was related to stress or exhaustion. But deep down, I knew there was more to that. I knew that there was a mountain of emotions bubbling under the surface. There was a lifetime of buried emotions under the surface, in fact.

I began to realize that no amount of busyness could bury the aches of my heart. The more I tried to evade my emotions, the louder they seem to become. Sometimes they manifested themselves in physical symptoms, like headaches, fatigue, and insomnia.

I began my journey of self discovery.

When you stuff down your feelings and use busyness to mask your inner turmoil, we become complicit in them. Avoiding your feelings serves as a means for self protection. However, self protection only lasts temporarily.

The price of suppression is hefty. Sometimes you may not be aware that you are paying for it.

• when you don’t allow yourself to feel neglected in your romantic partnership, you will pay with uncontrolled feelings of contempt

• When you don’t allow yourself to feel the weight of you being used as a punching bag for your parent’s big feelings, you pay with being emotionally immature

• When you don’t allow yourself to feel unhappy with your career, even though it pays very well and you worked your a$$ off to earn your accolades at your job, you pay with deep seething resentment towards yourself and colleagues. Burnout is also a bonus payout for not feeling your feelings.

When we don’t feel the feelings that we are meant to feel, we falsely override our nervous systems and become complicit with the very system that seeks to oppress us.

Your suppression will leech into other parts of your life. When you begin to have capacity to feel your feelings, you can be honest with yourself. You can evaluate what is important to you and what you don’t want to tolerate anymore. You can advocate for yourself. Be a speaker for your feelings.

When you begin to thaw emotionally, you will be able to:

• draw boundaries with your friend who demands you do emotional labor for her, while she doesn’t hold space for you

• stop allowing your colleagues and boss to add responsibilities on your plate without your consent

• possibly start to move towards your interests and begin to be curious about what you really want in and outside of work.

What do you want?

Inner peace? happiness? harmony? In order to get those things, you may need to build the capacity to tolerate your big and small feelings. That is the first step to moving towards healing.

Healing means wholeness. Wholeness means welcoming all your feelings— even the difficult ones.

keywords: Eldest daughters of immigrants, busyness as a shield, suppressing emotions, feeling neglected in romantic partnerships, emotional maturity, career dissatisfaction, burnout prevention, emotional resilience, drawing boundaries, advocating for oneself, emotional labor, inner peace, healing journey, wholeness, self-awareness.