Permission to Feel and Express

What happens when we stop repressing and start expressing, safely, fully, and together.

This piece comes from a recent experience during my counseling training, one that changed how I understand emotions, healing, and being seen. I hope it resonates with anyone who’s ever felt too much or not enough, and been told to hide.

Last month, I realized just how many emotions we keep locked inside because we were told not to show them.

Except for joy, of course. That one’s allowed. Encouraged, even.

But sadness? Anger? Fear? Those aren’t exactly welcome in most places.

On one hand, it makes sense. No one wants to see someone crying in the corner, or yelling in the street. But what if we had learned a way to feel and express those emotions safely? What if instead of holding them in for years, we were taught to give them a voice, literally, so they could move through us and be released?

The past six weeks, my classmates and I (doing an experiential Diploma in Counselling) were introduced to something I’d never heard of before, and apparently, the internet hadn’t either. I tried Googling and even asked ChatGPT. Nothing came up.

It’s called TRS: Therapeutic Release Session, which is part of the Emotional Wellness section of our program. It could also be called an Emotional Release Session, I guess. But that doesn’t quite capture how deep and ceremonial the experience was.

It was a long process over five weeks, leading up to a final session that felt a little like a psychedelic journey, just without any substances. We prepared ahead of time with our counsellor, set an intention, and had both an opening and a closing ritual during the session. And after, there was space for integration.

We didn’t exactly know what would happen during the final session, but we knew it would be intense.

In the lead-up, we explored different ways to release emotions safely. For anger, we were given a few options: twist a towel, scream into a pillow, or try a form of boxing, not with gloves, but by punching a yoga mat, folded and taped so it wouldn’t unroll.

I wasn’t expecting much. I’d tried boxing before and didn’t enjoy it. But the moment I hit that bag for the first time… something happened. I could feel something coming up within me.

In the first round, I hyperventilated. It felt new, exhilarating, and overwhelming. After two minutes, I collapsed gently to the floor, breathed, cried, and needed time to come back to baseline. I was shocked. And excited.

Two minutes had gone by in a flash, and I couldn’t believe how much it had done. So after class, I did it again. This time, I could yell and I yelled the heck out of me. It felt incredible. I had no idea I was holding so much anger.

Well, I did know. But I didn’t know how to tap into it nor express it.

Most of the time, I turn my anger into complaining. Or I swallow it and it becomes sadness. Or I freeze. I don’t express it outwardly. I learned that being angry wasn’t safe when I was little and I still carry those beliefs. That anger hurts. That I shouldn’t feel it, let alone show it.

But the truth is: I do feel it. And it’s been sitting there, waiting.

This was the first time I could let some of it out in a way that was safe and contained. Not directed at anyone. Not harmful. Just… released.

When we got to our final TRS sessions, each of us had chosen a focus, with a specific emotion to release. Some chose sadness. Some chose anger. Some even released disgust, which showed up in dry heaves between other emotional waves.

And me? I released fear.

Watching others go through their sessions was just as powerful as doing my own.

Tears poured out of people who hadn’t cried in years, especially not in front of others. Some wept for lost loved ones. Others for wounded inner children.

Anger came out like fire, after being buried for decades.

It was heartbreaking and beautiful to witness.

And it made me realize just how much we repress, how early we’re taught to hide, to shut down, to “be strong,” to “get over it.”

Even though emotions naturally last only about 90 seconds (that’s what science says, anyway), we never really learned how to let them. So instead, we hold onto them. For years. We stack new ones on top of old ones, until we don’t even know what we’re feeling anymore.

And all of it stays stuck in the body.

My release: fear

I had thought I’d go in, feel fear – my usual freeze reaction, push through it, and then release anger by hitting the bag. But that’s not what happened.

Fear hit differently.

It started in my throat. I couldn’t speak. I told my counsellor. Then I sat on the ground. I cried. Then, I screamed.

It lasted maybe a minute.

And then… nothing. I was empty. I couldn’t feel anything else.

I was at the end of my session and didn’t have energy to continue.

It wasn’t what I had expected. I didn’t get to the anger.

But maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s part of the process: learning that it takes time, that not everything can be released in one go. That we can only meet what’s ready to be met.

It took me a full week to recover. I needed naps. Stuffed animals. Candies (Did I really need them? That’s what I like to tell myself 😉). Comfort.

This experience changed all of us. Not just through our own sessions, but through witnessing each other. Because that was part of it too: being seen.

We each read a short summary of our life, the story that shaped our emotional world. And then we released what needed to be released, in front of others who held space for us with care.

To be seen like that…

To see someone else like that…

It was raw. Sacred. Human.

What if we had grown up with the message that all emotions were welcome?

That sadness wasn’t shameful. That anger wasn’t dangerous. That fear didn’t make us weak.

What if we had been taught, as children, how to feel and move through things, instead of being told to stop, to silence ourselves, to be “good”?

Maybe we wouldn’t be holding so much.

Maybe we wouldn’t feel so heavy.

Maybe we wouldn’t feel so alone.

We don’t need to hold it all anymore.

We just need permission.

Permission to feel and express safely.