#1 Addiction: Suppressing Emotions

If we get our app to go down a spiral, everything in our amygdala will explode.
He is committed to avoiding emotions, which is his own circle. This isn't new information if you're an EBTer, because it manifests as a resistance to accessing the app and starting down the brain's resilience path by talking about what's bothering us.
The first introduction is “The situation is…” which should serve as a good opportunity to unpack everything that is on our minds, but it is often stressful. We have to collect our thoughts and talk about what is bothering us. It's much easier to distract ourselves from one of dozens of survival (read: addiction) circuits.
Whether you are just starting out in EBT or an experienced EBTer, consider finding your “I Suppress My Feelings” wire and see if a more global approach to your emotional health is helpful.
Get X (need) from Y (external solution)
What would that look like? Well, that means using the formula for all addictions, which is: I get my basic need from something that doesn't satisfy that need, and actually hinders my joy in the long run.
If you're interested in finding the “I suppress my feelings” wire, consider finding it. Just start your cycle by saying: “The situation is… I do everything I can to distract myself from the feeling. I learned early in life that feelings were bad, and I overcome them by overthinking, and my whole family does that—or expresses that.” Emotions in explosive, unhealthy, and self-destructive ways.
Here are some common unreasonable expectations to get your emotional juices flowing:
I get my existence from shutting down my feelings.
I get my security from evading my feelings.
I get relief from resisting emotions.
I get my survival from denying my feelings.
Clearing emotional clutter?
If you're like me, once you discover the circuit, the emotional chaos begins to unfold with images of when that wire was encoded. My mind goes back to having a stomach ache at the kitchen table during stressful family dinners.
At the time, I didn't have the skills to process my emotions effectively, so it wasn't that I was addicted to emotional repression, but that I didn't have an effective process for doing something with my emotions.
However, any maladaptive pattern resulting from not knowing better can turn into a survival cycle as it becomes familiar and, therefore, rewarding.
My emotional suppression wire was “I get my safety from ignoring my own feelings and focusing on the feelings of others.”
Can't you hear the mixing circuit lurking there?
If it's not fun, it's not EBT
Then the pleasure begins because the reward center in the brain initiates the dopamine surges that come from self-recognition, truly knowing and understanding ourselves.
If you start on this path to stop emotional repression, notice that desire to understand how it all started. For me, emotional repression turned from a skill deficiency into a drive at age 12, when I didn't know who I was, and the pain of it all was too great. The lack or obfuscation of feelings turns into a survival arena.
Check in with others in your support group. Maybe they have an emotional repression circuit too. As always, have fun rewiring. The greatest joy in life is knowing ourselves on the deepest level possible, and perhaps discovering this circle will bring that to you!
In the meantime, please check out the following blog for another way to avoid emotional overtaking.