IN TODAY’S EDITION

THE SHIFT

Emotional Blindspots

Emotional blind spots are the gaps in our awareness when we fail to recognize, or consciously avoid, certain emotional patterns, reactions, facts, or underlying psychological dynamics. These unnoticed factors can significantly shape our behavior, influence our relationships, and impact our decision-making, often without us realizing it.

Basically, it’s your mind’s way of protecting you—a subconscious coping mechanism that keeps painful truths, troubling information, or anything that might threaten your self-esteem tucked away from your conscious awareness.

For example:

• The student who blames poor teaching for failing a test instead of acknowledging their own lack of effort.

• The woman who avoids looking at her bank statements to ignore the growing credit card debt caused by her spending habits.

• The husband who dismisses his wife’s complaints about feeling unappreciated, chalking it up to her being overly sensitive instead of reflecting on his own lack of engagement in the relationship.

In all these scenarios, they would have to face feelings of shame, guilt, anger, and sadness. And if they did, they would need to do something about it and change.

Let’s be honest, growth and change are painful and uncomfortable. It’s much easier to be an ostrich and bury your head in the sand.

But if you’re at a point in your life where you’re sick of the effects of avoiding or ignoring a problem, this might be a good place to start.

Types of Emotional Blind Spots

1. Intellectualizing Emotions Blind Spot

This is when we use logic or intellectual reasoning to distance ourselves from painful feelings. We talk about the feeling instead of feeling the feeling.

By analyzing and overthinking emotions, we create a barrier between ourselves and the raw experience of what we're going through, making it less intense.

For example, instead of admitting we’re angry or hurt, we might describe the situation in a neutral, vague, or detached way, like saying, "I'm just frustrated with the circumstances," or "It bugged me," rather than acknowledging the deeper emotion of anger.

The solution: Simplify the language you use to describe how you're feeling, almost as if a child were expressing it (sad, mad, hurt, afraid). By naming the emotion directly, you begin to acknowledge and process it fully, rather than brushing it aside with less honest terms.

2. Compounding Emotions Blind Spot

This happens when we add layers of self-judgment, like guilt or shame, onto our negative feelings.

When we experience a difficult emotion, instead of allowing ourselves to feel it fully and move on, we often judge ourselves for having it. This judgment (or what I call in therapy "The Shame Spiral") prolongs emotional pain and creates a cycle of negativity that separates us from the original difficult emotion.

For instance, you might feel sadness and then judge yourself for feeling weak or incapable, only deepening your distress.

The solution: The truth is, emotional pain naturally subsides much more quickly when we stop compounding it with additional judgments. Accept emotions as simply information rather than viewing them as something "bad" that you "shouldn't" feel.

3. Selectively Muting Emotions Blind Spot

Selectively muting emotions is the belief (conscious or unconscious) that by avoiding or suppressing certain emotions, like anger or sadness, we can somehow achieve a more peaceful or happier state.

Emotions don’t exist in isolation—they’re interconnected. When you numb or suppress one emotion, you don’t just block out the "negative" ones like anger or sadness; you also diminish your ability to feel all emotions, including positive ones like joy or love. It’s as if by shutting down one part of your emotional range, you unintentionally dull the entire emotional spectrum.

The solution: The key is not to avoid or ignore emotions, but to allow yourself to feel them fully. Embracing the full range of emotions enables true emotional richness and resilience.

4. Escaping Emotions Blind Spot

This is a common reaction to emotional discomfort, where we use avoidance mechanisms like distractions—socializing, shopping, cleaning, or binge-watching shows—to escape feelings we don’t want to face.

A helpful analogy is to view emotions like the check engine light in your car. But with this blind spot, instead of facing the issue head-on—like checking under the hood or taking it to the mechanic—you choose to tape over the light so you don’t have to see it. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

But the light isn’t going away; it's simply signaling that something in your life needs attention. The tape might block the warning, but it doesn’t fix the problem.

The solution: Notice if you feel detached, indifferent, or are continually unable to name your emotional experience. If you constantly avoid your emotions or feel unsure of what you're experiencing moment to moment, it may indicate that emotional blind spots are controlling you. You might find yourself feeling detached, indifferent, or overly optimistic about a problem, telling yourself things like, "I don’t feel stressed; everything will just work out on its own." This type of denial can prevent you from addressing the root cause of your emotional pain. A key question to ask is, Am I shutting off my feelings rather than confronting them? By acknowledging and addressing what’s beneath the surface, you can better understand your emotional landscape and stop avoiding what needs attention.

5. Emotions Hijacking Values Blind Spot

Emotions can hijack our values, leading us to make decisions based on temporary discomfort rather than long-term goals.

Saving for retirement means enduring the disappointment of setting aside 10% of your paycheck instead of indulging in a vacation. Becoming a top sprinter demands tolerating the pain of grueling workouts. Mastering the piano involves pushing through the boredom of repetitive scales.

These sacrifices underscore an important truth: many of life’s best achievements demand a willingness to feel bad in the short term. Achieving truly meaningful goals, like financial security, athletic excellence, or musical mastery, requires embracing struggle and discomfort.

This emotional interference is known as the affect heuristic, where decisions are swayed by how we feel in the moment and immediate satisfaction, rather than by objective reasoning. While emotions can sometimes provide valuable signals, they are unreliable guides on their own, often giving us bad information as much as good.

The solution: Delay emotional gratification and include rational judgment in the decision-making process. To push past the uncomfortable feelings, reframe the discomfort. Instead of viewing it as a barrier, see it as evidence that you're growing. Also, anchor to your "why." Clearly define why this goal matters to you. When emotions urge you to quit, focus on the deeper purpose behind your actions. Whether it’s financial security, health, or personal mastery, keeping your "why" at the forefront provides motivation to endure temporary discomfort.

6. Emotional Contagion Blind Spot

This blind spot occurs when we unconsciously absorb the emotions of others and take them on as our own. This lack of differentiation—the ability to maintain a sense of self (your thoughts, feelings, and identity) while remaining emotionally connected to others—can blur boundaries, leaving you emotionally overwhelmed and reactive.

For example, your partner might feel sad or depressed, and without realizing it, you begin to match their emotional state.

The solution: Strengthen your emotional differentiation. Begin by cultivating awareness: pause and ask yourself, Is this feeling mine, or am I absorbing someone else’s energy? Then set clear boundaries. Learn to protect your time and energy by saying no to things that don’t align with your values or priorities. Communicate clearly with those around you, expressing your needs and limits assertively and without guilt. “I need some time to myself tonight to recharge.”

7. Emotional Covers Blind Spot

This phenomenon occurs when one emotion acts as a "cover" for deeper, more vulnerable feelings.

When this happens, the underlying emotions become inaccessible because the dominant emotion overshadows them. For example, instead of acknowledging feelings of hurt or rejection after an argument with your friend, you might notice that the moment you feel like crying, it quickly transforms into rage, suppressing the discomfort of their deeper pain. In this case, anger covers sadness.

Alternatively, sadness, depression, or emotional detachment can cover anger. Some people struggle to access anger due to familial or cultural norms, gender expectations, fear of rejection, and conflict avoidance.

The solution: Ask yourself, Is there an emotion that I’m afraid or unwilling to feel? Mindfulness can help create the space to observe emotions without immediately reacting, allowing you to separate surface-level emotions from deeper ones. Long-buried emotions can feel overwhelming and vulnerable when they finally surface, often prompting protective psychological defenses to come online. To navigate these complex emotional terrains, professional guidance from a therapist can provide crucial support and insight.

8. Emotional Comparison Blind Spot

This is when we diminish our own pain by measuring it against others' perceived greater struggles. We effectively invalidate our emotional experience. This habit stems from a complex mix of social conditioning, shame, and a misguided belief that suffering is a competitive landscape where only the most extreme pain deserves acknowledgment.

By constantly relegating our emotions to a hierarchy of pain, we disconnect from our genuine internal experience. The "Others have it worse" script allows us to avoid the vulnerable work of sitting with our own discomfort.

By refusing to grant ourselves permission to feel, we actually deny ourselves the opportunity for authentic healing, self-understanding, and ultimately, growth.

The solution: Recognize and validate your own emotional experience—regardless of how it might stack up against others. Challenge the internal narrative that minimizes your struggle by asking: *Would I dismiss a friend's

Identifying Emotional Blind Spots

Uncovering emotional blindspots, as Martha Beck explains, is like "tracking the wind: You can't observe the thing itself, only its effects." These hidden psychological terrains lie just beyond our immediate perception, only revealing themselves in our patterns of behavior, recurring relationship dynamics, and repeated phrases.

Here are strategies to help you discover your blindspots.

Track Patterns:

Look for situations that seem to "happen to you" repeatedly, such as:

• Same relationship, different people 

• Always having “bad luck”

• Similar conflict within relationships

• Consistent stress triggers at certain environments (work, church, parents house)

• Feeling stuck in a negative emotion  (e.g., always feeling undervalued or angry).

• Being perceived or told you’re a certain way (“You have an anger problem.”, “You interrupt when you’re stressed.", “Nothing ever bothers you.” “You are really critical of everything I do.”)

• Identify roles you tend to take in relationships (e.g., fixer, avoider, victim). 

Pro Tip: Notice the phrase - why does this keep happening to me? 

Ask Reflective Questions/ Prompts:

• Why do I react this way in similar situations?

• Do I often feel neglected, unappreciated, or misunderstood?

• Am I always the caregiver or the one seeking validation?

• Am I deflecting responsibility to avoid examining my role in the problem?

• People often tell me I  ___

• I receive a lot of compliments about ___

• What am I afraid to know?

• What's the one thing I least want to accept?

• What do I sense without knowing?

• When do I feel most defensive, and what might that be protecting me from?

• What emotions do I immediately try to shut down or minimize?

• What story have I been telling myself about my life that might not be entirely true?

• In what situations do I feel most disconnected from myself?

• What do I judge most harshly in others that might be a reflection of something unresolved in me?

• What beliefs about myself have I inherited from my family or early experiences that no longer serve me?

Noticing Discrepancies: 

Emotional blindspots can reveal themselves through the subtle misalignments between our self-perception and external reality. When others consistently provide feedback that contradicts our internal narrative—such as being perceived as critical while believing ourselves to be helpful—we encounter an important opportunity for self-reflection. These discrepancies are not mere coincidences but profound signals inviting us to examine the gap between our intended impact and our actual lived experience. The disconnect suggests that our internal story may be protecting us from a more nuanced and potentially uncomfortable truth about ourselves.

Another illuminating moments of self-discovery emerge when we catch ourselves in acts of subtle self-deception. These are the instances where our words, actions, and internal dialogue lack authenticity and congruence. Lying to ourselves or others:

• Saying “I’ll try to make it tonight” when you have no intention of going. 

• Saying “I’ll see if I can make it work” when you know you don't have the capacity or availability to do so.

• Saying “I’m fine” when you are clearly not fine. 

By cultivating radical honesty and developing the courage to witness our own inconsistencies, we can begin to bridge the chasm between our defended selves and our true, vulnerable experiences.

Solicit Feedback: 

This one requires the courage to invite external perspectives and the humility to truly listen. 

Soliciting feedback from trusted friends, family, or colleagues creates a powerful opportunity for self-discovery, as these individuals often see patterns in our behavior that remain invisible to us. 

When asking for insights, frame your request as an invitation to growth: "I'm working on understanding myself better, and I trust your perspective. Is there anything about my behavior or emotional patterns that you've noticed that I might be missing?" Or “Is there anything about me that I don't seem to see but is obvious to you?" Or “What do you see me doing, or failing to do, that is getting in my own way?”

The key is to approach feedback with genuine openness and curiosity, rather than defensiveness. Hearing the information can be incredibly difficult and uncomfortable. You didn’t blind yourself to the issue for no reason, it hurts.  

Once feedback is offered:

1. Resist the impulse to explain, justify, or argue. Instead, just say “thank you” and tuck it away for a different time to examine it. You can ask clarifying questions, but not to persuade them differently, solely to get a better understanding. 

2. Distinguish useful from useless feedback. Useful feedback is specific, actionable, and sparks a moment of insight. Useless feedback is vague, demotivating, and rooted in the speaker's own issues. Trust your intuition to differentiate between them.

   • Useless Feedback: "You're a failure." Useful Feedback: "When you miss deadlines consistently, it creates uncertainty for the team and undermines our collective trust."

   • Useless Feedback: "You're too emotional." Useful Feedback: "When you become defensive during discussions, it prevents us from having productive conversations about challenges."

   • Useless Feedback: “You’re a bad parent.” Useful Feedback: “You often get aggressive and hostile with your kids and it scares them.”

3. Absorb the truth carefully. Like learning to see after long blindness, processing new insights about yourself requires patience and deep self compassion. Allow yourself time to understand and integrate the information without immediate judgment.

THE ESSENTIALS
This section includes relevant resources, articles, videos, people to check out, and links to strengthen your psychological resilience and emotional intelligence.

(By the way, these aren’t paid ads. These people don’t even know I follow them, but they’re resources I have found helpful and want to share.)

• Singing Bowl Therapy: If you’ve never been to a sound bath, this will be a great intro to a powerful stress release tool. Sound therapy is a holistic treatment that uses sound, vibration and different frequencies to put you into a deep state of meditation. Tseyang, a Tibetan yoga teacher raised in India, has a great Youtube channel where you can try it out! This video is to reduce anxiety and stress.

• Deepak Chopra - The Mind-Body Connection: A Guided Meditation: It is a fundamental truth that our minds and bodies are connected to each other, sometimes in obvious ways, and other times in more subtle ways. Join this guided meditation to strengthen that connection in yourself.

• Surviving Panic Attacks: helping to interrupt the overwhelming rush of fear or anxiety. When panic strikes, your mind may become flooded with catastrophic thoughts, and your body may feel disconnected or out of control.

  • 5-4-3-2-1

  • ABC’s

  • Finger Tracing
    

THE GALLERY
A curated collection of moving art, poems that resonate, stories that illuminate transformational frameworks, and ideas that spark wonder.

Jump In: How Action Sparks Real Change

This week, two maxims stood out to me.

Although Mark Zuckerberg’s quote may be controversial, I’ll set that aside for now.

Both quotes are often applied to business, entrepreneurship, innovation, and technological development, but I couldn’t help but consider how such mental frameworks could also benefit the therapeutic process and personal growth.

Mark Zuckerberg: "Move fast and break things."

Richard Branson: "You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over."

Healing is a slow, non-linear process, yet personal transformation requires active participation—whether that’s practicing new communication techniques in relationships, implementing emotional regulation strategies, or taking concrete steps toward personal goals.

One common issue I see in therapy is the "once-a-week-magic-pill" mindset. While helpful to "know" the tools and mindsets learned in therapy, true progress comes when you actively apply them outside of the session. Even if that means falling short at times.

(Of course, this doesn't apply to processing trauma, which is best done with professional support.)

This isn’t about rushing the process, but encouraging you to experiment with new coping strategies and ways of thinking.

And yes, I can already hear the worry: “But what if it doesn’t work?”

Great!

“Failure” (I use that term loosely) is an essential part of the learning process—especially when building a new framework for managing emotions and relationships.

Setbacks or emotional challenges should be seen as opportunities to learn. When we try new methods for emotional regulation or develop new ways to manage relationships, things won’t always go as planned—and that’s perfectly okay! In fact, it's to be welcomed.

It’s in these moments that we learn the most about ourselves. Embracing "failure" helps build resilience, offering valuable insight into what works and what doesn’t, ultimately strengthening our psychological flexibility.

Rapid experimentation can also help you break free from unhelpful thought patterns or behaviors that no longer serve you.

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