Containing vs Suppressing

Why emotions need structure, not avoidance

I recently read about something they do in Finland called “worry hour.”

For 15–30 minutes, children are invited to worry on purpose. They write it down. They draw it. They name the fears, the what-ifs, the things that feel big. And when the time is up, they put it away. The goal isn’t finding a solution or arriving; it is giving the emotion regulation and space.

As someone who struggles with suppressing “negative emotions”, I find this exercise extremely helpful and something I have implemented with clients.

Suppressing says: I’m not feeling this. This doesn’t matter. I’ll deal with it later.

It can look productive. Composed. High-functioning. Or impulsive. Avoidant. Believe me I’ve chased both sides of this coin and still have to actively reset.

But the body keeps score.

Suppressed emotion doesn’t disappear. It leaks. Into irritability. Into anxiety. Into the scroll that lasts too long. Even sometimes making decisions that don’t align with our values.

Containment is different. Containment changes from avoiding the emotion to regulating it.

This gets five minutes. This gets breath. This gets my attention but not my entire nervous system.

Recently, instead of pushing guilt away, I sat with it. wrote it out. gave it a voice. and what I noticed was this: once it had structure, it had less power.

That’s the paradox.

When emotion is approached with curiosity and containment, acknowledgement and regulation, empathy and boundaries, something shifts.

Lately, I’ve been asking clients to draw their emotions, anxiety, sadness, and anger however they experience it. We sit with it. We notice where it lives in the body. We let it be seen.

And then they take it home and implement the practice. Five intentional minutes a day. And then it goes back in the container decided on.

Consider with me asking quietly:

What am I trying not to feel?

Then give it five minutes of air.

You don’t have to drown in it.

You just have to let it exist.

That is regulation.