S5E5- Internalizing vs Externalizing: Understanding Emotional Reactions

In this week's episode, TLC & Dr. Lee discuss a recent two-hour conversation they had focused on the concepts of internalizing and externalizing emotions. 

They explore how these 2 categories of emotional reactions impact communication, especially during times of dysregulation. 

They also talk about personal experiences in learning how to stop reacting,  the societal judgements around emotional expression, and the harmful effects of both internalizing and externalizing. 

The episode serves as a prelude to next week's episode, "The Anatomy of a Fight",  and emphasizes the importance of healthy emotional expression and self-awareness. Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own tendencies and practice curiosity instead of self-judgment.

00:00 Introduction and Unexpected Conversations

01:16 Understanding Internalizing vs. Externalizing

02:17 Personal Experiences with Externalizing

03:40 The Harm of Suppressing Emotions

06:37 The Aftermath of Emotional Responses

07:59 Practicing Healthy Emotional Expression

12:20 Invitation to Self-Reflection

14:25 Conclusion and Teasers for Next Episode

Transcript

[00:00:00] Dr. Lee: Hey y'all. Welcome to this week's episode. Sat down to record the podcast and instead had a two hour, like really incredible conversation that I'm sure we'll tell y'all about at some point, but there were a lot of like breakthroughs. And the interesting thing about this is that the conversation actually started when I asked TLC, if he was internalizing, and he was like, I don't know what that means, and I was like what do you mean you don't know what that means?

We've talked about this in trips like a bazillion times. But then I thought, oh, well, that's interesting, because if I feel like I've talked about it a bunch, and you still didn't remember the term, then that means I haven't talked about it enough. this is something I've actually learned, especially in running a business is that sometimes you hear yourself talk about things all day, every day.

so you're part of every single conversation you have where you explain things to people. And when you're exposed to things that often, it tricks your brain into thinking like that's boring. Everybody's already heard this. This is simple. Maybe you've moved on to like complex, Ways of thinking about it and in reality like your people need to hear the thing over and over and over because even if They've heard it like seven times before They're a new human now, and so they might hear it an eighth time and go.



[00:01:13] TLC: but more of what it actually means 

[00:01:15] Dr. Lee: Yeah, one meaning 

[00:01:16] TLC: if you will. 

[00:01:16] Dr. Lee: Yeah, I wanted to talk about internalizing versus externalizing because this is actually one of the, it's a very tiny thing and yet it makes a huge difference.

in communication and especially when we are dysregulated, how we react or respond to that dysregulation. So you know, we're humaning over here in the year of 2024. a lot of people in 2024 having similar experiences of, even when things are really good, there's also just a bunch of really weird stuff of Okay, that didn't go the way that I thought it would, 

So, when unexpected things that feel overwhelming or hard or scary or that my brain judges as negative, when those things happen, I'm typically more of an externalizer. Meaning that I, explode, like my emotions explode outward. 

[00:02:13] TLC: speaking of exploding, 

[00:02:14] Dr. Lee: speaking up exploding. Hopefully nothing just exploded. . when we're having conversations sometimes when we get into arguments. I externalize and I will just like, I'll talk a bunch, I'll raise my voice, I'll get really animated.

I remember one of the biggest fights we ever had was when you told me I was yelling at you and I was like, this is not yelling. Like we actually ended up having a conversation about what you meant by yelling. And you were like, speaking to me in a not kind tone. And I was like, that is not yelling.

Yelling is when the neighbors are like, Hey, are y'all good? that's what I'm used to thinking of yelling as. 

[00:02:49] TLC: Yeah, I think I never had people too much growing up around me that when yelling was, that the neighbors could hear. So to me, yelling was more of the content and being upset, 

[00:03:02] Dr. Lee: Yeah. And I'm like, no, yelling means raise your voice to the point that you are yelling. Not that you are like being mean, like that's, no, that's being mean. I remember I would just get so mad when you'd say that. Cause I'm like, I'm not yelling. I can start if you'd like. my thing is to externalize.

And so I was actually explaining this to our, trauma informed, psychologically safe students earlier today. I was saying, when you think about internalization versus externalization, a lot of times people see externalization as bad, right? The person who loses their shit, they're the bad person.

And the person who's able to keep their cool is the good person. And this is something that's so fascinating to me because it really highlights, something that our society values, which is the suppression of emotions. Our society, an American society, a lot of us have been taught it matters what things look like, not what they are.

And so TLC, you're more of an internalizer. You are somebody that suppresses their emotions. 

[00:04:04] TLC: Remember what else is going on, keep that smile and, that calm, even keel.

[00:04:08] Dr. Lee: So what I was saying to our participants earlier was both of these are harmful ways of showing up and they're not opposites. people see internalizing and externalizing as opposites. They're not opposites. they're flip sides of the same coin. they are both harmful because they don't allow for healthy expression and processing of the emotions.

the way I think about internalizing is imploding. the emotions are getting shoved down and all of that dysregulation is then causing. harm inside of you, but it looks like it's not causing any external harm. It is in some ways, and it doesn't look like it is. So that's a prettier way, it's a cleaner way, it's a kinder, more, sophisticated way of, moving on from something bad that's going to happen.

The implosion is cleaner externally. Externalizing is like exploding. 

when you think about a bomb going off and when they look at the impact, like the blast radius? Where the bomb goes off is where the most damage occurs. So I'm still hurting myself the most when I externalize. But there's all this damage externally and people go, Oh, look at all this damage that happened.

You said something that was really mean, you yelled at somebody, you did something impulsively that caused somebody else pain. And since we can see the damage externally, we don't pay attention to the fact that the bomb still went off inside that person. That harm was still done inside that person.

The amount of shame and guilt and embarrassment I would feel after I blew up at someone when in reality I was just overwhelmed.

I was dysregulated and I remember thinking this man, I wish I could just hold all this in and I literally can't. I would watch you internalize. And I remember getting so mad at you, but also being very envious of you, of the fact that you could just hold it all in. Cause I'm like, that's the way I should be doing it.

I think a lot of people who externalize see other people who internalize and we're Oh man, I wish I could be them. Not recognizing, no, the harm is still happening. It just looks prettier. 

[00:06:29] TLC: be it like you, you still don't feel better necessarily.

[00:06:33] Dr. Lee: and I think the damage eats away at you, 

[00:06:36] TLC: different ways, 

[00:06:37] Dr. Lee: And whether people are internalizing their feelings or externalizing their feelings and doing it in this implosion versus explosion, there's still an aftermath. And the aftermath is Like, okay this feels awful.

So now what do I do to clean up the mess? people who internalize or externalize will do the same things to make themselves feel better about the bomb that just went off. They'll drink, they'll smoke, they'll distract themselves with, social media or TV, or they'll compulsively shop, they'll do these things, to try to make themselves feel better after the thing has just happened.



[00:07:16] TLC: it's 

[00:07:17] Dr. Lee: Just say it. 

[00:07:20] TLC: Yeah, it's self protective. 

[00:07:23] Dr. Lee: Yeah, it's a way of, now I'm feeling all this shame and this guilt and this stuff, either whether it's inside of me because I shoved it all down and now I have to distract myself from everything I just shoved down because it's hard to pretend things are okay when they're not.

Or, I just caused this big mess and people are mad. And I'm having to deal with the aftermath of that. And it still the inside, but I have this additional thing of having to clean up whatever happened on the outside 

[00:07:47] TLC: the cleanup is still taking energy. 

[00:07:49] Dr. Lee: It takes energy, right?

I got to distract myself from that. I'm going to do these things to make myself feel better or distract myself from what has just occurred. 

so we wanted to talk about this because we were planning on doing an episode called the anatomy of a fight. And as we were talking, I was noticing, I'm looking at the notes as we're preparing and I'm like, Oh man, okay.

What's happening inside of me right now? Why do I want to externalize? And then I stopped and I was like, because he's internalizing and I'm trying to poke him. I realized I was trying to poke you to get you to tell me what was going on. And you kind of called me out on, or called me in on it a little bit.

And you went, what do you want from me right now? And I said, I want to know what is inside of you. And the conversation itself doesn't matter. We get to do the anatomy of a fight episode next time. how cool that we ended up having a two hour conversation and it wasn't a fight 

Because what we did was the actual opposite of this. Reactive bomb going off and we practiced healthy expression. There were times that I remember looking at you and going, I'm not yelling at you. I'm just like, I just really want to say this with him.

Is this really matters to me. 

[00:09:15] TLC: And yeah, excitement and yelling can sometimes almost seem, from that way. 

[00:09:20] Dr. Lee: Yesterday I was having a little bit of a rough time and you did the same thing. I noticed I wanted to internalize and instead I practiced healthy expression and you started saying something to me and I was like, it feels like you're yelling at me and you were like, no, I'm not yelling.

[00:09:31] TLC: I'm just excited that we're getting to them. 

[00:09:34] Dr. Lee: Yeah. So if you are somebody who externalizes or internalizes, and you can do both, there's times where typically the way that our fights start, they start with me externalizing, you're internalizing, and then I poke you to the point that you externalize, and then I go to internalization.

So we've been really working on this of how do we create healthy expression? how do we allow ourselves to be vulnerable with one another and say what we're thinking or how we're judging things or how we're experiencing things or how we're feeling and to do it in a way where it honors, the way that we truly like to communicate because we don't like to communicate in the same ways.

[00:10:22] TLC: It 

[00:10:22] Dr. Lee: doesn't feel even if you get underneath all of that, those trauma responses, because by the way, internalization and externalization are trauma responses. They happen when people in our life have told us that our feelings aren't safe or that they're not valid or that they need to be shoved down or forgotten or, not exist at all or shifted into something else or bypassed.

That's when those things happen. And, just learning, okay, well I may want to be more internal about what I'm thinking or feeling for a little bit so I can practice really thinking about what I want to say. 

I need to be able to stop and think and give myself that space because it's not something I've ever been able to do before 

[00:11:09] TLC: maybe actually moving a little bit. More so being able to actually say what I'm feeling. This is what I'm actually thinking. And not just being like, okay, well, let me put that inside.

Let me push that down and figure what I'm actually feeling or what I'm thinking so that I can say it correctly and concisely and make sure that it's You know, the right way, but in the end, what you end up really finding is that there's not that time that you end up really going through it all, 

And even if it is, even if you figure that out, that time has passed. You can't just walk back up to the other person and be like, okay, so remember six hours ago, now I figured out exactly what I want to say in that time when I was really quiet. What are you talking about?



[00:11:55] Dr. Lee: Yeah. And this all ties in so much with like our attachment styles. If we're more anxious or avoidant, it ties in with how we typically experience dysregulation. Do we experience more hyper arousal or hypo arousal? this ties into, how we look at, what our past painful experiences are around how we communicate.

I'm so excited to get into this in another episode. invitation for y'all to just take this one little piece and think about it for a week, ponder about it. Like notice, okay, where do I go to pulling back and suppressing versus where do I explode? 

When you practice this awareness, the very first thing your ego's gonna wanna do is judge the shit out of you and go, Oh my gosh, look at all these places that I'm doing this and I'm not like healthily expressing myself. Look, if judging yourself worked, it would've worked by now, 

So, invitation to try a different approach. And instead practice some curiosity and go, okay why do I think I do that? where did I learn that? What did I see growing up? Like where have I experienced this in places?

do I notice how empowered I feel has something to do with it? Do I notice how safe I feel? Does that have something to do with it? If I trust the person, does that have something to do with it? if I'm, under resourced, like I'm hot or overwhelmed tired or thirsty or hungry does that have something to do with it?

This is a place that you get to practice a lot of curiosity because the more you pay attention and look at, okay, what factors are present when this happens? that data is really valuable. And when we actually talk about the anatomy of a fight next time, having that data is going to be massively helpful because understanding why you do what you do in certain scenarios is really helpful to then combine with another person that you get in a fight with and look at, okay why do they do what they do? 

[00:13:57] TLC: Yeah, I am just really excited. We got to talk to everybody on this and this is a really interesting topic.

really plays in a lot of different ways in people's lives and in their relationships between each other.

It's a really useful Piece to understand and really helps to open up that communication more in ways you weren't even anticipating. 

[00:14:17] Dr. Lee: Yeah, it can lead to a really beautiful two hour conversation that Oh man, big moves are going to get made.

And we'll just leave it at that and tease the heck out of you. But big, big moves got made in that conversation. I think it's also a reminder too, that everything gets to happen in a really beautiful way if you let it, and Learning how to have a conversation and like less fights is I think one of the best decisions that you and I ever made together.

Well, I love you. I was talking to TLC. I love TLC. We love you guys too. We love all of you. I'm trying to not use the Midwestern guys as much. We love all of you. We'd love to hear from you. Remember we've got the text button down in the show notes. And, if you want to hear that next episode, make sure you subscribe because it'll let you know when we drop it in a week.

So until next time. 

[00:15:05] TLC: Till next time. 

[00:15:06] Dr. Lee: Bye y'all.