The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health Podcast · Drew Linsalata

Anxiety and Fearing Emotions: Becoming More Emotionally Allowable | EP 316

·42 min·2 clips

Being afraid of emotions does not mean weakness; it means fear.

Drew starts by framing a common problem for anxious people: emotions can feel dangerous, so the first instinct is often to block them, control them, or get away from them. He brings in Joanna Hardis to talk about emotional allowability, treating it as a plain idea with real consequences. The point is not that feelings are pleasant. The point is that they arrive whether anyone approves of them or not. The conversation keeps coming back to that basic correction. People do not get to choose not to feel an emotion. They do get some say in what happens after it shows up. Drew and Joanna separate the feeling itself from the reaction around it. A feeling can spike, settle, or hang around, but the surrounding behavior can change the shape of the whole experience. If someone starts panicking about the feeling, scanning for escape, or grinding through a stream of self-criticism, the whole system usually gets louder. That distinction matters because it keeps the episode from drifting into magical thinking. Nobody is being told to wish away fear. Nobody is being sold a neat trick. The work is framed as a matter of behavior, attention, and response. They also make room for difference. Some people seem to bounce higher and faster than others. Some emotions hit harder than others. That does not change the underlying principle, but it does change what the experience feels like from the inside. The episode treats that variation seriously. It does not shame people for being sensitive. It just refuses to let sensitivity become a reason to conclude that emotions must be controlled at all costs. A lot of the talk turns on time and attention. If you stare at discomfort, hate it loudly in your own head, and keep asking how long it will last, you are not helping it calm down. You are usually feeding the fire. That is one of the cleaner arguments in the conversation. What feels like vigilance can become amplification. What feels like problem solving can become resistance. What feels like self-protection can become a loop that keeps the body and mind agitated. Joanna and Drew keep returning to the idea that recovery is not the same as emotional perfection. It is not about becoming someone who never feels a surge of fear, sadness, anger, or shame. It is about becoming more emotionally allowable, which means becoming more able to let feelings be there without treating them like proof of failure. The show also stays true to its recovery-first frame. It keeps pointing listeners back to what they do have control over: the next response, the next bit of attention, the next choice not to pile judgment on top of a feeling that was already hard. That practical emphasis gives the episode its shape. The goal is not to win a debate with your nervous system. The goal is to stop making every emotion into a fight. Drew and Joanna describe emotion regulation in simple terms, but not in a watered-down way. They talk about learning how to dial things up less, how to dial them back more, and how to notice when your own behavior is part of the escalation. The episode keeps that logic moving with repeated restatements, which suits the topic. If someone has spent years trying to outrun feelings, the correction usually has to be said more than once. The closing note is steady rather than dramatic. Even a slight turn toward allowability counts. Even a small change in direction matters. Even a modest loosening of the grip is progress. That message fits the show well because it respects how hard this work can feel without pretending the hard part is the point. The real point is that emotions can be handled without being made into enemies. By the end, the episode leaves a simple but useful reminder: recovery grows when people stop treating every feeling like an emergency and start learning how to stay with it long enough for the wave to pass.

As heard by us

Resisting emotions tends to amplify them; meeting them more steadily changes the result.

This episode stays close to one clear idea: emotions are not problems to solve, but states to notice without immediately fighting them. Drew's conversation with Joanna Hardis keeps returning to that split between feeling and reacting, and the point lands because it is simple…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you are afraid of your emotions, this conversation shows why trying to control or avoid them can dial up distress instead.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health Podcast