Not because we are stupid, weak, or "too complicated". But because contact with emotions is a skill. Either someone helped you develop it, or they didn't. And sometimes it was actively forbidden, forming a life script where feeling means being inconvenient. From childhood, we might have been told not to cry, not to get angry, not to make things up, and to be normal. Boys are often taught that they don't cry, and girls are taught that good girls don't scream. And there will always be someone who asks why you are so sensitive. From the perspective of transactional analysis, these are classic "Don't feel" parental injunctions that a child internalizes to survive and be accepted. And so, an adult grows up perfectly capable of working, answering "everything is fine," holding on, not interfering, being convenient, and not dramatizing. And then the body suddenly starts sending messages without a subject line: tension, pain, insomnia, fatigue as a persistent physiological state of exhaustion, tightness, trembling, heart palpitations, or breathing and digestion problems. The psyche is silent, but the body speaks, taking the brunt of unreflected experience.

The bodily level shows what happens to the autonomic nervous system, breathing, muscles, heart, stomach, and hormones—like cortisol and adrenaline. The external level demonstrates how this is visible in facial expressions, voice, gestures, posture, and speech tempo. Therefore, an emotion is not just "something I made up". It is an organism's holistic reaction to what is important to us, an evolutionary adaptation mechanism formed over millions of years. Anger can clench fists and jaws, preparing us to defend our boundaries. Fear can accelerate heart rate and breathing, providing muscles with oxygen for escape. Sadness can give a heaviness in the chest, slowing us down to process loss, while joy can be felt as warmth, expansion, and a desire to move. According to Robert Plutchik's wheel of emotions, basic emotions have a clear biological function, and the body doesn't just connect "after the emotion". It participates from the very beginning, creating an unbreakable bond. More about how to distinguish emotions and not confuse them can be read here: Первинні та вторинні емоції: як розібратися у почуттях.

It is important to think without magical thinking or pseudo-spiritual concepts here. Psychosomatics is not about "all illnesses coming from nerves," nor is it about telling a person that it's just psychosomatics, after which they should gratefully stop suffering. Scientific psychosomatics studies how chronic distress, consistently high cortisol levels, and autonomic tension wear down the organs and systems of our body. No, we are not making up the pain—vascular spasms or muscle hypertonus are absolutely real. If there is a symptom, the first step is to see a doctor. The body needs to be checked, tests taken, and ultrasounds done, rather than heroically interpreting every pain as an "unprocessed grudge against an aunt from 2007". But if the medical part is cleared, the doctor is unsure, and the symptoms worsen against a background of stress, conflicts, tension, suppressed anger, anxiety, or a chronic "I will endure it" attitude, then it is worth looking toward the psyche. Psychotherapy here works not instead of medicine, but alongside it, helping to relieve the internal load that the body is forced to contain. You can read more about stress, the body, and psychosomatics without self-blame here: Стрес, емоції та психосоматика: як не згоріти.

A separate interesting story is anger. In analytical psychology, suppressed anger often becomes part of our Shadow—the parts of ourselves we do not accept and hide from the world. But anger very often stands right at our boundaries. Where I was interrupted. Where I was pressured. Where I agreed even though I absolutely didn't want to. Where I stayed silent but internally started writing a dissertation on why people are sometimes unbelievable. The problem is that many people fatally confuse anger with aggression. Anger is a basic, natural emotion according to Plutchik, signaling danger to our "Self". Aggression is already a specific behavioral way of acting. Anger can say, "My boundaries are violated, something is wrong". But what I do with it—yell, stay silent, leave, explain, set a boundary, or write the perfect message three days later after an internal rehearsal in the shower—is purely a question of my communication skills and emotional maturity. That is exactly why it is important not to suppress anger but to understand and legalize it. Because suppressed anger never becomes kindness. Often it transforms into tension, chronic fatigue as a physiological consequence of fighting oneself, passive aggression, biting sarcasm, a bodily block in the jaws, or the phrase "everything is fine," said in such an icy tone that a ficus in the room instantly wilts. You can read more about anger, boundaries, and emotional literacy here: Емоційний інтелект: як перетворити гнів на силу.

For deep and structural work with the themes of emotions, suppressed anger, and bodily signals, the specialized workbook "About Emotions. Anger: How to Understand and Live It" is an excellent choice: Про емоції. Гнів: як зрозуміти та прожити. For processing the themes of boundaries, separation, developing self-respect, and legitimizing the right to one's own space, another workbook was created, "Diary of the Mistress of Her Boundaries": Щоденник Господині Своїх Кордонів. If you are interested in group work, hosting training sessions, therapeutic evenings with friends, or simply deep self-exploration through real-life stories (of which there are 49 in the initial version of the game), consider the tabletop psychological game RedLines: Emotional Detective: RedLines: Емоційний детектив. All MriyaRun products, which are based on evidence-based psychological approaches, can be viewed in the official catalog: Каталог MriyaRun.

Contemporary clinical care does not divide symptoms into “real physical” and “imagined psychological” categories. Pain, fatigue, dizziness, palpitations, and gastrointestinal symptoms are real experiences. Biology, sleep, medication, physical load, stress, anxiety, prior learning, relationships, and the nervous system’s threat predictions may interact. This is the biopsychosocial model: it broadens medical care rather than replacing it.

Association is not causation. Research finds links between difficulty identifying emotions and more frequent reports of bodily symptoms, but it does not prove that alexithymia creates illness or that every symptom hides one specific emotion. A symptom also remains real when initial tests do not reveal a cause.

Self-observation belongs alongside medical assessment, not instead of it. A new, severe, sudden, or rapidly worsening symptom; fainting; severe breathlessness; pressure-like chest pain; sudden one-sided weakness or numbness; speech difficulty; or other acute changes require emergency help. In Ukraine, call 103 or 112; elsewhere, use your local emergency number. For any persistent or worrying symptom, contact a clinician and describe its onset, pattern, medications, and impact on daily life.

This practice cannot diagnose a condition. It helps you collect useful information for yourself and for a conversation with a clinician or therapist. For seven days, make a brief note without trying to discover a single “correct” psychological cause.

The EQ Emotion Journal supports emotion and body-signal vocabulary; CBT SHIFT helps separate an observable fact from an automatic thought and a prediction; the Boundaries Journal helps turn a noticed need into a specific request or “no.” These are reflection tools, not diagnostic instruments or substitutes for medical or psychotherapeutic care.

Psychosomatics is by no means a sentence or proof that "something is globally wrong with you". Most often, it is simply a persistent invitation from your own body to take a closer look at what has been asking to enter your field of consciousness for a very long time but is ignored. It is a reason to ask yourself what emotions you stubbornly refuse to call by their names, what personal boundaries you are not defending, allowing others into your territory. It is an opportunity to explore exactly where you constantly endure discomfort, and where your body is already openly saying what you yourself do not yet dare to say out loud in words. Sometimes the most important path to your true self begins not with some massive sudden epiphany or drastic life changes, but with one very simple but honest sentence: "I think I feel something". And believe me, to begin this process, that is already a very, very big step.