In this article, you’ll learn about the depth of emotions and their impact on our daily lives:
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Why staying on the surface keeps us disconnected from deeper meaning, and how acknowledging the depth of emotions can change that.
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How Jung and Internal Family Systems (IFS) explain our hidden emotional “roots”.
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Why protectors keep us from exiled parts of ourselves and understanding the depth of emotions.
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How meeting shadow and exiles transforms pain into growth.
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What integration and self-compassion can teach us about healing and the depth of emotions.
Most of us are spending our days hurrying through life, barely looking at what’s within. We keep ourselves busy, mindlessly scroll, tick boxes, and avert our gaze from the unpleasant emotions. On the surface, it seems like living. But as it is with hiking through a forest and only viewing the trees, we’re not truly appreciating the depth of emotions that life offers beneath.
On the forest floor, the ground seems straightforward. Yet below is a vast network of fungi, roots, and microorganisms that exchange information and nutrients. It is this underground internet that holds the forest together, sustaining the visible life above it. Our inner life is not so different. What appears straightforward—our habits, our moods, or the stories we tell about ourselves—is just the canopy. The deeper roots of feeling and memory are generally not visible.
And still, that’s where the most profound meaning and growth await. By exploring the depth of emotions, we can find meaning and grow.
Why We Stay on the Surface of Our Emotions
Why don’t we venture deeper? Jung would likely tell us it’s the fear of encountering one’s shadow. All those parts of ourselves that are shameful, messy, or too dangerous to permit. In Internal Family Systems, our protectors keep us in the shallows. They keep us busy, distracted, scrolling, performing, anything but quiet enough to hear the wails of our exile; the younger, wounded parts of us that carry the old pain.
So we stay on the surface, doing more, buying more, talking around what matters. These defensive routines are understandable. They keep us from being overwhelmed. But they also keep us back, tracing the same perimeters without ever nearing the roots.
The Hidden Emotional Networks
A forest is more than trees. It’s a subterranean network of life. Trees collaborate on nutrients, send warning signals, and even feed struggling neighbours via their fungal networks. The invisible web is as vital as the visible canopy.
Our emotions are a similar web. A passing glance, an anxious laugh, or an image in a dream out of the blue can bind us to something far more profound. I have seen in therapy a patient matter-of-factly describe a circumstance, and yet a faint shift in tone revealed that they were struggling not to cry. To bring this to their attention gave entry to the exile underneath: a part that had felt unseen, carrying ancient grief. That moment of awareness opened up new possibilities for healing, revealing the depth of emotions underneath.
As the forest floor holds the memory of past seasons, so does our unconscious hold the layers of our lives. When we are ready to look below, we find that nothing is meaningless. Every slip, every symbol, every fragment plays a role in the system.
Meeting the Depths of Emotions
Jung showed us that what we avoid doesn’t disappear. It hangs out in the dark, gaining power, until it explodes into awareness, frequently as illness, as conflict, in dreams. In IFS language, those exiled feelings (rage, grief, shame, longing) live underground, carrying burdens of trauma or childhood. The more our protectors push us away from them, the more energy it requires to hold everything down.
And this is the paradox: when we at last meet these concealed parts, they do not destroy us. They would rather impart new life. Anger becomes the strength to set boundaries. Grief informs compassion. Shame melts when met in the presence of Self. The very emotions we feared can nurture growth, like roots taking sustenance from the dark soil.
Repair and Regrowth
Forests are resilient. Even after a logging or fire, if the roots remain, the forest can regenerate. The underground network carries memory and strength, helping new life emerge.
Humans carry that same capacity. I’ve seen patients who believed they were broken begin to grow again once they let themselves feel. I’ve seen old patterns loosen the moment someone connected their present struggle to a forgotten childhood wound. These moments can feel painful, but they’re also creative. They spark repair. They remind us that our story isn’t over and that there is a depth of emotions waiting to be understood.
Here’s what Jung and IFS have in common: healing isn’t about cutting away at pieces of ourselves, but about integration. We don’t destroy the shadow; we learn from it. We don’t exile our pain; we welcome it into the circle of Self. That’s how the system, like the forest, comes back into balance.
Choosing to Look Beneath
None of this happens by accident. We do not tumble into depth; we choose it. Sometimes that means stopping instead of being deflected. Sometimes it means sitting in silence, or taking the risk of speaking a truth we’ve hidden. Sometimes it means going to therapy, permitting another to help us dig the earth we’ve refused to dig.
It is not simple. Protectors will fight to keep us on the surface. But depth is where meaning resides. It is where healing begins. When we get to those hidden parts, when we meet the shadow, when we let exiles be heard, we find that Self—peaceful, curious, compassionate—was there all along, waiting to hold it all.
The canopy of daily life is crucial, yet without the roots, the forest collapses. The same goes for us. If we want a life that is not just busy but meaningful, not just secure but alive, we have to go deeper, acknowledging the depth of emotions within us. Because beneath the ground, and beneath our emotions, the real work and the real growth begin.
