Purplewashing:  Repressing Or Denying Uncomfortable Emotions

Purplewashing  is a term I have coined to describe the tendency people have to gloss over, repress, or deny uncomfortable emotions, usually by “spiritualizing” the situation or by “being nice” about it. I call it purplewashing  because it is similar to the concept of greenwashing, whereby corporations that are not really environmentally friendly engage in PR practices and advertising to make it seem as if they are by constructing a green veneer over an uglier truth.

Purplewashers skip anger and go right to forgiveness; they skip jealousy and go right to feeling happy for people; they push aside frustration and smile. They tend to label certain emotions as “bad” and unacceptable, and therefore fail to acknowledge them when they arise in the body. I use the color purple because just as green is considered the color of environmentalism, purple is the color of spiritualism, or the higher realms of thinking and being.

Emotions are Electro-Chemical Events

An emotion is an electro-chemical event, and any emotion that is repressed or denied is a repression and denial of one’s life force. Neurologist Candace Pert has shown that different emotions have different chemical compositions, and when we are having the experience of any of these emotions, their vibrational and chemical counterparts are generated and go in to circulation in our bodies.

When an emotion goes unexpressed or unrecognized, the body does not digest or recycle it, it stores it, or as Pert says, “Emotions buried alive never die.” [Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine]

Emotions always find a way of expressing themselves. What this means is that the energy of our emotions is always trying to be heard and expressed in some way, like anything buried alive might. If we don’t recognize them for what they are and find healthy ways to express them, they will find a way to express themselves anyway—in sickness or disease, tumultuous life situations, or an eventual mental or emotional breakdown.


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Purplewashing: Who and How

A purplewasher can tend to have a sweet tooth; instead of really feeling and expressing anger, she instead consoles herself with chocolate or a glass of wine, thereby pacifying herself but not really doing anything about an issue when action of some sort may be indicated. This explains why unexpressed emotions can also express themselves in excess weight.

One place in particular where emotional energy can accumulate as fat is at the base of the neck on the back. We’ve all seen people who have a lump in this area. The way I have come to understand and explain this fatty area is that it is the home of “the gatekeeper.” The gatekeeper decides which emotions may pass into the brain and therefore conscious cognition and which ones are forbidden.

I have definitely done a certain amount of purplewashing in my lifetime. Up until my midtwenties, I barely even recognized the emotion of anger in myself. I had grown up with a mother who was a feisty Irish redhead. She was calm and loving most of the time, but when she got angry, she got really angry, and she threw things. She once threw an entire table setting of silverware, plates, and glasses at my oldest brother, who was stuck cowering in the corner of the dining room.

After my father’s stroke I never knew what was going to be flying around the house. So, after bearing witness to these terrifying displays of anger, I decided that “anger is bad,” something I didn’t want to feel.

Recognizing the Pattern of Repressing Fear

I did the same thing with the emotion of fear. I’m not sure of the origin of this pattern in myself, but I became very good at repressing fear, and rarely if ever consciously recognized it in myself. In fact, it was one of the last emotions I learned to recognize when I was creating the biofield anatomy—which in hindsight is sort of odd given that fear is actually one of the easiest emotions to detect due to its ­pronounced and distinctive pulsing quality. But we can only recognize in another what we recognize in ourselves, and I had done a very good job of purplewashing fear in myself.

A week or so after I finally heard it in a client, I was able to perceive it in myself and was quite surprised and even startled by it. At the time I was working part-time as a gardener, and I was sitting pulling weeds from under rose bushes, thinking about our current money problems. My husband was considerably overdue on payment for a large job he had completed, and the bills were starting to pile up. We still weren’t sure when or even if the check was coming, and I had no idea if we were going to be able to navigate much longer. All of a sudden it dawned on me that I was running the fear current. “That’s fear!” I exclaimed, both pleased and surprised to recognize it.

Repressing Jealousy Because It's "Bad"?

Purplewashing:  Repressing Or Denying Uncomfortable EmotionsAnother emotion I have suppressed is jealousy. The first time I ever really felt consciously jealous of someone was when I was in my early twenties, and it felt like poison running through my veins. This is a very uncomfortable emotion and I don’t ever want to feel this way again, I told myself. And I didn’t, for a very long time. But several years ago I was having a session with a shamanic counselor, and we were discussing emotions. “I don’t allow myself to feel jealousy,” I told her (this was before the insight about purplewashing). And she said, “Oh, that’s strange. Why would you want to stop yourself from feeling any of your emotions?”

What a good question that was. The best answer I could come up with was that it was unpleasant, uncomfortable, and that I had judged jealousy as “bad” and cast it out of my awareness. Did that mean that I didn’t feel jealousy anymore? Or just that I wouldn’t let myself feel jealous? How lofty of me, really, to declare myself above jealousy. Do you see the purplewashing here?

Recently, I had the opportunity to experience the feeling of jealousy, to really let it flow through me. It wasn’t pleasant, not at all, but I let myself face it squarely, truly feel it. I also talked to a few friends about my experience—how true it is that confession is good for the soul.

Feel the feeling, talk about the experience of the feeling, love yourself even though you are experiencing an unpleasant feeling, and it moves along. If we don’t, then the emotions that we deny tend to fester in one way or another.

Unrecognized Emotions Act Subconsciously In Our Lives

I had a client who became defensive when I shared with her that she had a lot of stuck energy in the area that I relate to guilt and shame. This person was suffering from an autoimmune disorder that she had been unable to heal. When I told her what I perceived, she insisted that those weren’t feelings that she felt, seemingly implying that she knew better than to feel such base emotions (a sentiment I could obviously relate to). Were her suppressed emotions related to the disease? It would certainly seem so.

The bottom line is that as humans, we all experience the full spectrum of emotions, whether we recognize them or not. Unrecognized emotions act subconsciously in our lives according to the law of reciprocal vibration. What we put out, conscious or otherwise, is what we get back.

According to Human Design, a synthesis of several ancient systems, including astrology, the I Ching, the Vedic chakra system, and the Kabbalah, our emotions are a sort of navigation system designed to give us feedback about where we are on our path. They nudge us along, away from that which feels unpleasant or is unhealthy, toward that which is pleasant and healthy and appropriate for us. If we continually purplewash, we may see ourselves as doing the right thing, but the quality of our life situation will show us what we are repressing.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Healing Arts Press.
©2014 by Eileen Day McKusick. www.InnerTraditions.com

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About the Author

Eileen Day McKusick, author of "Tuning the Human Biofield: Healing with "Vibrational Sound TherapyEileen Day McKusick is a researcher, writer, educator and therapist who has been studying the effects of audible sound on the human body since 1996. She is the originator of a unique sound therapy method called Sound Balancing that uses tuning forks to detect and correct distortions and static in the biofield (human energy field/aura). Eileen has an MA in Integrative Education and is currently at work on a PhD in Integral Health with a focus on Biofield Science. Eileen teaches a course on Sound Healing in the Wellness and Alternative Medicine program at Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont; teaches the Sound Balancing method privately; and maintains a busy sound therapy practice in Johnson. You can visit her website at www.eileenmckusick.com

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