Plugging the Dam: Emotional Suppression

In the story from "Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates" by Mary Mapes Dodge, a boy sees a tiny leak in a massive dam and instinctively plugs it with his finger. He stands there all night, terrified that if he lets go, everything will collapse. The town is safe because he never moves.

Now imagine that dam as your emotional system.

The small crack is the first sign of grief, anger, fear, shame, or doubt. Maybe it was not safe to feel those emotions. Maybe expressing them led to conflict, rejection, punishment, or chaos. So you learned to plug the leak.

You held it together.
You stayed strong.
You did not cry.
You did not rage.
You did not need.
You did not fall apart.

And just like the boy, you stood there a long time.

The problem is this: a dam is meant to distribute pressure. It is not meant to be held up by one finger. When we plug emotions instead of processing them, the internal pressure builds. The water does not disappear. It pools. It pushes. It looks for another exit.

That pressure can show up as:

• Anxiety

• Irritability

• Numbness

• Physical symptoms

• Burnout

• Explosive reactions that seem disproportionate

Emotion regulation is not the same as emotional plugging. Regulation strengthens the dam. Plugging sacrifices yourself to hold back the water.

A healthier metaphorical shift might be:
Instead of being the child holding the leak alone in the dark, you call for help. You reinforce the structure. You widen the opening in a controlled way. You let some water flow safely through spillways.

Processing emotion is not letting the town flood.
It is building a system strong enough that one small crack does not require you to freeze in place all night.

There is something almost poetic about the little boy at the dam. He sees the crack, feels the pressure, and without hesitation sacrifices himself to keep the town safe. He becomes rigid. Vigilant. Heroic.

As an Enneagram Type 7, I recognize that boy.

Except the leak is not water.
It is pain.

Type 7s are often described as enthusiastic, optimistic, future-focused. We can sunny-side-up almost any rain cloud. We pivot. Reframe. Find silver linings with Olympic-level speed. I have smiled in the ER when my pain was 10 out of 10. I have told reassuring jokes while my body was in crisis. (See the epiglottis story at the end of my book.) I appear "ok." I often am not.

The leak begins as something small:
Grief.
Fear.
Loneliness.
Shame.
Anger.

And my reflex is immediate: plug it.

Reframe it.
Rationalize it.
Spiritualize it.
Make meaning out of it.
Turn it into content.
Turn it into hope.
Turn it into growth.

Anything but let it flood.

Because somewhere in me lives the fear that if I remove my finger from that crack, the water will rush in and I will not survive it. That the emotional flood will be too much. That it will swallow the joy. That it will drown the light.

But here is what I am slowly learning:

The dam was never meant to be held up by one finger.
And joy that depends on suppression is fragile joy.

For Type 7s, avoidance of pain is not superficial cheerfulness. It is a nervous system strategy. We learned that staying light kept us safe. That staying moving kept us from sinking. That if we felt it fully, we might not come back.

Exposure therapy, emotionally speaking, is the opposite of plugging the hole. It is removing the finger slowly, deliberately, with support, and discovering the water does not destroy the town.

Practically, that can look like:

Exposure therapy with emotions

• Start small. Feel 10 percent of the emotion, not 100 percent.

• Set a timer for 5 minutes to sit with discomfort instead of escaping into productivity or positivity.

• Journal the raw version before reframing it.

• Say out loud, "This is sadness" or "This is fear," without adding meaning.

• Notice the urge to pivot away. Stay one breath longer.

• Process with a therapist or safe person so you are not alone at the dam.

"Name it to tame it"
This phrase comes from psychiatrist Daniel Siegel. The idea is that when we name an emotion, we reduce amygdala activation and increase prefrontal cortex engagement. In simple terms: labeling the feeling helps regulate it.

Using an emotion wheel helps expand beyond "fine" or "stressed."

Instead of:
"I am overwhelmed."

Try:
"I feel discouraged."
"I feel inadequate."
"I feel powerless."
"I feel disappointed."

Specificity calms the nervous system. Naming it contains it. The water becomes measurable. Contained. Navigable.

Allowing myself to feel does not eliminate joy.
It deepens it.

When I let grief move through me, joy becomes less performative and more embodied.
When I sit with fear, courage becomes real instead of aspirational.
When I stop smiling through a 10-out-of-10 pain moment, I give myself permission to be human.

And presence becomes possible.

Find joy and be here now:

• Notice the air on your skin.

• Feel your feet pressing into the ground.

• Listen to birds, traffic, wind, distant voices.

• Look at the texture of leaves, the movement of light.

• Smell the cold or the damp or the salt.

• Engage fully in the conversation in front of you.

• Listen to understand, not to prepare your next brilliant addition.

• Let silence exist without filling it.

• Allow joy to arise from contact, not from performance.

For a Type 7, the growth edge is not becoming less joyful.
It is becoming brave enough to feel pain without fleeing.

The paradox is this:
When I remove my finger from the dam, the town does not drown.
The pressure redistributes.
The structure strengthens.
And I am no longer alone in the cold, holding everything together by force.

I can step back.
I can feel.
And I can discover that joy and sorrow are not enemies.

They are currents in the same water.