Episode
The Real Elephant in the Room is the Emotion You Won't Feel
- Podcast
- The Buoyant Leader
- Published
- Jun 15, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 348
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Summary
Is it OK to get angry at work? How about scared? Or anxious? Or ashamed? Does being buoyant mean that you make yourself immune from emotions that get in the way of connection and productivity? Listening to an episode of the podcast The Telepathy Tapes , I was struck by a comment made by a therapist who works with profoundly autistic children and their families. Caregivers have to juggle the needs of their autistic kids with their other children, with their careers, with their love lives, with their own self-care — it’s a lot. Sometimes too much. And so those caregivers can feel resentful, or depressed, or terrified. And then they feel ashamed or guilty for having those feelings, and so try to deny or suppress them. And that’s where the problem compounds. As one child explained to their parents, “I don’t care how you feel. I care that you know how you feel.” In other words, the primary emotions aren’t a problem when they’re acknowledged and held cleanly. You’re furious? Cool. Feel it fully. But you’re furious and you feel that you aren’t allowed to have that feeling? Then it leaks out, and you become untrustworthy. It’s the Secondary Emotion that Does the Damage Primary emotions — your responses to your perceptions of your external and internal environments — aren’t the problem. You can be angry with someone without causing damage. But when you’re so uncomfortable with your anger that you mask it with pleasantness while seething underneath — that’s toxic. You can feel fear without acting out fight or flight or freeze or fawn. When you’re unwilling to admit that you’re afraid, and you hide it behind bravado — that’s destabilizing to the people around you. A Screeching Feedback Loop The secondary emotion — how you feel about your primary emotion — is the thing that gets y…