As we grow, no one really tells us how to deal with our emotions. We either get shamed or congratulated for expressing certain moods by the authoritative figures in our lives, shaping what we present and hide away. The concept of emotional processing can be strange to imagine when one first finds out about it because we once believed all we had to do was react to an event. But we tend to react and then bottle up or even just bottle up. Maybe during times of upheaval there was no time to process anything and now we’re left with a legacy of ‘getting on with it’. I’m still learning, but my research suggests that processing is facing the contents of the bottle, feeling every inch of it (which is hard to do when we’ve been taught the opposite), staying present with breathing techniques, validating yourself, and reconceptualising your perspective. Some may need professional guidance as it feels vulnerable to surrender to the feelings, which can inflate our egos in protest. Forgiveness of self and/or others can help with this, which I have found seems to happen gradually and in a strangely non-linear way, just like with processing.
Everyone’s on their separate paths and events can take us to where we need to be, but it would be a lot easier if we were taught about emotions more honestly from an early stage. You could say the struggle of this not occuring is a part of our development.