Which emotion is the hardest to control? A psychologist weighs himself in

When we asked Beurkens which emotion is the hardest to control, she had a quick answer: “Shame. Shame is a big one.”

As she tells mindbodygreen, in her work she has seen countless people who have been stuck in what she calls a “pubic spiral” for a long time. Without realizing it, she notes, people trapped in shame spirals have identified with their shame, internalized it, and colored their perception with it.

“I think shame is the hardest emotion for humans to deal with because it’s so ingrained. It’s an insidious feeling because it involves so many things – it’s not like fear or joy or embarrassment. Shame is ingrained in so many aspects of how someone sees and feels about themselves and other people and how they perceive things that happened to them,” explains Beurkens.

Not only that, shame is as hard to understand as it is to unpack. “To even realize that they’re struggling with that, to call that, is difficult for people,” she says, adding, “It’s really something that most people deal with — in some way, shape, or shape – have to confront whether they recognize it or not.”