Did you know that oak barrels, the ultimate aging vessels for spirits, are not truly sealed containers? An oak barrel is actually porous, and as spirits age, the surrounding air breathes in and out through microscopic holes in the wood. This is why scotch aged along a coastline has a salty taste, while scotch aged further inland tastes earthier. This is why a certain amount of a barreled spirit (usually around 2% per year) will always evaporate out of the barrel— a loss distillers refer to as “the angels’ share.” And this is why spirits aged in humid areas seem to age faster; the moisture surrounding the barrels speeds up this “breathing” process and allows spirits to take on the surrounding flavors more quickly. Why am I dwelling on this extended metaphor (besides of course to keep with the “Bar Chaplain” branding)? Well…

Your brain is not a lockbox. It is an oak barrel.

Your life contains a hefty mix of emotions, and these emotions may take you in a number of different directions throughout a given day: anxiety at work, comfort at home, tension in a friend group, etc. We often speak of “compartmentalizing” these feelings, as if our brain had nice neat cubicles for our anxiety to wait for us as we tend to other matters. So often, when people speak of “compartmentalization,” what they really mean is trying to suppress the emotion from one area of life so it doesn’t interfere with others, but here’s the thing: that doesn’t work.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an unfortunate petri dish to test the merits of compartmentalization, which had long been medical teams’ go-to strategy for making it through difficult events at work. “Suppress the feelings and keep moving.” “I’ll cry at the end of the shift.” and so on. The problem is, during an event like a global pandemic, stressors have a way of building up. Hospitals are seeing massive turnover, and the surgeon general has even declared health worker burnout as one of his department’s top priorities alongside teen mental health and health misinformation. Sure, amid the COVID pandemic, hours have been longer. We’ve seen more death. There’s been more isolation. But it’s not only that. It’s the fact that the old paradigm for coping failed us. Compartmentalization hasn’t worked, while more collaborative programs like peer support networks, stress first aid, and staff care initiatives have.

Why did compartmentalization fail when we needed it the most?
Because the human brain and spirit aren’t actually wired for it.

There is a neuroscientific explanation of the way the neocortex “tucks away” an emotion for later processing, but again, our brains aren’t neat little cubicles; they’re stacks of oak barrels. Those emotions, regardless of our efforts to dismiss them, still trigger all sorts of responses in our brains and bodies. Heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, hunger, digestion— the body has already altered these processes before we decide not to be mad or sad or scared or whatever. And the more we try to suppress the feeling rather than feel it, the worse some of the bodily symptoms can become.

Feelings need to be felt. They can’t simply be pushed aside. Even when a feeling is undesirable, it still needs to be acknowledged before it can be dealt with. As for the “compartmentalization” method of dealing with these feelings, yeah, it’s just not effective.

Feel the feeling.
Address it.
Process it.
Sit with it.
Talk through it.
But whatever you do, don’t try to shove it down or simply dismiss it.

You’re an oak barrel. The feeling will seep through.