Why is it so hard to express ourselves?

We all have things we want to say and our minds tick over every second of everyday but most often we keep these thoughts to ourselves.

Expressing ourselves is a difficult thing to do because we not sure if what we have to say is valid or clever or even worth saying. And so we don’t speak up. We don’t speak up when we have important things to say or when we are unhappy about something even if it’s small because we don’t want to create conflict.

I have noticed in my own life that keeping quiet to avoid conflict is a silent killer. And we land up walking around carrying the frustration of keeping quiet on top of work life, home life and all the other pressures that comes with life and so we become exhausted. We become burdened by our own thoughts that we are choosing not to express.

When we express ourselves it’s not up to us how the other person takes it. I believe if we speak our truth from a place of love and kindness, then we have done enough.

So what is truth? Well my truth is what I believe to be true for me. It is not THE truth, it’s just my truth and what is right for me. We all have our truth about what we feel is true to us and we can’t actually judge someone for speaking their truth no matter how different it is from ours.

I believe another reason why it’s so hard to speak our truth is because we worry that if we do, others won’t like us. But it is really difficult to speak up when we have been brought up to keep quiet, to sweep things under the rug because difficult things are seen as ‘’bad’’ to talk about.

The hardest thing I have ever done is talk about my truth and it still hard. I am a typical example of someone who worries that what I say may be too different or too challenging. But I have realised that the hardest things to talk about are always the most meaningful.

I think we are so afraid of the others reaction and we are so afraid of a negative response so we would rather keep the peace. But keeping the peace is a false and it doesn’t exist. It’s what we tell ourselves so that we can say “Well I have done good today, I managed to keep the peace instead of creating an issue”.

But my question is who cares if there is an issue? The fact is we didn’t create it because it’s already there. We are now just going to talk about it. Things like anger, rage, and sadness are emotions that are in fact extremely healing to us when expressed. When we can give ourselves permission to feel those things, we become human.

But we are so focused on being good. Like our parents told us that we were good when we were happy, but as soon as we got angry we were told we were wrong and as soon as we cried we were told to stop so we were brought up learning that anger and sadness are wrong to feel. Many of us weren’t allowed to get angry at our parents, or other adults or even our siblings and friends because that made us bad.

So now when we want to express our anger it comes out all wrong and in the most dysfunctional manner. Some people are passive aggressive and hold that quiet, internal anger that eats away at them, others blow up and become aggressive and some only express themselves when their inhibitions are gone, under the influence of a few drinks. Often we don’t even know how to express deep sadness so it comes out as rage.

I have felt especially recently that I have lived a life of keeping quiet, about everything because that was the right thing to do. And so the anger builds and builds and in my case it took a toll on my physical health last year. Imagine what 29 years of keeping your mouth shut does to you.  And for others, it’s been much, much longer.

So here I am expressing myself through writing and does the whole world know I have issues? Yes. And does the whole world know some of my deepest darkest thoughts? Yes. And am I still learning how to express myself without shame? Definitely!

 But this where healing lies. In expressing who we are and what we feel.