"Express Yourself"

Why is it so easy as a young child to show your emotions, but as an adult, you do everything in your power to hide them. When you’re a kid, every emotion is portrayed to its fullest, your laughter rich when you’re happy and your tears cascading when you’re sad.

Until you learn, at whatever tender age that might be for each of us, that you need to buck up, put up your guard, steel yourself, don’t let your true feelings be seen, “Danger, Will Robinson.”

Social media may have allowed people to loosen up just a bit because nobody sees you in person; you can hide behind your written words. And you get all the comfort you need via hugs and tears emojis while you’re in the safety of your home, maybe even your bed, where nobody can actually see how destroyed you are.

But suppressing your emotions, especially sadness, anger, and guilt, can be detrimental to both our mental and physical well-being. I know for myself, when I had problems I didn’t want to acknowledge in my early 30s, I eventually began getting panic attacks which were terrifying. I sought help from a therapist (had to try three before discovering The One) and she gave me the safe environment I needed to explore myself and cry harder than I ever have on multiple occasions. And the funny thing is, even though I felt safe to let it all out, I also felt weak and embarrassed until I realized there was no need to feel that way since I was on a path to healing myself as best as I could.

How many of us go to movies and try to hold back our tears even though the movie is a tearjerker and you hear sniffles all around you from everyone else trying not to cry.

Or you go to a funeral and you try to hold back the tears because, why exactly? Is it that you don’t want to upset anyone with your tears? You don’t want to look ugly crying? You don’t want to appear vulnerable?

What’s so wrong with being vulnerable? It shows we are humans with feelings, and sometimes life hurts.

We work so hard at protecting ourselves that sometimes we don’t express our feelings to important people in our lives simply because we’re afraid of getting hurt by their reactions. We do not, sometimes at all costs, want to be vulnerable.

We always have to show how strong we are when in reality being vulnerable takes extraordinary courage.

Think about it and let me know your thoughts.