iS IT ok to show my feelings

Is it safe to share my feelings? Why does it feel so overwhelming? What does trust look like?
 
The simple answer is - if we have experienced a need to suppress our feelings and emotions, we will go into a form of protection, which results in feeling apprehensive, unsafe or overwhelmed to express freely.
 
There are many reasons we would feel this way. It could be due to our upbringing; ‘children should be seen and not heard’, or perhaps ‘we don’t cry in this house’, or ‘you’re too emotional’, 'too sensitive', 'too much'.
 
Or perhaps your experience of being shut down when expressing what your felt came from external factors or later in life; at school, in relationships, at work… there’s often an event that you can recall whereby you didn’t feel safe to express what you were feeling as you became a target, or you felt ridiculed, or wrong.
 
Without question working in certain industries and business cultures, you wouldn’t dare show emotions or feelings as these are seen as being way too vulnerable and weak, and put you at risk of loosing your job.
 
Our environment shapes us. That is until such time we realise how we were in fact shaped, isn’t always the truth.

For example, parents that don’t deal well with their own feelings will definitely struggle with their child showing feelings. Being upset and crying at school could have been too much for the teachers to deal with, due to their own limit being reached. Bosses that can’t do emotions, friends who can’t deal, partners who haven’t developed their own emotional intelligence.  It’s intense at times the way we are shaped to not feel.
 
To cope with this, we form layers of protection.  
 
The result of this is we are now in a form of protection, which is to say a layer of hardening, withdrawal, blame, victim or rebellion energy.
 
We toughen up, or learn to shut our emotions down, we numb, we use alcohol or drugs to suppress our feelings, bingeing on tv, phone scrolling, foods to stimulate or dull, addictions…  there will be an obvious ‘go to’ (or two) that is our 'drug of choice' that keeps what we feel at bay.
 
We form certain beliefs that feelings and emotions are something ‘wrong’, judging others for theirs, feeling uncomfortable in not knowing what to say, how to be with emotional people. And the stinger, this is often a mirror of where we are at in your own inability to be with what we feel.
 
And there you have it – why we don’t feel safe expressing what we feel.  
 
So what’s the upside you may ask. What can we do with this to free ourselves from the protection we have formed; to feel we can be safe in our expression.
 
There’s a marker for us that feeds back when we are free of the emotional hooks, and that is when we can share our story without our triggers activated. (To be clear, this isn’t from a place of hardness or dissassociation).
 
It’s when we can tell our story or sharing of an event in our life without emotion. What that reflect is that we have fully healed and therefore when we do share, it’s from a place of what we have learned, how we have strengthened, what we now understand. How life is grander for it.
 
What I love about this is approach is that when we share we get feedback of where we are at. So how can sharing be wrong. There is no wrong or right, simply feedback.
 
It could be when you shared you felt a little triggered, a little emotional, you noticed you spoke about it with a certain energy, with a tone, or with a particular emotion. This is such a great way for us to see where there may still be some healing to do. More awareness to gain of what impacted you, or even to show you there’s a deeper level presenting that will allow you to finally work through and let go of what still has hooks.
 
All of which is amazing to receive, as now we have a focus, something to work with, a program to put ourselves on to literally set ourselves free. This could be what you speak to your therapist or counsellor about, and work through together. As often we can’t see what we don’t know, whereby someone with the right training can introduce us to those new pathways.
 
It's why I advocate we are student for life, always learning, growing and evolving. The best project you will ever work on, is you. As the rewards are priceless.
 
So, what can you do to begin this unfoldment of no longer feeling you need to hold back?

Begin by using these times as feedback, turn them into a study to see where you are still affected, call it your project of self-awareness, self-empowerment, evolution. Be curious, don't make it wrong.  Ask yourself, what is the a new awareness to receive here, or what is my belief to renounce, or what area do I need to heal... and do that.
 
Maybe that’s what you share when you are learning to express yourself, of course with the right people (always be discerning), is your attendance to your healing, or perhaps your study of your behaviour, or even the intention of your sharing is to see what is to be renounced. Keep it real.
 
Now isn't that’s a beautiful thing…as it shows others the power of self-reflection, ownership and responsibility. It shows the power of taking what has happened to us as an opportunity to strengthen. this is true alchemy – turning metal to gold!

Be Brave.

Much love,
Lara XO