Do You Always Express Your True Feelings?

One of the things I found myself contemplating this week was the question “what are you most embarrassed about/ashamed of in your life?” I started to recall a night almost thirty years ago, when a younger, heartbroken me cried uncontrollably in front of my ex’s mates after we had all been out for the evening.

One of his friends said something like “It’s not the end of the world Shona” and I reacted by wailing a distraught response along the lines of “You have no idea what it feels like to have your heart broken!” I was completely mortified by my lack of emotional control in that situation.

There are probably things that are much more embarrassing I could dredge up from my past which – on the face of it – would rate more highly on the scale of shame than this, but I was deeply wounded by that break up, and exposing just how wounded was something I always regretted from the moment it left my lips. It left me feeling vulnerable and weak.

I think it’s also true that many people are uncomfortable witnessing a display of raw emotion like that. I was listening to a rare disclosure from Tami Simon (Founder and CEO of Sounds True) about her personal life. Tami admitted that she finds it extremely difficult to deal with her partner when she expresses her emotions; she wants to jump in and fix things as quickly as possible to get away from the intense, uncomfortable feelings.

In Psychology Today Leon Seltzer says “There are many reasons that we may endeavour to hide or disguise the emotional pain that comes in the wake of negative beliefs about ourselves, evoked by a particular person or situation. But what they have in common is that they are all fear based.”

On the journey to uncover my authentic self these last few years, I’ve discovered that tuning into my emotions is important – critical even - for these reasons:

1. They tend to be reliable indicators of my wellbeing and can lead to sickness, injury and harm if I don’t pay attention; if I do, they can lead me to my best life
2. Healthy relationships of any kind come from expressing my authentic feelings in a healthy way
3. Most of my negative beliefs about myself stem from my pretty normal childhood, raised by well meaning parents

Knowing this, when I was contemplating this moment of shame I had experienced after that break up way back when, I wondered when it was that I had first learned expressing my true feelings was not a safe thing to do.

I decided to go back in time meditatively to see what I could uncover, and sooth the memory by bringing in my more aware adult perspective (which tends to then take the sting out of any subsequent related memories).

After immersing myself for a while in the memories and feelings of that horrible night, I then asked when the first time I’d experienced those feelings was. This wasn’t a process of trying to go back through my memories, it’s more about looking into my mind’s eye as if it’s a video screen that is about to reveal to me something that my memories can’t consciously access.

What I saw and felt took me back to a time in my first year of life when I had contracted bronchial pneumonia. Here are some of the metaphysical meanings attached to that: stirred up emotions, wanting to get rid of the thought that you are not in charge, you want to cut contact with those irritating you but you dare not branch out on your own, and, feeling suffocated by a situation.

I can well imagine that, as a helpless young baby I may have indeed felt this way. Being a parent myself, I am also acutely aware how hard it is to know the right things to do for our children, especially in the face of contradicting advice from family, friends and healthcare workers.

One of the things I remember when my own kids were born was the vehemence with which the healthcare system promoted both natural birthing and breastfeeding, and methods such as attachment parenting. This would have been in stark contrast to the healthcare system into which I was born almost four decades earlier, which advocated pretty much the opposite.

I started off in a cot in my parents’ room, only to move into my own room after a few nights since my snuffling noises kept interrupting their sleep. I was breastfed initially but soon moved onto bottle feeding. Healthcare nurses of the time were obsessed about the volumes being drunk, with advice to keep feeding despite baby’s rejection and spilling (a pretty way of saying the milk comes back up from your stomach and out of your mouth). It is no wonder I was such a huge baby.

When I used to cry, I remember my mum telling me that she often used to switch on the vacuum when she had exhausted all the obvious avenues to soothe (Too cold/warm? Needing a diaper change? Needing a sleep? Needing burped? Teething? etc). She said the vacuum seemed to “do the trick”, no doubt I was terrified knowing what I know now about the effects of noises like that on burgeoning auditory systems.

When my own babies would cry and I could find no reason, I’d assume - after reading Aware Baby by Aletha Solter - they just needed to unload some emotions. A bit like Tami Simon’s reaction to her partner’s distress, I noticed most people around me were uncomfortable with my baby crying, even in her mum’s arms in her own home; everyone was always trying to fix this rather than seeing it as a natural way for the baby to de-stress.

What I sensed more in my meditative state than anything was how I used sleep as an escape mechanism. If I just shut my eyes and fell asleep I could forget the turmoil of this new world. Of course, looking back on it all through my adult eyes, I can see we were all just trying to do our best. At the same time, I can see how easy it was for me to pick up the belief that it was better to keep any emotional distress to myself.

Understanding how these ideas have come about is helpful, just as it is to acknowledge that all emotions are valid; we feel what we feel whether we understand why or not.

Tami Simon’s disclosure about her discomfort around intense emotions’ was while interviewing Dr Christian Conte, who is an expert in meeting people where they are, even when someone is in a state of intense emotional distress. In the podcast, Dr Conte talks about how to make yourself a safe space to receive another person, the keys to deep listening and how the primary purpose of validation is connection.

Dr Conte is clearly well practiced in dealing with people when they are highly emotional and has much to teach. This seems to me the real key – practice. Becoming comfortable with my own emotions, being vulnerable and becoming a safe space for other, these are all things that require practice.
In my former years in the corporate world I learned a lot about communications through leadership training and experience. All of that, though, was from a perspective of being wrapped up in layers of beliefs that truly did not originate from my authentic self, they originated from my upbringing in keeping me safe.

Since then, having discovered a lot more about my true feelings, and coming to a clear understanding that there is no right and wrong, only what is right or wrong for any given person in any given moment, I know that this is a better perspective from which to learn.

I completely agree with Dr Conte when he says “one of the biggest obstacles to meeting someone in emotional distress is thinking they shouldn’t be feeling whatever it is they are feeling”. He calls this living in a cartoon world, a world we make up from the beliefs and expectations we have about how we think people should or shouldn’t feel.

He says that once we stop trying to mold people to fit our cartoon world, we can enter the real world and meet people where they actually are (not where we think they should be). I think this is a great place to start with ourselves.

Accepting myself for the way I acted that night, seen in the light of compassion for the baby whose tears were drowned out by a vacuum cleaner, is a step in the right direction. Rather than going over and over that night, or other interactions with my kids (or others) that I think should have gone differently – especially if I’ve gotten emotional – it’s better to talk in retrospect about what was happening for me rather than not discuss it at all.

When I talk about emotions I’m also aware that words like blame, entitlement and deserve are ones to watch for. Caroline Myss says “if you could extricate those three words from your head you would have no idea how much better you would feel.”

Everything I feel is about me and my journey; my growth towards authenticity and service from that standpoint. Blaming others or feeling that I am entitled to or deserve something other than which I’m getting will only hold me back from that growth.

In time, and with practice and focus, talking about my emotions in real time will get easier and easier. I have already experienced a huge shift over the last few years in terms of what is happening on the inside. With a regular meditation practice, I’ve become more of an observer of these moments instead of being completely identified with them.

I do believe that expressing my true feelings in any situation is a great indicator of where I’ve gotten to in the journey for authenticity, especially when I’m not blaming anyone (myself included) or feeling entitled. And those situations where I’m avoiding that have great depths for me to plunge into and examine and learn more about who I am.

It’s not about just about what I express, but the way in which I express it; I’m driven to master the art of authentic, compassionate communication.

Imagine a world where each of us was aware enough of our own psyche to more objectively examine and understand what was triggering us, and be comfortable in expressing our true feelings without blame or shame? This, I believe, would be a more harmonious world in which we could work together to create a better future; now that is a world I’d like to live in.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Get out of Your Head and into Your Heart, Change Unhealthy Reactions, Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear, Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation …Until You Take Responsibility to Heal. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.