“I express my feelings and emotions easily and freely.” This statement is not exactly true. I don’t express my feelings and emotions easily….yet. I surely do when I’m mad or upset. But for many of us, that’s the only time we are honest with ourselves, once we’ve had enough!
Why is this the only time we fully express our emotions and feelings? Some of us are more vocal, of course. But many of us struggle with saying what’s on our hearts and minds. And even if we try, finding the right words can be a difficult task. We’re afraid of being persecuted, of hurting someone else’s feelings, of upsetting a dynamic. At the expense of our emotional health, it may not be worth it in the long run.
This opening statement, is my newest affirmation. It came to me from Amazon Alexa. I had her run a program that is supposed to start your day with a few affirmations, suggested stretching, a quick meditation, and a visualization process. I’m not new to any of these routines. Her new affirmation though, struck a chord within me and made me realize perhaps my lack of communicating my own feelings and emotions both easily and freely.
In retrospect, it may be the greatest thing that I struggle with. I typically have a ‘suck it up and move a long’ disposition. I don’t complain much, if at all. I work hard, I depend on myself and I hold things in, surely. I do think it would increase me as a person if I were able to more freely express my feelings and emotions. Not just mushy gushy feelings for the sake of being a softer, more gentle soul. But even the ideas I hear that I think are stupid, the suggestions I entertain that I know won’t work, the ability to take a greater stance on things I believe are just and righteous. I begin my affirmation to strengthen that core of myself which is badly wanting to see the light. Out of the depths of my subconscious, where the urge is chained to the floor, only to erupt at the inopportune time, I seek to make it more of a daily practice by starting with this affirmation everyday.
I wrote it a few times in my journal and hope to cement it to my identity as soon as I can. There is great freedom and liberty in the ability to express your emotions. Many men do not know this freedom. And I, considering myself a more modern, enlightened man, am just realizing that I’ve been falling into this pattern of remaining mum even when I should speak up; like in the face of an associate who is tarnishing our work with his actions, a friend who is diverging from behavior I would condone, or a lover who is drifting off into a land or ideal that I don’t want to commit to.
Even in my blog platform, as it slowly began to grow in popularity, I often refrained from expressing what I truly felt. There were too many eyes watching and reading. Too many people who I knew, and I felt it would create conflicts that I would rather avoid. It is not my intention to create salacious content for the sake of turmoil, but if expressing my earnest and heartfelt emotions would create that unrest, I now assume it would be better to have a space where that dialogue can play out, than to wrestle with the issues on my own, over my pillow.
Partly, I feel I’ve been reluctant to express myself at times because I know and recognize people’s inability to function higher than their reptilian capacity. Their croc’ brain is so triggered for fight or flight, and their attention is usually so limited, that all information incurred is seen rather as a threat, or something which already adds to their current belief. People rarely think in abstract concepts. It’s as if the world may be getting more dull and dense. And my reservation of emotional expression is to avoid being attacked by a dunce who lacks the brain power to process the information in the moment anyway. But, believing that being reserved is the greater option, is what has stunted my ability to express in the first place. Well, here’s to banishing that thought, and to creating a habit of expression. And to cracking a few eggs in the morning to make my omelette.
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