When was the last time you expressed your feelings? When was the last time that you opened your heart to someone? Or even yourself? Allowing yourself to be fully vulnerable and letting your feelings and emotions flow out?

Expressing yourself has very powerful benefits – the problem is, most people don’t allow themselves to do it because of fear of rejection and judgement. They keep their feelings and emotions hidden, they try to fight through it in solitude or through distracting activities to avoid it all together.

Of course there are many types of feelings and emotions we all feel, all of which have their very own beauty to them. Nothing should be suppressed, everything should be felt as fully as possible. Joy, sadness, anger, whatever it may be, feel it fully then let it go.

The only reason our feelings can become overwhelming is because of our suppression and our need to distract ourselves from them all with things such as consumerism, alcohol, processed foods, sex and many other addicting activities.

In this article I want to talk about feelings which can have negative effects on our lives, such as unhappiness, anxiety and feelings of unworthiness etc…

These are all feelings that we as people try very hard to avoid and suppress, we don’t realise by suppressing these feelings we are just making them stronger, you can push them down as far as you like. But they will be back, and they will come back stronger than ever.

Pain avoidance is a common thing to see – you only have to go to your local town to see it, the man sitting on the side of the road with a can of beer, asking for money for his next fix.. It’s all from the pain he feels and the pain avoidance that goes with it, he is unhappy with himself and his life.
He constantly needs drink and drugs to push those feelings down. The anxiety he feels after waking up must be incredibly intense, the call for alcohol will be his first thoughts of the day as all those feelings come rushing back into his reality.

The homeless are an extreme example of people who avoid expressing their emotions and feelings. But you can see it everywhere – the fake smiles with sadness in their eyes, the anger and attitudes of teenagers in the streets, the bravados of egotistical people pretending they aren’t insecure and scared, the “confident” people who are actually nervous inside and try so hard to not let it show. The socially anxious who turn to binge drinking to feel comfortable socializing on a saturday night…

Nothing is wrong with feeling anything seen as “negative”, being nervous is fine, feeling sad is fine, feeling anxious or angry is fine. But these are all things we avoid feeling or of course fear expressing.

In these situations being vulnerable and expressing these feelings has so much power, the moment you voice how you are feeling, the tension begins to loosen, you begin to realise it’s ok to feel what it is you feel, it’s out there now and no one is judging you for it.

If you allow yourself to feel fully, and express it to the world. You can then begin to understand what is causing these feelings. Once understood, they can then be worked through.

Of course it’s not easy to open yourself, to feel naked and vulnerable and to allow yourself to feel emotions fully. But it’s all a growing experience. Each time you do this, you become a stronger person, you trust yourself more, you will grow day by day.

Expressing yourself to others builds strong bonds, trust grows, and love grows. Whether it’s someone you have just met or the love of your life, the power of vulnerability will peel away your layers as you grow more and more comfortable with your life and yourself.

It’s simple, we can all do it. Is it easy? Well no. But all you need is the courage to do it anyway.