My ex used to get frustrated when I’d say that everything was going pretty well. She thought I was lying about how I was really feeling.
She was right… and she was wrong.
She was right in that I was sometimes in a bad mood or harbouring negative emotions and not talking about them.
She was wrong1 in the sense that it wasn’t ever something I was consciously doing. I was always trying my best to be fully open and authentic. I just didn’t have the emotional understanding to really know what I was feeling, or the emotional vocabulary to express that I was anything other than fine or great.
More recently I’ve recognised this about myself and put in the work and become better at recognising and expressing how I’m feeling.
It’s been challenging. Not only because growing up it was never really modelled to me how to recognise and express what I was feeling, but because I was actively (albeit not intentionally) led to believe that expressing my authentic emotional state wasn’t safe.
I’ve been changing that belief. Saying everything is fine when it isn’t is weakness disguised as strength, and stands in the way of any true connection with others and the world. Denying my current emotional state is denying the reality of what is. Everything becomes superficial. People would be getting to know my video game character without getting to know me.
The more I am able to be vulnerable in this way, the more this ripples outward, reassuring others that it’s safe to be vulnerable back, and deepening my connections with others.
That’s how true relationships are formed. It’s been so satisfying, and there’s so much more depth to me and my relationships as a result.
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This is something I’ve seen a few times with people who are naturally very in touch with their current emotional state: they have a very hard time acknowledging that this isn’t something that’s universally easy like it is for them. ↩
