Learning to express what we’re used to holding back.
Many of us have been taught to use restraint when it comes to self-expression. Don’t be too loud. Be polite. Crying is weakness. Dim your power.
It’s this expectation that we need to control ourselves. Instead of listening to our bodies and our feelings, we try to control them. We dissociate ourselves from the messages that are most beneficial to our wellbeing. We bury and bury, and end up feeling more and more dissatisfied, irritable, anxious, sad. Distracting ourselves to get away from these feelings.
But what if instead of controlling, we listen?
When we don’t listen, don’t express, don’t release, the energy has no choice but to remain in the body. It becomes stuck, stagnant. And it brings up these uncomfortable feelings because there’s something in us that doesn’t belong, that is ready to be released.
What are the messages our bodies are trying to convey? What energy wants to be released?
These are a few of the ways I like to express:
✨WRITE. Put into words what you’re feeling. Include the ugliness, the pettiness, the judgement. Write it all out. Don’t hold back. It’s when we can express the full extent of our thoughts, including those we might feel shame about, that we’re able to see the bigger picture. Where we can find the deeper reasons or larger perspectives behind these thoughts.
✨BE LOUD. Express yourself as loudly as you can. Roar with power, scream in frustration, wail the grief. The raw power of our emotions can be scary, primal. We like to contain and control it. But the emotions are real. They are as much us as the other socially accepted parts of ourselves. Honour it. Allow it to come out, to release.
✨MOVE. Dance like no one’s watching. Run, box, downward dog. Whatever it is you’re drawn to - do it. Move and shift the energy in a physical way.
✨CREATE. Oftentimes when we restrain or hold back or hide our emotions, we close the creative parts of ourselves. Emotions and creativity are linked and come from a similar space within us. When we allow ourselves to create, we are opening that portal within us. Opening the portal that stores all the emotions, pain, hurt, joy. It’s another way of opening and allowing movement into that space of emotions.
✨LISTEN. Next time you feel the urge to distract yourself, try sitting still for a few moments. Sitting with the discomfort. Accepting it without trying to change it. What is it trying to tell you? Are you taking on too much? Are you making decisions for others instead of yourself? Giving it room to grow and expand. When we give it more space, we allow it to move. Which then welcomes other traits and feelings and energies into that space.