Express Yourself and Feel Liberated

When you can't express yourself, your body and mind will suffer. But to what degree?

You’ve probably been in situations where you couldn’t express yourself. You were told not to speak or you could just sense this.

Sometimes you’ve probably kept quiet without even realizing it. In this article, we’ll talk about how to express yourself. You’ll see what it’s about, why not expressing yourself can do more harm than good, and how you can deal with this.

Why can’t you talk about it?

This can happen in any situation. On one hand, you’re told not to talk because of what others would think. On the other hand, you’re not allowed to talk about something you’re interested in and people won’t tell you why. There are also family secrets that shouldn’t be shared. These experiences can be traumatic and will limit your ability to make yourself understood.

In turns out that, even when you don’t talk about certain things, those things remain. Thus, feelings, behaviors, and thoughts remain as well. Why? Because humans have different ways to communicate and, even though verbal language isn’t present, non-verbal is.

It’s worth noting that not everyone that says you can’t talk about something is mean. Sometimes, rather unconsciously, you can talk about something and hurt someone without meaning to. On the contrary, some people do want to hurt you by keeping you from expressing yourself and forbid you from talking or making fun of how you do it, and others want to protect you, not knowing they’re hurting you.

Not being able to express yourself can be harmful

In this context, silence can be harmful because it stops your brain from expressing ideas beyond your internal speech. Don’t you feel that you’re about to explode when you can’t express something to others?

Well, when others don’t allow you to express yourself, they’re invalidating your freedom of speech. Sometimes you do need to stay quiet, especially if the other person’s having a hard time, but doing it all the time can make you feel unimportant and it becomes an obstacle between helping others and protecting your rights.

Other times, you might be afraid to talk. Especially when you feel ashamed or hurt about what you’ve experienced before. However, you need to talk about it to let it go and as a way to learn from it. When you don’t go through this process, you’ll relieve it again and again and become anxious about it.

There are other times, though, where secrets are kept to keep people happy. However, they don’t. People have other ways to discover things or won’t be able to take on other challenges because they’re aware something’s happening but can’t understand what’s truly going on.

How to face similar situations

• Express how you feel. You don’t have to do it by talking about it; you can also use art, exercise, meditation, and connect your emotions with others.
• Seek help. Whether it’s professional help, such as a psychologist, or from the people close to you. Seeking help isn’t a bad thing. But not doing anything about feeling sad or helpless is.
• Work on your resilience. It’s possible to move forward. How? By working on your issues and giving your experiences a new outlook filled with learning.
• Set boundaries. If something’s hurting you, let people know. This is a way of protecting yourself and for others to know something’s bothering you.

On the other hand, if you have your suspicions, ask the other person to tell you what’s going on. This way, you can help them share their burden and you’ll be prepared and set a strategy to deal with the pain.

What’s left unsaid can cause you great pain. As you can see, there are many ways to express yourself and feel liberated. Remember that, although people who don’t allow you to express yourself don’t always mean to hurt you, they can. As such, it’s important to make the invisible visible in an assertive way. To do this, use the strategies, skills, and attitudes we shared here.