Learning to be open to it? Yes, it's possible

I really liked this week’s third Kiss question because I feel it opens the door to talk about something I enjoy discussing—and that has actually been a big topic for me these past few months. From my perspective, there are burdens tied to our words—what we share or what we choose to keep to ourselves—and I also feel that keeping quiet or preventing others from knowing certain things about us is one of the ways we create the most mental noise.

I’ve noticed—at least in my circle and among people I’ve recently met—that for most people, it’s usually best to keep their feelings to themselves, perhaps to avoid being labeled as weird, or as having a mental health issue or something along those lines. This, combined with the fact that people generally aren’t open to admitting that something is wrong with them or even that they needed help at some point.

​And while there are things that simply aren’t shared, I’m now very clear on the idea that expressing who you truly are from the depths of your being is never a bad thing. Many times I was labeled as strange for speaking openly about how I felt, for admitting that something made me sad or that something made me angry—mainly because many of us learned that doing this somehow made the other person love you less.

But over time—and with a little help from therapy over many years—I’ve learned that there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Feeling is, in fact, the most human thing there is. Whether it’s feeling sad, anxious, or even angry about something, it can even be positive because, in some way, it might help someone else who’s going through something similar. But when you share something so deep about yourself—such as your emotions and the way you experience them—there are always two sides to the story: there are those who understand you and relate to you, and there are those who judge you and tell you that you’re wrong.

Although it took time, I’ve learned that for me, this is also a way to feel a little lighter, to have less mental noise, and to avoid carrying around unnecessary baggage. So, in the pursuit of simplicity, I’m willing to reveal something that—at least in my circle—isn’t commonly shared: the way I feel. I do this even knowing that others won’t necessarily feel the same way I do and that I might even be criticized for it.

For me, it’s even therapeutic to talk openly with others—even with people I’ve just met—about emotions, how they influence us, and so on. But this tends to be a rather uncomfortable topic for some, so I can’t always do it with just anyone, even though I could. Obviously, it took a lot of work on my part to learn how to do this, but now that I’ve mastered it, it just comes naturally to me. In fact, I can say that my favorite conversations are the ones where people open up their hearts completely and share what they’re feeling without fear that it will be seen in a negative light.

​A while back, when I felt free to talk about my feelings and someone judged me for it, I experienced a lot of emotional distress. I felt like they didn’t understand me or that somehow I was doing something wrong, and that I should hold back just like everyone else. But I gradually learned that the truth is, not everyone feels free to talk about things like that—and that doesn’t mean they’re wrong; it just means they’ve learned a different way of coping, and sometimes that involves keeping things to themselves.

​With experience, you learn who you can share these things with without making them feel uncomfortable—and who you can’t, because it’s simply too much for them to handle. In any case, learning that what we feel is part of who we are—and talking about it with others—can even help us understand ourselves a little better. Feeling free and comfortable talking about it, even when there are those who don’t understand me, goes far beyond that, because it’s about letting go of the burden that what we feel makes us weak, and in the process, we empathize with those who feel the same way.