365 Ways To Wellbeing – 321st Way
Calm. That is maybe the first word how many people, who know me, would describe me. (Boring. Some might even think.)
Do you remember this drawing of mine from last May? Yes, even I´ve seen myself as a calm person.
What about this post from last summer? It was a day when me and my husband talked about emotions. And how I’m a calm person. I explained to my husband how my drawing from the May had started to bother me. How it had made me to realize that I´m actually not like that. I´m not that calm inside.
My husband listened. Then he was quiet. After a while he asked me to roar like a lion. In other words, look angry.
I panicked. I felt how anxiety took me over. I started to cry. I can´t! I´d like to, but I just can´t! I´m too afraid! I said. I cried and I noticed myself explaining to him how I often have a feeling that I can´t get my emotions out. How I feel that I´m extremely happy or extremely angry, but that I´m not able to show it in anyway, neither verbally nor in any other way. I explained how I had felt being misunderstood many times because of my seemingly calm behavior. How I had shut out all the insults and mean words without being capable of showing how they hurt me. And how I had always been jealous to people who can sing or dance or draw, who can show their emotions and be expressive.
I feel like I´m a prisoner in my own body. Deep down in me I´m much more emotional than I seem to be. I´m just not able to show my REAL emotions, or explain all this to anyone, ever! Not even to myself! I said in the end.
One important element of wellbeing is that you can be who you are. That you have the capability and courage to show your emotions. Good and bad ones. All of them, like excitement, joy, pleasure, anger, sadness, fear and shame. That you have some way of getting them out so they won’t start to cause any emotional gridlocks to you.
What are the reasons why people, like me, have difficulties to show their emotions? How you can become free from your emotional gridlocks? During this autumn I´ve searched the answers to those questions. It has made me to think, to really think what wellbeing is. I don´t have all the answers but I do know already that getting to know your roots is one important thing. Like the roots of your family. Or the roots of your country and its positive and negative effects on you and your ancestors.
Understanding the reasons for your behavior is important. However, that´s not all what you need. If you have acted in a certain way for decades, your behavior doesn´t change automatically. You need to work for your change.To find a new way to behave, a way that’s embraces what you are deep down inside of you. You need to practice, practice and practice. For me one thing is practicing to show my emotions in different ways.
On that day last summer I was only able to show one small expression to my husband. I grinned. It was a big thing back then. Later on I promised to show him something more. And well, here it is… To be able to take these and find courage to publish them was the thing this day. A positive thing on my way to become who I feel I am deep down inside of me!
Read more about my “Wellbeing Challenge 2013 – 365 Ways To Wellbeing”.
