Why do we fear to express ourselves?

Expressing your emotions doesn’t make you a weak person.

This era is the modern era where life is fast and tough. It depends upon an individual whether or not he desires to struggle with happiness. The one with a positive attitude will relish the troubles of life and enjoy exploring the various aspects of life while the unhappy one may die criticizing life for being void of pleasure and happiness. Everyone faces challenges, everyone gets emotional or upset at some point in their life and deals with the same in their own manner.

Emotional intelligence is the capability of an individual to manage emotions efficiently and express them effectively. This however is a troublesome task i.e. one person may feel shy to express himself to others especially introverts while others may find no trouble in expressing themselves. This ability varies from person to person. EQ (emotional intelligence) of an individual depends upon heredity and environmental factors.

When we are sad sometimes we aren’t able to express our true selves because we’ve learned to cover our emotions and eventually we have become sensible actors in hiding our emotions behind a fake smile. These emotions build up as frustration which consumes us and makes us hollow from within. With time, these emotions try to come out and appear in direct or indirect ways like through facial expressions, hand movements, body movements etc.

Related: Do you hide your Sadness with Smiley Emoji?

Why do we fear to express?

Such Fear arises due to various factors which affects the individuals’ expressing and managing abilities:-

• Heredity: Heredity affects the individual emotional tendency because genetics is somehow responsible for managing the hormone levels of the person’s body which in turn decides the mental well-being of a person. Improper levels of certain hormones can trigger anger outbursts or mood swings and a person can eventually become ashamed of his/her emotions.
• Lack of Trust: Individuals may not be comfortable in sharing problems with people due to a lack of trust. Trust issues can give our relationships a setback.
• Lack of self-esteem: An individual may not be able to gather enough courage to even talk about his problems in front of others. Having low self-esteem can stop us from mentioning our issues and emotions openly.
• Society and culture: Society and culture are greatly responsible for managing our abilities and thoughts. It has created many stereotypes like boys don’t cry, girls should not laugh loudly in public places, a person should not express too much etc. These stereotypes negatively affect our minds and we start to overthink about people’s judgement or one may be terrified of mocking and ultimately decide to keep his emotions within himself.
• Fear of rejection: Many people don’t express themselves simply because they fear people may reject them and criticize them. These sort of fears arise when a person has trust issues and low self-esteem.

Related: How To Deal With Failure And Rejection?

Some other factors which may inhibit individuals from expressing themselves may include communication gap, bad peers, inner conflicts, fear of being judged, fear of harassment, overthinking etc.

What strategies we can opt to overcome such fear?

There are some tips mentioned below that one can use to overcome the problem of hiding emotions and overcome his fear of expressing himself:

• Self-Esteem: It is key to most of our problems as when we are confident about ourselves, we ought to have high self-worth, we don’t neglect our issues thinking of them is not so important rather we deal with our problems effectively and efficiently.
• Trustworthy People: Trust among one another is extremely vital as trust is key to all healthy relationships which binds people together. So, we should surround ourselves with trustworthy folks with whom we can openly discuss our problems and express our true emotions without feeling ourselves to be misjudged or misunderstood.

Read More; 10 Ways to Build Self-Confidence

• Overcome Communication Gap: Individuals might have communication barriers between themselves and their parents and because of that they may hesitate to express and share their problems with them. So, one must break these barriers or gaps and ask for help whenever necessary.
• Talk to Loved ones: Always feel free to talk to your friends and family about your emotions and feelings because they are the ones who will always try to understand.
• Mental Health Should Be a Priority: We should always consider our mental well-being as priority. Mental health affects our overall well-being therefore maintaining a healthy mental state is a must.

• Overcome All Your Fears: If you are confident about yourself then only you’ll be able to overcome all your worries like fear of criticism, fear of being judged, fear of rejection etc. Don’t hide yourself simply because people may not like you. People always have different opinions but what you think about yourself is what matters the most.

 Conclusion

Emotions are natural and no-one can control them but with time we learn to manage them. Emotions are very powerful, so don’t hide them, express them and show your true self especially when you feel sad and uncomfortable. Don’t worry about getting judged, people will always have different opinions about you but the ones who love you will never judge and you should always communicate your feelings with them.