@ecotrain Question Of The Week: How Open Are You About Your Emotions?
This week's QOTW is the second of a trilogy of questions relating to emotions. Oh yes, we've all heard of them, we all have them, and yet they can be the most least understood aspect of our humanness. We aren't born with a rule book about how to understand, manage and work with our emotions, and most of us aren't taught about it by our parents or even at school.
Do you wear your heart on your sleeve or do you keep your emotional world private? Do you know how you really feel inside, or do you like to stay in your head and keep your feelings under wraps? This week we delve deeper into these questions and discover what some of the @ecotrain passengers have to say about how open we are with our emotions.
How open are you about your emotions?
I hope you find these posts as illuminating as I have, and we hope to hear your views in the comments below. You can also join us and post your own answer to this weeks question with the #ecotrain tag so that I can find them. I am upvoting your answers as part of the Minnow Support Initiative and hope to encourage you to look within and share your perspectives with us.
Don't forget to follow the Steemians that you resonate with so you can see more of their amazing posts in your feed!
@misslasvegas
I would love to say that I am very open about my emotions towards others. But I can't.
There are many times when I feel certain emotions but am completely unable to let someone who has part in this know what goes on in my mind. Oftentimes I don't even feel something till after the fact. Sometimes I feel one kind of emotion that later turns into something else. And then there are times when I can't even stop myself from letting everyone know how I feel. This has often caused problems in my life. And it still does.
@wombloom
With our writers group ecotrain we try to answer one question a week proposed by one of us. This week is the second question in a series of three about emotions. The first question was: what does it mean to own your emotions.
If you follow this link you will get to all the answers people gave on this question:
https://steemit.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/ecotrain-question-of-the-week-tie-up-post-what-does-it-mean-to-own-your-emotions
Thinking about it, at first I thought I was very open. But then I though, wait a minute, I think I'm being selective in my openness. I have fear of abandonment and therefore have the tendency to please people. I am aware of it so I'm trying my very best to be loyal to myself and it's been going better over the years, but it's still a challenge. It makes me emotional to write about it. Because this for example is something that I wouldn't share openly because it is not very flattering and really touches the core of my challenges here on earth. But I have heard Stacey Aldrigde say in one of her you-tubes that the moment you lose shame of sharing something vulnerable is the moment you have healed it. So here I am sharing and losing bits of shame...
@holisticmom
Why is it that the term 'Emotional' is so often associated with negative emotions such as loneliness and sadness? You just don't hear someone say "She's must be feeling emotional again, she's been walking around with that smile on her face all day"
I am the type of person who wears my heart on my sleeve. In recent years, the term empath has become a popular one that I seem to tick the box for. But I do have a rebellious side and don't like to put labels on myself. I care deeply about people, the planet and how people are feeling. I like to help people who are feeling upset or in tough situations. There's this little driving force inside me that just says it feels right to be kind and helpful. I enjoy listening to other people. For a long time I felt confused about who I was, how I should react to situations. I felt embarrassed easily and would hide away because the embarrassment was so intense. When I look back it was because I was so worried about what others thought of me that I would think that everyone disliked me if I didn't do what pleased them. Unfortunately this was just a side effect of growing up with an insecure mother who also worried about what others thought of her. I think I used to keep my emotions built up inside me.
@solarsupermama
This is the @ecotrain question of the week. We are now onto question number 2 in our 3 part series on emotions. Our first question was "What does it mean to own our emotions?” My initial response to this question was to laugh. I can really answer this rather quickly. I wear all my emotions on my sleeve. All the time. I always have. I’m pretty sure I’m not actually capable of burying them.
From the mouths of babes However, I was telling my daughter, @sophieharling, who is 16, about the question, and she has quite a different opinion. I’m just going to quote her rather than risk inserting my own thoughts. “I would say not much at all. I mean, you wear your base emotions on your sleeve, like happiness or excitement or anger, but you don’t ever want to tell anyone what’s really going on because you don’t want to trouble anyone.”
@trucklife-family
How ironic that I now sit in my childhood bedroom to write about the journey I have undertaken in learning to accept and honour my emotions. I grew up at a time where children where definitely expected to be seen and not heard. On top of that I also grew up in a house, where any noise was frowned upon and where you where expected to suppress how you feel. To just take what was given to you and deal with it.
If I am being honest it would have been more like to take what was forced on you and shut up about it. I grew up in a home where silence was the main rule. Where beatings where a regular occurrence, the idea of ever talking to anyone about what was happening never entered my mind. No one in my family ever spoke about their feelings, not with one another anyhow. I just accepted that this was how things were and that I had no other choice. This was my life, this was my family. Me and my older sister were quiet as mouses, too scared to be loud and boisterous like other children.We got through that part of our lives because of our innocence, we really knew nothing else.
@eco-alex
Being British I was brought up in the good old British way! I'll never forget the famous Monty Python sketch where a man is run over by a car and keeps insisting very politely that he is totally OK, and that it must have been his fault! Oh, dare we share how we really feel? As an infant I was quite expressive with my feelings of anger or sadness and used to cry and scream quite a lot.. so I'm told. That was until I had two step fathers who punished and scolded me whenever I did cry, until I finally learned to stuff my feelings and would not let them out. What would happen instead was that once a year or so I would just burst out crying for no apparent reason, and would have no idea why! That can't be good?! Until the age of about 25 I really had no idea how I was feeling inside, and went about my days projecting positivity and happiness to all. I NEVER got angry with anyone, no matter what they did, and even prided myself in it. I also had no ability to say NO to anyone, and whatever someone asked me I would simply do. This got me into quite some trouble on occasions! One story that springs to mind was when my brother dared me to strip naked whilst on the school bus home ( I was only 5). I happily obliged without a second thought, and when I got off the bus stark naked I was greeted by my very shocked mother whilst the bus was full of kids laughing their heads off!
@riverflows
@ecotrain asked three questions last week, to be answered over three weeks:
- What does it mean to own your emotions? (find last week's fabulous curation here, and please do give gratitude to @eco-alex for taking the time to put them together)
- How open are you about your emotions?
- Do you appreciate others to be open about their emotions?
It has been a really interesting exploration into our emotional lives and I highly recommend you undertake your own exploration of these questions.
It's going to be a rambling affair and to be honest I've not written this in flow - I've been working through it from the heart, and then going and editing and returning to the beginning with another sort of logic entirely, so if none of this makes sense, forgive me! There's a reason for this feeling of uncertainty which I hope to make clear at the end (ironically).
@zen-art
Open or closed. Like we are a jar of pickles. Even if are an open jar, we can still end up like *Pickle Rick, so is being open really a good word choice? Before I continue my previous train of thought that started with What does it mean to "own" your emotion?" and go on to this second part of the story (and yes, the third part is coming too) let's revisit the first analogy used. In my first post on this, I introduced you to owning a mask. Your knowledge of when to take that mask off and when to put it on is "owning it". To get more idea about what mask I am talking about, read that first post. Here, we will discuss those moments when the mask is off in more detail and go on a little journey of self-discovery to see how "open" about our emotions we really are. What really happens when the mask comes off and are we even ready for it?
This week quite a few of our friends also wrote on this weeks QOTW. Thank you to @escuetapamela, @ninra, @sugandhaseth
I would like to share a post from @poodai
All of the emotions become like bottled soda with a whole pack of Mentos thrown in.
Your pride and ego have caused the weapons of mass self destruction to break its seal and there is nothing to feel. Nothing to try. It doesn't feel like fear, because we are numb. It doesn't feel like thrill, because implosions cause chronic shock that sets us back for years and years.
When you're open about your emotions to others, you've decided to allow yourself to be vulnerable
The firewall has been secured and there's nothing protecting you from the reaction the person you've placed your faith in will have. Maybe you're releasing shame and guilt in the presence of a stranger because it's gotten to the point where your demons have destroyed all the friendship and family support you've had. Even worse, maybe you've decided that you'd play chess all by yourself and the games typically end in the same pattern.
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@eco-alex One of the hardest things is to be open with my own emotion with others. Usually I tend to hide the negative emotions and naturally become quiet. I guess this is how I avoid a conflict and arguement since they are not going to be positive information to share with others. Being open to others does make use feel vulnerable. I guess it is healthy to share with the right people rather than bottle up those emotions.
Thank u for sharing! And yes you got it
It isn’t always easy to be open and honest about your emotions with someone. It definitely makes us too much vulnerable, but I've learned that vulnerability is the bridge to make connection. But maintaining healthy boundary is also one thing that is very important.
You may like to read about our initiative, The Awakening Project
Always love these kinds of questions and also seeing what other answer in this.
As for myself, although I tent to be very open in my blogging posts, it is only selective what you really show in the end. I tend to get very emotional sometimes and that is something that is not always convenient. Its not embarrasment, its just not convenient.
And for that reason I sometimes will take a distance just to not get into that zone. I will call it safetey measures hahaha
@eco-alex it is quite a tough question.
Well, when it comes to my emotions, it is a 50-50.
I am 50 open to share some but sometimes i also conceal them in me to avoid hurting others or making them feel bad. Only those very close to me can really be partakers of my emotional moments and i love sharing the ones i can share with such people.
I loved writing about this and enjoyed reading some of the others. Can't wait for the next one. Thank you for this little revision and have a lovely weekend 💚
I guess that there are times when you need to be selective on who you open up too and in what circumstances and on what platform.
Only open up to people whom you trust and will not let your secrets out.
Don't openly do it on social media if it can leave a negative impact on you as well as the community - you don't know when you will be fired from your job from one wrong post and end up with a stigma too!
Be smart in opening up your emotions.
Unless you are already living life on your on terms, then feel free to open up as there will likely be little to no consequences ;D
I guess that there are times when you need to be selective on who you open up too and in what circumstances and on what platform.
Only open up to people whom you trust and will not let your secrets out.
Don't openly do it on social media if it can leave a negative impact on you as well as the community - you don't know when you will be fired from your job from one wrong post and end up with a stigma too!
Be smart in opening up your emotions.
Unless you are already living life on your on terms, then feel free to open up as there will likely be little to no consequences ;D
Emotions are difficult. I tend to share 60-40; 60 don’t and 40 do
Can I write something about this? This is a great question @eco-alex
Please do zam!
@eco-alex yes this reminds of of something, a real life incident of a girl who was a attempt suicide because she tends to keep her emotion within herself. I wrote a story about it today
oh wow, that is a strong post.. !ok!