June | 2010 | Share Your Love Story

Exploring Your Emotions: Sharing Your Feelings and Speaking Your Truth

Have You Ever Feared Being Caught In The Rain?

Once your hair has been soaked, being caught in the rain doesn’t matter anymore.

I didn’t see it coming, the sun suddenly disappears and as the clouds seem to burst open the downpour begins. My hair falls limply past my shoulders, bangs sticking to my forehead, and all of the primping I did just a few hours before no longer mean anything. My clothes become more transparent and cling to my body, for one moment I consider running for cover, but as I get a glimpse of myself in the window of a parked car I have to laugh. Why bother running? I’m wet now, and so what? You just can’t prevent the rain.

As I surrender to the downpour, this is the moment that I feel the most free; the moment I say out loud that my hair has been ruined. It is the moment that I swim through my fear into acceptance, and it is actaully a feeling of such relief! Have you ever feared being caught in the rain? It can be so hard when you spend your time worrying about staying dry. Funny how once you are wet, those very worries suddenly dissapear.

I see so clearly the correlation when I worry about the things I say, and so at times I have surpressed the downpour of my own words. When it came to sharing my feelings; speaking my truth, it could be more safe or so I thought, to remain silent or at least sensor myself from full disclosure. I felt it easier, or maybe less of a risk to do so, because with full discloser comes the risk of flat out rejection, anger, or resentment. These are not necessarily emotions I want to experience, but I have found myself in a place of wanting to sensor myself less and less no matter what the outcome might be.

Senoring myself was all about staying dry, but staying dry is unpredictable when it comes to the weather and with life. I can plan all I want to for the rain; I can carry an umbrella “just in case” but truly that can be tiresome, and there is always that chance that I will forget to pack it. It takes work to have all of that control! Besides, down inside I know that there is nothing in life that really needs to be controlled, it can just feel like it does at times.

I recognize that my desire to control only stemmed from fear, and as I release the fear, I no longer need to control so much of what I say. I am more free to speak my truth, whatever that truth might be. It is a wonderful and freeing feeling, and I’ve been showing myself more and more, no hiding. It used to bother me and leave me feeling vulnerable when people called me “ an open book”. Now I am starting to see that it has been my goal all along; I have been slowly and steadily tearing down those walls toward being exactly that: more open with everyone, and less of a mystery caused by my own fears. This is to follow my own heart more and have that trust in myself.

I do admit that it can be scary when I consider how speaking my truth will affect the person I am directing that truth to. I realize however, that the more I let go of other’s reactions, the more authentically me I can be, and I like that. I’m talking about honesty and trust here. The more I have let go of that fear of being judged, trust that I won’t hold back, and I will be honest with you. Pretending anything is a game I don’t have to play, and that is freeing! I am also not out to intentionally hurt you or anyone else by what I say, but this is also something I have come to see that I cannot control either.

Honesty and truth speaking is not always appreciated, and I won’t pretend that it is. I will say this to all sales people: although it might initially sting if you tell me the outfit I am about to buy looks hideous on me, I will leave your store empty handed, but no doubt I will return to your store again and seek you out to assist me. I will tell all my friends what a wonderful sales person you are; you’ve gained my trust. To my friends and even strangers, hear me when I say I do want you to tell me my fly is open, there is something stuck in my teeth, or there is toilet paper under my shoe. Politeness can be over-rated. If I’ve told the same story once before, please let me know because I simply may have forgotten. If you are not in the mood to talk with me just say so, I would rather talk with someone who is interested in what I have to say, and if my feelings get hurt by this, I will deal with it.

What I explore here is not only about open zippers, stuck food, or interactions and situations that have gone awry. Honesty and truth speaking is also about the ability to speak openly and honestly about your feelings and my feelings. It is about the ability to share when we when we feel good, bad, happy, sad, angry, or afraid. How often do you suppress sharing your emotions simply because you are afraid of what the consequences of sharing those emotions might be? I have been afraid of those consequences, but I am discovering that each time I allow myself to share more of who I am, after I do so I actually feel relief! If you feel the least bit of hesitation about what I write, all I can say is that when it comes allowing yourself to be more open, it is all about taking that first step.

Have you ever not told someone that you cared about them because you were afraid of being rejected? Have you ever suppressed your anger because showing it might upset someone else? Have you ever stopped yourself from showing your own happiness because the person you were talking with was having a bad day? Do you hold back from showing someone else your vulnerability? If the answer is yes to any one of these questions, perhaps taking that first step toward being more open is something you might want to consider.

What have you got to lose? Maybe just a bit more of fear and control in life. If anything, these are words to ponder.

If you’d like to explore more, you can visit my other blog: http://AcceptBreatheChoose.wordpress.com

or you can visit our website: http://AcceptBreatheChoose.com

RELATIONSHIP GAMES: WHY DO WE PLAY THEM?

Relationship games…. What exactly are they? So many people talk about playing games: how they don’t like games, how they don’t like people playing games, and how they are not game players. Games after all, are supposed to be fun, but when it comes to mixing “games” with relationships that rule seems to not apply. Yet, it is safe to say that lots of people in relationships are playing games with each other.

The way I see it, games are more like a test, a senseless test people insist on giving each other all in the name of the relationship. We treat our relationship like having a brand new phone or new electronic gadget to play with, we want to see how well it can communicate and if it does what we want and expect it to do. We try to get to know all the features, so we press some buttons and see what happens, hope for the best in some cases. Sometimes we press a button, and get the worst.

If you take a look at the lifespan of some relationships, then we really don’t have to get too attached, because in the back of our minds we know that the relationship is dispensable, there is always a new model coming out in a few months if we get bored or no longer find it appealing. Some may call this being cynical, I’m simply stating how I sometimes witness life, and relationships to be.

When it comes to having a relationship, the owner’s manual is not universal, although we sometimes wish that it were. We want to know exactly what we are getting, and how long the warranty will be. Is it defective? Yet how often do we frown on predictability. We claim to want surprises in life, that surprises keep a relationship exciting. Then why do we play games? Aren’t relationship games all about being predictable, not surprised? Games can be a way of knowing just how far you can push the other person, like a rubber band, before they snap back and hit you in the ass, or they completely break away. If she does this, he’ll do that. If he says this, she’ll say that? Isn’t that in a way, how the game goes?

Does anyone really know what they want when it comes to having a relationship? I hear everyone claiming that they do, know what they want that is. Yet, the games go on, and I see how clearly they get in the way of real communication. Perhaps, however, it is all just part of the courtship? It could be.

Hear me when I say I am not up on a soap box. I’m not anti-men, anti-women, or anti-relationships. I’m not here to point fingers at who plays games, or say that they are wrong or bad. I’m not even anti-games, although I will say I don’t enjoy games; playing them or having them played with me. I feel them, and for me, they just don’t feel very good to take part in. I hear others say this too, so I know I am not alone in this. I feel games like a provoking, a pulling of my tail or a fly buzzing at my back. Call it a test of my courage. Sometimes I just don’t want to engage or feel the need to prove my own strength. I’ve got claws and a strong slap, but must I strike? This seems to be the desired outcome. Am I considered weak if I don’t strike back, and is weakness undesirable? You would have to ask the other player, the rules to relationship games are not always so clear. I can’t be concerned with such things, but I do like to explore them.

I see games as a test where the failing grade is measured in the attention that you get or give. A form of teacher and student. I guess it can be more fun to be the teacher. I see games as a form of judge and defendant, and the sentence becomes probation or no relationship at all. Maybe there is also this underlying feeling of being judged worthy or unworthy of a relationship that the game brings out in me. I can feel that my body doesn’t like it. Maybe it brings that out in all of us, and it’s the judgment that we sniff out and don’t particularly like. We all judge each other in one way or another, maybe it’s time to let go of the judgment feeling so bad. Maybe it’s time to let go of the unworthiness that it brings out. This is all speculation on my part, but it sure feels good to put it into words, and bring it more to life on the page rather than for it to live within me. I trust in that, so I will share it with you

I see FEAR attached to playing games. Maybe the teacher is the one with more fear than the student. Maybe the judge has more fear than the defendant. Fear of what? Fear of being alone. Maybe the person who starts the game is the one who is afraid; afraid that no one will play with them. We all want to walk along with someone, don’t we? Perhaps it just takes a little more trust in the walking. This could be part of the reason people play games.

To be fair, there is also the thrill of the pursuit. Isn’t that part of the game as well? I guess it depends on who is being pursued or who is doing the pursuing. I can see the appeal in that. This becomes the opposite of feeling unworthy. It becomes a way for us to feel how worthy we are. Relationship games are a way to confirm that if someone chases us or reacts to us, we are worth the chase. Catch me if you can, and so I begin my game! As appealing as it may seem, I still see the fear behind this. What if you don’t chase me, ignore me, play somewhere else? It’s back to that feeling not good enough isn’t it?

When it comes to relationships, how do you feel about playing games?

I will say this: when it comes to relationships, feeling unworthy or being afraid doesn’t serve me. Needing to prove anything doesn’t serve me either, or make a relationship fun. Games are nothing more than a tool of awareness for me. Whether people choose to play them or they don’t is irrelevant. Whether I choose to play them is irrelevant too. Behind any game is always how I feel, and I can always trust in that. From there, life has unlimited possibilities.