I have a facade, an ego shell, something I protect very dearly. I fear showing too much of myself. I have learned that by demonstrating raw emotion, I am frequently rejected, feared, rebuked or chastised. It started early on “you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
I see it in my clients, the shame they bear with revealing their true feelings, the relief when they are heard, without negative reaction, without judgement. I see the relief when they are allowed to simply express their truth. Too often we deny this very simple pleasure to those around us. We do it in the name of religion, or business or decency or culture. We fear offense of those around us and we protect our innermost most fears, inadequacies and imperfections as though they are the kryptonite that others around would run from and use to ostracize us.
Yet is it not this blockage of the free transmission of emotion, of feeling, of withholding, of true validation and of unconditional love, that is the very essence of illness on an emotional and spiritual level?