I began life once i opened up

Open your mind….. open your heart….. open the door…. open space….!

We’ve heard the word “open” used in many different ways before.

What does it mean to be an open person? To be open in a relationship? Doesn’t it feel good to vent to someone we can trust?

Understand what ‘Opening Up’ means

When you open up, people experience the Real You. Your raw feelings. From your personality quirks to your ugly crying to even your anger — you express authentic thoughts and opinions. You open up by confronting difficulties in a relationship. How another person made you feel, and how you wish to be treated. You share a part of yourself to someone else.

Opening up connects us as human beings. It strengthens trust, love and purpose in our relationships. Being open encourages others to be open, to speak up and interact with you.

We need connection in life. We need healthy relationships.

Understanding the disconnect; why we don’t open up

There’s an instant disconnection when we type into a phone. We edit and put filters on our conversations, feelings and faces. We have fake emotions (Emojis)! We’re disconnected from our emotions once we’re fixated on a screen. Phone connection ≠ Real connection.

Truly being open is difficult. We become psychologically naked and vulnerable.

We weren’t born with Anxiety or Social Anxiety. We’ve become mentally ill by conditioning ourselves to fear interaction.

We hide our true thoughts and feelings because being accepted by others is a priority. We shut people out from knowing and accepting us by not being open. We deny ourselves the chance to speak up, when we don’t express our thoughts and feelings, we don’t accept ourselves.

Trauma is created whenever something scares us and we can not get over that fear. Emotional and psychological trauma can be created by an ongoing relentless stress and commonly overlooked causes — such as a death of someone close, a breakup, or a humiliating or disappointing experience especially if someone was deliberately cruel. So if we are living in constant fear of opening up to people…. afraid of being emotional, afraid others won’t accept us for what we think, how we feel, what we’ve been through and who we are in our totality…. we may be creating or worsening our own trauma.

Trauma is what creates a damaged ability to connect with others. Trauma is held in your body. You can’t release your truest emotions and traumatic experiences through texting someone, it has to be felt. You need to fully embody your experiences and connections with others. Face to face interaction, feeling the presence of someone who you can trust.

Maybe we don’t fully understand the extent to our own pain — but how could we?

When we keep trauma bottled, it only becomes more painful, more confusing, more difficult to confront and let go of negative emotion.

One of the biggest things that held me back from opening up was the fear that I didn’t know what I was talking about, what I was feeling didn’t make sense so how could I make it make sense to someone else? I used to bottle everything in. It got to the point where — if anyone confronted me about anything heart related, I would choke up so bad sometimes I’d literally run away and lock myself away somewhere to cry. I was afraid to be emotional, what I was feeling was too painful. My trauma was too deep, dark and ugly.

I felt like I was suffocating in life, all the emotions and pain inside me were eating me from the inside out with nowhere to go. I felt as if no one knew the real me, and anyone who tried — I shut out.

Until I finally saw a counselor.

I’d never opened up to anyone like I did my counselor. The words almost physically hurt coming out of my body, I cried my eyes out and allowed myself to be as ugly as I needed to be in those moments. Open wounds and all. I was so mentally ill from never opening up to anyone. I didn’t know how to express myself, how to trust others. I could barely identify and make sense of my own feelings and issues because they were never brought up, they were never talked about with someone else.

I truly began living once I started opening up.

Once I confronted my fear with a counselor, I started a journey of becoming an open person. Growing into the realest version of myself. I began opening up to my significant other, friends and family. I ugly cried, a lot. But I didn’t judge myself, and the people who truly cared for me didn’t either. They were there for me. They let me cry, they let me experience things I had no words for. I realized that there is a lot more to opening up than the words being said. It’s what you feel with another person, it is how they are there for you.

“Be — don’t try to become”

― Osho

Now that I am open and real with people about the way I feel and think, I no longer feel alone. I no longer feel the need to be f*cked up at a party. I trust people. I call myself an extrovert now. I am excited to see, talk and share with people. I have a community of people that I care about and rely on. I view every interaction as an opportunity to grow, learn and connect.

It’s up to you to decide how you’re going to talk about yourself. What do you want to say to the world? Telling someone what you did last weekend can be a way of opening up. However — it might be more meaningful to share with someone why you did what you did last weekend. What is it about what you do that’s important to you? Another example might be to say your job or relationship sucks. However, it’s more important to share why you’re saying that about your job or relationship. That puts the conversation on a deeper level.

You may choose not to be open with people you don’t fully trust. To be open is to be vulnerable and share personal information. Maybe you want to be more open with your friends, but chose to not share personal information with your boss or a stranger.

Being open also carries a responsibility and that is to be aware of others reactions to us and respect their actions. This may mean not disclosing everything with some people out of respect for their feelings.

Being open means allowing others to be open

Being open also means being open to others thoughts, feelings and desires. Being open also means learning to be a good listener. Be open with what a person is sharing about their feelings, but be sensitive to their feelings. They want to trust you with their feelings and thoughts. Build mutual trust.

How to be more open

Be in touch with how you feel. Check up on yourself, often. Before you go into an event, before you go into work and when you leave places. Ask yourself how you feel. Some feelings may cover other feelings. Anger could come from hurt. If we can work hard to understand where that hurt is coming from, we can be open on a much deeper level.

Life is a constant healing process. Experiencing, feeling and letting go.

The best way to let go is to express ourselves.

https://medium.com/@cinimist/i-began-life-once-i-opened-up-799a4005c35f