5 Tips for expressing your feelings

Thursday, September 27, 2018

I may seem like a very open and bubbly person, which I am, but sometimes I find it really hard to express how I feel about things.

I have always been the crowd pleaser, wanting to make everyone feel happy and at ease, so it can be almost impossible for me to talk about my feelings if things aren’t quite right.

Unfortunately keeping things bottled up doesn’t work either because at some point you will explode and things could definitely get nasty.

I have found some tips and tricks to let your feelings out in the open in a way which will work for you if you’re afraid of hurting someone else’s feelings:

- Talk to a family member or friend. Sometimes if you explain your problems to a third person you will see things in another light, or they will give advice before to deal with the person or situation in question. Sometimes just getting them out will help!

- Write them down. If you get a pen and paper it can be a great way to get your point across without being interrupted or seeing disapproving faces. If you’re a little shy this can help too.

- Wait for a happy moment. We tend to let things out when we’re angry and upset, but that is often the worst moment as we haven’t got a clear head and the other person isn’t in the right frame of mind either. Wait for a happy moment to express how you feel.

- Make it about your feelings. We tend to blame other people and situations for the way I feel, and even though it may be true it would probably be better to focus on how you feel. It’s better to say: “this that you have done makes me feel x, y or z”

- Put yourself in their shoes. It can help to imagine how the other person might react with what you’re going to say, like that you can word it differently. You can also try to imagine the reasoning behind the way they think or act. Sometimes we may feel that they’re doing things to upset us when it isn’t the case.

I have always found it difficult to complain and voice my feelings but now that I am a mother I have been trying to be more transparent and get my inner feelings out. It can’t be healthy to keep it all in, right?

What do you guys do when you have something you need to say and don’t know how?