Being Emotionally Vulnerable Scares Me

I don’t mind being vulnerable in the sense that I don’t mind telling others about past traumas that have taught me lessons and helped shape me into the person I am today. In those situations I don’t even feel like I’m being vulnerable because I find it so easy. But… expressing to something how I’m feeling about something/someone? That’s where I shut down. I find it extremely difficult to be vulnerable with myself and others when it comes to my emotions. 

To look at someone and express that I am feeling shame, embarrassment, fear, jealousy, guilt, depressed, or defensive — is one of the toughest things for me to do. To open up the potential of getting rejected, misunderstood, laughed at, or ignored TERRIFIES me. It has scared me so much that I started to internalize everything I felt, thought, and wanted. I thought that internalizing my hard emotions would make them disappear. I thought that if I pushed the hard emotions so far away that they would just leave me alone and I would be happy.

Well folks, I have learned recently that I was very, very wrong. These emotions that needed to be felt started showing up in basically all areas in my life, and not in healthy ways. 

I was projecting my toxic traits onto others. I would do this so I didn’t have to come face to face with the reality that I can be toxic, too. If I admitted that I can be toxic, it put the potential to feel the emotions that I kept trying to run away from. So instead, I would judge others for being controlling without reflecting on my own controlling behaviours that I have. I would get irritated when someone would cut me off in traffic, but at the next set of lights I would do it to someone else because I was anxious I was going to be late. I would call others out for judging, when I was judging them for judging in the first place.

I was lashing out at people I love when I would experience an intense emotion that I tried to avoid for so long. Whenever I would start to experience shame, I would start yelling and projecting myself onto others. I didn’t know how to cope with the emotions in a healthy way because the only thing I knew was to ignore them.

I was getting SO mad at myself for having such poor reactions to certain situations. There would be days where if someone closed the door the wrong way my fists would clench, my heart would start racing, and I would be fuming with irritation. My reactions were becoming so unhealthy and so harmful to myself and others that I needed to do something. 

I didn’t love who I was becoming. Every day it seemed like something else was adding to my list of things that annoyed me. I cried every single day. I felt empty every single day. I didn’t recognize myself in all areas of my life: work, home, family, and relationships. 

There has only been one thing that has been my saving grace through this process.

I think the best thing I have ever done for myself, and continue to do for myself, is truly getting to know me… and that means even the emotions I have tried to push away most of my life.

I’m guessing that a majority of the folks that end up reading this will think they know themselves; just like I thought I knew myself two years ago. But the thing is, I’m not talking about knowing the basic things about myself. I’m not talking about my favourite colour or which person from Love is Blind this season is my favourite (Nancy, my girl — you are my spirit animal on a side note).

I’m talking about really getting to know myself on an intimate, deep, authentic and real level.

I’m talking about:

• Getting to know my triggers
• Recognizing harmful character traits in myself
• Getting to know my core values in life
• Recognizing my negative thinking pattern
• Digging into past traumas
• Finding out what my true passions are
• Becoming self accepting and self loving
• Setting boundaries
• Exploring my childhood
• Finding the parts of me that I hid away from the world in order to fit in
• Embracing autonomy
• Learning my love language, my personality type, and so much more

These past two years of getting to know myself more have been the most life changing years of my life. It has also been the hardest thing I have ever decided to do. Re-living past traumas, diving into my toxic traits, and setting boundaries would have been nearly impossible for me to do without my amazing support system. Without my parents, my counsellors, my friends, or my partner — I wouldn’t have been where I am today. 

With my support team, my courage, my curiosity, and my commitment to really getting to know myself; I am starting to be able to release built up emotions that were stuffed away for so long — and replace that spot with more love.