Being Vulnerable

This post is from my September 2022 Newsletter message.  Sign up or Read  my past messages. When we become frustrated, get hurt feelings, or another disappoints us, our default is often to react with anger or to lash out at the other in some way. And although we may feel some satisfaction at getting our frustrations out, reacting with anger, criticism, judgment, bullying – or any other aggressive way is counterproductive to giving us the ultimate results we are looking for. So is being passive-aggressive and burying our feelings. We all want to feel loved. And we all want to feel we matter to our loved ones. These are some of the many ways we feel the love and that our loved ones care about us. We all want to be understood, appreciated, listened to, and have our loved ones respect our wishes and do what they said they would do. When we feel frustrated or hurt and get angry at someone, one, some, or all of the above ways we might feel loved are not being met. However, rather than expressing how we truly feel in an attempt to get what we ultimately want, we lash out at the other. And often, we are not even in touch with our true feelings and have lost a connection to what we ultimately want. We are caught in a habitual pattern of reacting – and projecting our frustrations outward towards the other. Getting in Touch with Your True Feelings – and what You Ultimately Want For those of us not used to showing our true feelings – of being vulnerable, it is scary to step onto that ledge. Most of us who are used to hiding our true feelings, or no longer have a connection to them, have had our feelings trampled upon in the past to such a degree that we clammed up. We may have been bullied, belittled, shushed, or our feelings ignored. Maybe we were made to feel our feelings were unimportant or didn’t matter, or were told they were silly and childish when we expressed them. Physical or emotional abuse also makes our hearts close because our past experience tells us we cannot trust others and life. This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Relationship Intelligence ... – due out later this winter. See My Published and Upcoming Books Whatever happened in our past to turn our heart cold will cause us to keep our feelings to ourselves. Past hurts may also have caused us to unconsciously bury our feelings so that we cannot tap into them enough to find the words to express them. We unconsciously created a barrier to our heart, and its feelings nature, to protect it from further pain. When protecting our hearts, our default is to project our pain outward towards the other with anger, criticism, blame, etc. – rather than reaching out from our hearts and showing our true feelings. We are afraid to be vulnerable by putting our hearts [...]