In both couples and individual psychotherapy, a common theme in the way clients present is that there is much they want to say in their relationships that is staying unspoken, or that is not being heard. Sometimes it is literally bitten back and not expressed. Sometimes it is expressed with such force and distress that it becomes lost and a person is shamed for their way of speaking rather than being heard.
I often hear people doubting whether it is OK to speak their truth. Barring situations where placing themselves in physical danger would be the outcome, it seems to me that holding back our truth is detrimental to health and well-being. The research about the costs of emotional repression is clear. We ignore our needs at our peril, when we swallow them down auto-immune and other conditions may result with a high cost to ourselves and those we love. Gabor Mate’s book When the Body Says No lays out the evidence for this clearly.
Therapeutic work is often about exploring and discovering how it is that we hold ourselves back, and growing the capacity to first recognise and be with our own vulnerability, and then to begin to show up authentically in our relationships in ways that enable us to be seen, heard, and met empathically.
We learn patterns about how it is acceptable to be as a child, and we project these forwards into our adult life. The good news is that we can work with these patterns at any point, and we can change them. It is not always simple, or easy, but it is possible, and it changes both us and our experiences of life.
For support in evolving your way of being so that you can speak your truth more freely, get in touch.
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