Never apologise for expressing yourself.

Never apologise for telling people how you feel.

Never allow them to make you feel wrong for doing so.

You may have been that person who always opened up but had it thrown in your face afterwards, which has now made you quite reserved.

You may have never had anyone who’d listen to you and attempt to understand you, so you’ve naturally become used to repressing your thoughts and feelings.

Either way, know that, feelings should be respected and honoured. All the damn time!

I was so used to opening up to people I really cared about, only to have them tell me things like, “you’re too nice” or “you’re draining my energy” or “no, you’re wrong, it’s not true” or, even worse… they became so distant with me afterwards, as if I’ve scared them away. Expressing myself, talking about my true feelings, basically always got thrown back into my face. So I stopped, for ages. I always thought that if I told someone how I felt, they wouldn’t understand, so it was easier to go through it alone. Until I realised, that it’s not actually wrong to tell people how you feel, that you will only scare away the ones who aren’t supposed to be in your life.

I still, to this day, find it challenging to talk about my feelings, because I fear being misunderstood, I fear not actually being listened to. The thought of explaining something to someone and being scared of the way they will react puts me off, as it mostly always ends up with them getting defensive and bringing up a load of random shit that had nothing to do with what I was saying in the first place. The thought of opening up makes me vulnerable but I always try to do it. I do it because I love to see the outcome, it allows me to see someones true colours, how they truly feel about me, and how much they value our friendship/relationship. I also open up through my writing, like right now, because it is a way for me to release the past, or present emotions, without me having to directly rely on anyone to help.

I went through a whole year where I was repressing everything that I felt. It was my hardest year yet. I held it all in, I never opened up to anyone, yet it was the one time when I should have. But I kept it all to myself. Slowly, my immune system became so low from all of the negativity that I was keeping locked inside of me. My skin became a way for all of those TOXIC thoughts and feelings to release themselves. I ended up getting this horrible skin disorder that left scars all over my body. I struggled so much with it. I had no idea why I was getting it or what it was, and was in and out of my GP and hospitals for 6 months straight, because the doctors also had no idea what it was. The only advice I received was, “you’re stressed” and “you need the sun.” Believe it or not, they were absolutely right. There was no physical or medical cure for my skin problem.

I began to learn that my feelings of being trapped and not having anyone to talk to anything about, feeling as though no one understood me, putting myself in situations that I couldn’t handle and having people in my life who were no good for me, all added up. I weren’t saying or doing ANYTHING about it. I started to resent people around me, mostly family and friends, for not being there, and became so angry to the point where I couldn’t look after myself. I was at such a low point that I didn’t even want to. I wasn’t listening to my body and what it was telling me, so it had to free itself somehow. It definitely showed me though.

The moment I began to change things around, removing those toxic people from my life, leaving my part-time job, not allowing my parents divorce to bother me as much, my skin improved. So, that was my cure all along. A positive mindset, self-love and change, good change! That was the start of my self-care journey. That was the moment when I decided to pull myself up and never go back down again. I promised myself that no matter how low I do go in the future, I will NEVER stop focusing on my health and myself. I turned to spirituality to help with that, which introduced me to yoga, having healthy mind, body and soul, and loads of amazing spiritual and self-improvement books.

So, basically, the moral of my story is, never hold in your emotions and don’t quiet your voice for anyone! Because when you do this, you are really just locking the hurt, the anger and the pain inside your body with no way for it to escape, other than through your body. You’ll notice that when people are stressed, they start loosing hair, they become ill all the time (low immune system), they develop skin disorders and other harmful, life threatening problems… Why? Because of all the harmful feelings and emotions that are eating away at their insides, at their hearts. They are trying to solider through the pain without seeking help, without being heard. Even thinking that they can and should deal with it themselves, without realising that the pressure they are putting on themselves is just as harmful.

You don’t have to be alone in these situations. You don’t have to hide. Let it all out. Talk to your friends; find a way to release the pain, preferably through self-care and healthy hobbies, such as the gym, yoga, healthy eating, writing, meditating, reading, singing etc. It is so hard to loose yourself in these moments, it’s so hard to stop yourself from being happy but with enough self worth, you will be fine. Remind yourself daily that you are worth it! You are strong, beautiful and worthy of being heard. You are worthy of living a good life and you sure as hell deserve to do so! We all do.

There is so much light in the dark, you just have to look for it.

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