Shy About Emotions? Stop Acting and Pay Attention

Tell Card: “Name something you feel shy about”

Answer: Emotions

Why is it that so many of us are shy about our feelings? Feelings can be an important internal guidance system to point us towards our goals, but so many of us have a hard time facing or expressing them honestly.

When you hear, “Hi, How are you doing?” you know the asker doesn’t really want an accurate assessment of your emotional state. So, even if you’re having a horrible day, most of us will answer, “Fine,” “Good,” or at least “Okay.” We have been trained into socially acceptable emotions.

It starts when we are little. People bigger than us tell us how to feel. They tell us not to cry. They tell us not to be mad. Sometimes they even tell us not to be happy. We are trained to ignore our feelings, doubt them and often to just put them away.

In “The Managed Heart” Alrie Hochschild calls it “emotional labor.” We learn to play certain emotional roles as children. Some of us are taught that our feelings matter, but others are taught that our feelings don’t count because we aren’t important. Nobody cares what we feel so we learn not to do it.

Those who are taught that feelings matter may also be taught that only certain emotions are supposed to fit our situations.

Imagine a bride who knows she is supposed to be happy on her wedding day, but instead is overwhelmed, scared and anxious. She has to work really hard to “feel” the way she knows she’s expected to feel. There are two ways of dealing with it, either surface acting, where the bride acts happy but knows she is not, or deep acting, where the bride convinces herself that she must be happy and wills herself to feel that way.

No wonder we get confused about our emotions. That kind of acting takes its toll and can have a very unhealthy impact on us.

One response is “emotional numbness.” That happens when, without realizing it, over time we actually reduce our access to feelings. While Hochschild says that may be an effective short term strategy, in the long run we risk dimming our inner emotional signals and create a disconnect to ourselves.

We lose the ability to connect to our feelings and to who we are.

At Do Tell: The Relationship Game we want to help you connect again to yourself and others. While a game certainly can’t take the place of appropriate therapy, it can get you thinking. It can get you asking questions, and if you pay attention, it can be the start of finding the honest side of your emotions again.

Emotions aren’t something to be shy about. They are important signalers of our inner life. They can lead us to healthier selves and happier choices. So, learn to embrace them and let them lead you.