We hear it all the time, “I should have told them.” It could be to someone you care about that has passed, a friend who moved, or even some you liked. You wanted them to know that you cared, were upset, or that you loved them. We are alway hesitant when it comes to being raw with others. There are so many instances where you just fear giving people that much information. Whether it’s a lighthearted comment, or it's our own heart that reminds us what happened the last time we were open and shared maybe too much. You got hurt, and you are afraid to get hurt again or rejected. Whatever the outcome, it is something we think twice about before we risk again.

This leads us into bottling everything inside and sharing the bare minimum. We usually always lie and tell people we’re fine when we clearly are the opposite of it. If you got lucky, when you explode it is more of a breakthrough than a breakdown. It’s something that tells us a little more about ourselves, something that illuminates not only a feeling we had in the core of ourselves but also a way we should live our lives the best way we can. Most of the time, though, we’re not so lucky. Instead, we cry our eyes out, experience a pain so heavy that it physically hurts. And we suck it up and suppress it by putting on a brave face, and tell people we’re fine. If you never practice by telling people how you really and truly feel, you’ll never learn. When we spend most of our lives hiding these feelings, shielding ourselves from vulnerability, and being real, our true selves, we aren’t giving us or the people around us the truth.

We are told from a young age that it’s a risk to let people see or know how you feel. To leave emotions out of the workplace, never to let people see you cry, that you’ll be seen as less-than for expressing anything other than okay-ness with how things are. But in all other cases in all of the other ways the world manifests itself in different scenarios and possibilities if you ask me, it’s better to risk being hurt than to feel nothing at all.

A risk you take on telling someone how you feel, expressing why you’re not okay, saying the damn truth for once in your existence, will change you. it will open every part of your life up to the things that could be and should be. You stand no chance of finding love if you don’t tell anybody how you feel. You stand no chance of finding yourself if you’re always convinced that you can only contain half of what you really know to be true.

Tell someone how you feel. Go after what you want. Be honest with those around you, yourself and even your emotions. Listen to your gut reaction when something screams at you from your very bones that no, you are not okay, or yes, you really do want this person in your life for as long as possible. Ask yourself why that is. Listen to yourself. Trust that a feeling. There’s no wrong way to experience an emotion. There’s no wrong way to feel. So tell them now. After all, it’s either telling them or telling someone else why you were afraid to do it.