The Things We Don't Say

A few friends and I have a regular thing we call "money day." We get together, hang out, and talk about money stuff — investing, money mindset, that kind of thing. It started with us playing the Cashflow game and just organically grew from there. Nobody taught us any of this in school or at home, so we figured it's on us now.

So last Sunday, another one of our money days was planned, and I went down to my friend's place. It was the three of us: me, my friend, and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was still doing some work on the house, so my friend and I got some 1:1 time, and we sat down to just talk for a bit.

The idea was to watch the recording of the investment festival that was held a few weeks ago and then discuss it, but I felt like I couldn't focus on anything. I'd been feeling so off for days. I felt closed, tense, and didn't want to talk.

I'd been feeling so much resentment, anger, and just awful feelings towards a few people who are close to me and who I love deeply. They'd irritated me and acted in ways and said things that had been triggering me. I hadn't said anything to them, though. It was all inside and suppressed.

So there I was with my friend, and she kept asking what was going on, and I really didn't want to say anything. But after a while, we got talking, and it just poured out. All of it. I said out loud pretty much all of the horrible things I'd been feeling towards these few people. How I judged certain behaviours, how they're this and that and how much it angers and irritates me. It's like intellectually, I understand them. I get why they might be like this or act like that. I get it. Everyone gets to be who they are, and it's not my business to judge anyone. I know I'm far from perfect myself.

But emotionally? Still f-ing pissed off. I wish I was all zen all the time, super loving and kind, wouldn't take anything personally, always in integrity and respectful of others, but I'm just not. I'm grumpy, I'm pissed, I'm annoyed, and sometimes I wish I could just let it all loose, be as blunt and straightforward as I actually am, no filter. But I'm afraid of what it'll do to the relationship.

My friend then told me straight: there's a pattern here. You don't express yourself. You have to start telling people how you actually feel. Keeping it in is what's poisoning you, and that's what's hurting your relationships. Not the honesty, the silence.

She was right. It IS a pattern with me. I don't say the thing when something irritates me, mostly because:

a) it's probably my own stuff to deal with, they're just being themselves, or

b) I don't want to hurt them, or 

c) I don't want them upset with me, or

d) I might cry, and I don't want to cry in front of them, or

e) they'll stop speaking to me.

Basically, if I say what I really want to say, I'll burn down the bridge.

So it feels like there are only two options. Stay quiet to keep the peace, but suppress and suffer. Or be honest, say the thing, and all hell will break loose. Both pretty terrible options if you asked me.

So what do I do?

Mostly, I choose to stay quiet. But there's a price: I'm tense, bottled up, and suffering. And here's the part I didn't see for a long time: if I don't say the things, if I don't express myself, I don't express my boundaries — resentment shows up. And that stuff feels like poison in my body: heavy, tense, nauseating almost. So instead of just saying it and dealing with it, I start avoiding the person instead. That in itself creates distance, and that distance is what hurts the relationship, not the saying of the thing. The staying quiet! 

What a paradox!

So that day, when I told her all that, all the bottled stuff, I cried half the time because even saying it out loud and hearing myself say how I judge and feel towards someone I love so much was just pure pain. To feel like you don't like someone you love so deeply is an inner conflict, it makes no sense. And it hurts. It hurts to feel this way. 

Like I said: poison.

After I'd said all those things out loud to her, I felt a sense of relief. It was like a therapy session. The heaviness left my body. I got to process it a bit, and also get some practical steps towards resolution, which is: find a way to tell them how you feel, express your boundaries and feelings of upset about certain things. You are allowed to do so.

That's the goal, really. Not to ever feel the ugly things, but to be able to feel them, say them, and be loved anyway. To learn to communicate calmly, respectfully, kindly, and as lovingly as I possibly can in a given situation.

Expressing myself might cause a wave of emotion at first, a reaction maybe, but then it'll subside, and a whole new level of connection can come from it. We might actually become closer and closer each time we go through something like this.

I believe that all that anger, frustration, resentment, and judgment is surface-level anyway, like debris in water when you stir it up. But underneath the debris, there's always just hurt. And underneath the hurt, love. If you locked yourself in a room with someone you think you despise, or are hurt or angered by, and you didn't get to leave until you solved it, if you could really hear them and see what's going on deep inside them, you'd understand. You’d both realize it's all just misunderstandings, misconceptions, stories of the mind, and perhaps some self-righteousness. And if you strip all of that away, what's left is just a yearning for love, acceptance, and connection.

♡