My issue that in relationships I stop showing emotions and am not able to verbalize my feelings.

Hello Dags! Thank you for your question. It sounds like you have faced a lot of challenges in your life.

We develop something called "core beliefs" as children. These beliefs are thoughts about ourselves, others, and the world in general that we essentially adopt from whomever our caregivers are -- whatever they teach us. We are not born with thoughts and beliefs. And it is not like our caregivers necessarily sit us down and teach us these things like a school lesson. We learn by watching, by listening, by experiencing. Many of us have learned as children that it is not "okay" to have feelings, to talk about feelings, or even to feel feelings. This is so unfortunate because feelings are not only normal, they are necessary. They are like little messengers giving us some signals that we need something or we need to pay attention to something. But if we have learned this core belief that we are not supposed to have feelings or talk about them, then we honestly don't know what to do with them when we actually experience them -- which we will. So some people stuff those feelings and then the feelings come out in the form of anger or depression or anxiety. Many of us were never taught the vocabulary to even identify feelings, let alone discuss them. So, the bottom line is that many people have never learned how to talk about feelings but we can learn.

You can learn how to identify what you are feeling, what that feeling is trying to communicate to you, and how to verbalize what you are feeling in a respectful way to other people. You can learn about communication skills that will provide you with the tools to tell other people what you are experiencing. And you can also learn how to ask others what they are feeling. You can learn how to encourage your children to identify and talk about their feelings. This does not have to be a taboo subject and talking about your feelings is not a sign of weakness. If anything it is a sign of strength.

I would imagine you had a lot of very difficult feelings when you were a child going through what you and your mom and your brother went through. But if you never had an opportunity to talk about those feelings, then they probably got shoved away like in a file cabinet where they have continued to live for all of these years. You might have a lot of feelings about your dad, what he did, what he did not do, and also about his death. Something important to remember is that our bodies store this knowledge even if we are not aware of this. That means that many years later -- like when you are an adult -- your body could "perceive" some type of cue in the environment that signals to the body that there is a "threat" of some sort, which will activate your fight, flight, or freeze response. You might be aware that you are feeling a lot of physical sensations without understanding why you are feeling these things. Once again, if you learn the vocabulary and learn what is actually happening within your body, then you can also learn how to respond appropriately and with respect not only to others, but also to yourself.

Everything you talked about in your message can be addressed. With willingness, effort, and patience, you can absolutely change how you think about feelings and how you manage them. You can also become a great role model for your children as you teach them the same things. You could also learn something we call mindfulness techniques which are simple practices that help a person calm their nervous system so they are able to respond more appropriately to situations. These are some of the things I would address with you if we were working together. I know this is a very brief overview of what we could be working on. There is so much more to know and understand but the one thing I want you to be sure and know is that these things that bother you can be addressed and you can change this behavior.

I hope this has helped a little. Thank you for reading my response!

Judi