I´ve written some posts that haven’t been so easy to publish. I´ve written them intuitively because I´ve felt that the topic is important and related to women´s wellbeing. My post about practicing showing my emotions was that kind of a post. When the post was finished, I closed my eyes and published it. And I wished that I´m not making myself a fool by doing so.
Why it is so difficult for me to express my emotions, especially negative ones? Why have I kept so much inside of me for all these years and let it cause emotional and physical gridlocks in me? Why it is so hard to get rid of this kind of behavior pattern? The more I´ve tried to learn to express my emotions, the more I´ve wanted to find the reasons behind of them. All the reasons.
In autumn I learned some of the effects of my nation´s history on me. That helped me to find many answers for the questions I was asking and to understand myself better.
This winter I´ve read and had conversations about the difference between raising girls and boys. How girls have learned over the past centuries to suppress their emotions. They´ve learned to keep their negative emotions for themselves. They´ve also learned to show the positive ones with a restrained way that has been commonly approved in their culture. A good girl, through the ages in all cultures, has been a girl who is kind, behaves well and who certainly doesn´t raise her voice or make a big fuss about herself. Expressing emotions freely has just not been allowed. Or if someone has done it she has certainly felt the pinch.
My husband send me this video some time ago. I warmly recommend you to watch it. It´s less than 4 minutes. It´s a provocative and sharp video, but in a good and clever way. It tells about the differences between girls and boys, women and men. How we come from difference, and how those difference affect ourselves, our behavior and wellbeing. Whether we want it or not.
Acknowledging and understanding how things pass on from generation to next has helped me to understand that some difficulties that I have with myself are no ones fault. Not my mothers, my grandmothers or great-grandmothers because they´ve suffered from the same things that I have. And what about my father, grandfather or great-grandfather? Well, they have had their own challenges in terms of what a good boy has expected to be. We can only guess how much suffering it has caused for boys when they´ve learned to suppress their emotional sensitivity. Just because a real man doesn´t cry.
The more I learn to understand the nature of human being, the clearer it is to me – no human being is purely evil or bad. There are reasons behind everything. And when you dig deep enough, you´ll find that the reasons are very natural and human. We all have responsibility over our own behavior but many things affect on it. Reasons that cause suffering to us and people around us. Reasons that are more complex and that have deeper roots than we realize. Reasons that all need to be acknowledged and understood so that we would not blame innocent ones. So that we can change ourselves, feel better and offer a better life also for our daughters and sons. Just like our mothers and fathers have tried to do.
A permission to all girls and boys to express their emotions and skills to process them in a constructive instead of destructive way. That could be the thing that my generation could offer to the next one. Better mental wellbeing.
First this video made my heart beat like crazy. Then it made me cry. But it was not because of sadness. It was because of relief. Clearer than ever I realized that I´m really not the only one who have difficulties showing her emotions.
Yes, I´ve been a good girl and caused myself suffering by doing so. But so have millions and millions of other girls in this world before me. And they still do. And because of that I feel that I want to publish this video. So that more and more women would not cause themselves suffering in the future by shrinking themselves.
And Jonas, even though we come from difference, it doesn´t mean that we need to keep it that way. Many things have changed, and many things can be changed. The main thing is that we avoid confrontations, acknowledge our own challenges, win them and become free to become ourselves.
Because in the end we truly are on the same boat. Both women and men.
