You know you aren’t great at expressing your emotions, and you want to improve to help your relationship. That is great! But where to start? Dr. Parisi, an affordable counselor in Chicago, wants you to know that expressing emotions isn’t something that is just going to change because you want it to. There are likely many reasons why you aren’t able to say what you feel. Learning why expressing yourself is hard for you may be a first step in getting better at it. Here are five common reasons people struggle to express themselves according to your marriage and family therapist in Chicago.
- Fear is a huge reason why people don’t want to say what they feel. Either the fear of conflict or fear of rejection are usually the culprit. Many people don’t want to ruffle any feathers, or they believe that they will be deserted if their significant other doesn’t agree with them.
- Often people believe that others should already know how they feel and what they need. They expect them to be able to read their mind and they start to feel resentful when others can’t.
- They have already given up hope. Sometimes people really don’t think that anything in their relationship will ever change, so they aren’t willing to put in the emotions and effort needed to improve and strengthen it.
- People suffer from low self-esteem and they don’t feel that they should be entitled to feel a certain way. They think it is their job to always to be person who needs to make a change in order to please someone else.
Learning to express yourself in a way that helps you while strengthen your relationship is important. A marriage and family therapist can help couples address what the root cause of not wanting to express an emotion and help find techniques that are more suitable to address your individual needs.
If you have a relationship that needs further nourishing, you can contact any of our affordable psychologists and marriage and family therapists in Chicago.