Why Showing Your Humanity Heals The World
We are led to believe we need to compete against other people, hide what truly pains us and make sure the outer world thinks we have our sh*t together. If we are a public figure this is doubly important, so they say. If you are teaching or leading people you need to be an empowering person of positivity, an example of how to be, many ‘experts’ may proclaim, but is it true?
What if being an example means that we reveal the worst of us not just the best?
When I say worst, I don’t mean that really. What ails us is simply the juice of life, the ups and downs, the dark and light, all necessary.
On Facebook, I do weekly Facebook LIVE videos. I was so scared to do any kind of public speaking, but I knew to be seen and heard was something I needed to do to heal. What I did was the exact opposite of what all the marketing experts tell you to do. They insist that you must be upbeat, not talk too slowly, share positive stuff and give clear calls to action. It felt so artificial to me. I just wanted to be real, to be authentic and basically show up.
It was tough in the beginning. Some people turned away because I took a moment to gather my thoughts, to take some breaths and to sense how I was feeling being live on camera. It seems this world has made many people impatient, with a short attention span, but I soon realised that those who needed that authenticity watch and continue to grow in numbers to this day.
Being human is empowering to others.
So, what if the marketers have got It all wrong? What if in sharing success and only our ‘up’ times, we are reinforcing humanity’s mass programming for impossible perfection?
What if we are harming not healing when we hide our real stuff of life?
Permission to be human
As so many of us experience mental health issues, like anxiety and depression, surely the more people saying, ‘Hey I’m feeling XYZ today, but that’s okay, I’m human’ can help everyone drop the ‘perfect’ and embrace the whole range of human emotion and experience.
Growing up, if I had been told, ‘Kelly, anger is fuel for passion, it is a great way to establish boundaries’ instead of being told there was something wrong with me for expressing anger. I would have experienced a very different life.
When my father died, if instead of having the stiff upper lip, or people saying ‘stop crying,’ I could have experienced other cultures where grieving and wailing are encouraged, I would have known how to process sorrow and grief in a healthier way. Instead I grieved for 10 years and repressed a lot. And repressing grief can manifest as depression.
I would love to see a world where people not only share how they feel, but don’t stop there, where they say, ‘I feel sad, but it will pass, it’s okay. I allow these feelings, because they are sacred to me’, to see all emotions as sacred, to see all experiences as sacred.
I don’t believe that publicly sharing pain 24/7 is necessary. In fact if someone does this I would encourage them to see a therapist because they are obviously stuck in an inner challenge, but I am talking about giving the world permission to be authentic. And if other people feel uncomfortable by authenticity, let them be uncomfortable. Perhaps we need it to become more the norm than a rarity.
With emotions like anger or rage, there are healthy ways to express them. We don’t need to express them at someone else, but to own our feelings, to let the fuel roar if needed, until it naturally changes and transforms into a new feeling.
Inner Peace
Peace within comes from acceptance, not a simple thinking about accepting, but an awareness that certain feelings are arising, and that this is human, this is life and to stop labelling certain emotions as bad or wrong and to stop fighting against ‘what is’.
Inner peace is not about sitting on a meditation cushion cross legged, but from living an ordinary life and being okay with whatever shows up at the front door of your emotions.
Let’s start today. Let’s heal the world by keeping it real, being brave to shine a light on the darkness and embrace our shared humanity.
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Kelly Martin, author of ‘When Everyone Shines But You’ is a dedicated writer and blogger who fearlessly explores life’s deepest questions. Faced with a decade of profound anxiety and grief following the loss of her father and her best friend Michael, Kelly embarked on a transformative journey guided by mindfulness, and she hasn’t looked back since. Through her insightful writing, engaging podcasts, and inspiring You Tube channel Kelly empowers others to unearth the hidden treasures within their pain, embracing the profound truth that they are ‘enough’ exactly as they are.
I find the contrast between your last 2 posts really interesting and slightly conflicting! i always read your posts with great interest and I often do agree with what you say. The “do you REALLY want to feel better” post was an interesting perspective on mental health and I agree sometimes it is easy to cocoon yourself up and not help yourself. You said in the last one about joining the clubs/labels and how by doing that you could be contributing to enabling rather than empowering individuals. By all means talk but ” if it turns into a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week identity, this is when it has become our reason for being. This is not life.” In this post you are saying show your humility but where is the balance between the two. Maybe it is my perception but I feel people do not wish to hear negative thoughts or feelings, maybe that is how we have been programmed, maybe it is the British ‘stiff upper lip’, ‘keep calm and carry on’ mentality. The only people who really understand how you are feeling are the people who experience it themselves so I can see why people venture towards those ‘groups’ where they may gain some understanding. Personally I have found people awkward if i have tried to explain how I feel and its easier not to cause that awkwardness by pretend everything is hunky dory – maybe thats just me but I would be interested in your thoughts about this balancing act 🙂
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Hi CJ and thanks for really thinking about this.
I can see it may appear conflicting, but there’s a difference between sharing our humanity and making it into a 24/7 non-learning experience. We can help people by being human, but if we are sharing say… that we are feeling despairing and we share this every day and don’t appear to be learning anything in process or at least going to get help, it’s then when it’s not really empowering. But if we share our pain, give ourselves permission to be human, get help or learn to understand it better, we then are not only giving others permission to be human too, but we are shining a light on the learning experience built inside the experience too. We’ve all be around people who are highly identified with a condition for example, people who have perhaps arthritis and tell everyone they come in contact about it and it becomes their identity, they lose themselves to the condition and have stopped being open to change or a different perspective on it and to engage with them all of the time with a ‘poor you’ is enabling (like my previous post mentioned). But sharing open hearted real stuff, really wanting to get to the bottom of it and learn from it and heal from it is different. Not everyone wants to heal, even if they say they do.
Also example if I shared only my success I would be highlighting that I don’t really have any other human experiences and if I shared only my pain without any kind of attempt to move through it, I’d be really off balance either way. The balance between the two comes where we learn first to accept both our natures, when we accept we’re really going through something and it’s okay to express that, the world receives that. But if I’m expressing something I think is wrong or that I’m doubting my right to express, the world can often come along and judge me for that, but when I’m getting comfortable accepting my whole humanity, the right people are open to this and the wrong (as in not open) don’t affect my feelings when I do this. The same goes with expressing success, for some expressing pain may be unacceptable but for me expressing success is a tough one, because my family express incredible envy and often pay no attention. That’s because I’m not fully comfortable with this part of me yet. So the more accepting I become the more my world becomes accepting. And the more others watching or listening can feel safe to open up too. Hope this makes sense, I may do a follow up on this next week or I may add to this post so it makes more sense. Thanks for bringing it to my attention
It is a balancing act, between over-sharing where it becomes more a drama-a-thon and under-sharing where we repress what needs to be release for healing. We will know when we are doing either of these because we will feel blocked or overwhelmed in some way.
And yes we have been programmed to hide feelings that are tough. It is probably going back to the ‘don’t air your dirty laundry in public’, but that needs to change so we can shift some old old stuff carried through many many generations of people.
I’m reading your blog for the first time and I appreciate what you’re saying. I feel passionate about dropping the negativity surrounding mental health or Brain Health as I am encouraged to call it by inspirational brilliant people I know. The sooner we can see our brains the way we do our other organs that need care and exercise and check ups the better. I also am passionate about humans – moms and more so young moms being real with each other. Exactly as you speak about this not being a competition I feel young moms have so much to offer each other in support in the trials and tribulations of raising tiny humans and how they are navigating that role which is SO important but also being wives. Partners, sisters and daughters. When social media and Pinterest show only the good you know what lies are being weaved. When moms with little ones talk about how they can’t wait for the wine to come out so they can numb themselves to sleep day in and day out, you know we have a devistating problem – namely for the children and relatuinships that will be altered as a result and I want to shake these women and say sayit!! Say it’s too much to keep a perfect home and perfectly behaved, perfectly dressed children. It’s exhausting having the perfect birthday party for my 2 yr old with
Cucumber sandwiches and pette fours with organic ingredients in Spain on a remote island of ponies with 40 of our closest friends as I breastfeed my youngest and pound stains out of clothing the pioneer way with home made soap that won’t harm the environment as I coordinate play dates to the symphony for children in a city 3 hours away so I can show you all how cultured I am. I want to shout STOP! Give it up! We’ve been there and we know you’re causing stress and strain beyond belief and it’s all so incredibly unnecessary!!! SAY you are struggling today, when you’re actually NOT – reach out to someone who might be! Be real, be a sister! Be a friend who loves that you can talk about how you let your kids eat cereal out of the box this morning because you want to go back to bed and sleep the day away but you didn’t , you ate that damn cereal in bed with milk in sippy cups while you snuggled your kids and let the dog eat the crumbs off the floor and the bed later. Help one another!
Inalso slip in to thoughts of my daughter who seems to like to put a label on and tell the world I AM.. I AM depressed I AM anxious. If what I read is true and the human brain can not grasp the past or the future when being present then I AM … IS….what we become .. correct? It’s self manifested by saying it. By using the words I AM or I HAVE. It’s what we’re being taught. Say what it is you want as if it IS and manifestation will happen. OR does not saying it equal denial?
It makes me anxious for her that she wants to tell a prospective employer a teacher or a new friend – I AM …because it doesn’t give her a chance to let people like her for what she truly is. She’s articulate, insightful, wise, kind, open, creative, funny and beautiful amongst a million other things. I want the world for her and I can’t imagine having to put a label on myself that has a negative tied to it in most of the world. I’d love to change her patters to saying I AM my mom’s heart, I AM important, I AM a wonderful person and you’ll soon see for yourself. I appreciate what you share. I support what you’re saying. I understand the stop crying, don’t be sad, what do you have to be angry about? We’re entitled to our feelings . Humans need to feel to heal. I don’t know what I can do to help, I’m doing my best And really, I want permission to be the human I am, authentically along with everyone else. Thanks for being my 3am insight. I’m glad I found you.
Author
Thank you Midwest Momma, I think with regards to your daughter, and the I AM, it can be quite dangerous to anyone with mental health issues to be told the I AM manifests negativity from thoughts. I used to follow those teachings for a very long time. If she believes she is anxious and depressed, that is okay, she will change or not change when she needs to. Your only responsibility as a Mom is to listen and be there, no advice, no fixing, just being there. The greatest gift you can give. We can’t make anyone think positively as sometimes accepting and acknowledging a mental health issue is a good first step and then through acceptance of ‘what is’ naturally we evolve, grow and become more positive in our mindset. But if the subconscious programming from childhood or other areas of life is strong, simply saying I AM a wonderful person, may develop such a resistance that it can be more damaging than simply accepting what is taking place. To go beyond the unconscious programming we first need to accept what is taking place, saying I am wonderful for example (when the unconscious says I am awful, I am a failure – due to early life programming) is like hitting the inner child with a stick, it’s more nurturing and healing to simply hold the space for someone in that kind of negative place.