Becoming emotionally honest

The case for a new direction when it comes to the way we approach our emotions. Emotional honesty as a pathway for becoming free.

Dec 04, 2023

Before I start, I just want to express a note of thanks to the people who have supported my work this year— the paid subscribers, the silent supporters, and those who curiously dive in each week. I am grateful to each and every one of you. Thank you for being here. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can become a free or paid subscriber here.

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This is one those things that’s a lot easier said than done. I want to start by acknowledging how complex this topic of emotional honesty is. It makes sense if you’re not coming at it from a place of mastery or expertise. You should know that I don’t even place myself in those categories.

I think we’re all feeling the heaviness of what’s around us right now. Heaviness often clouds our judgment and prevents us from seeing what’s right in front of us or seeing what’s possible. When our circumstances force us to carry a heavy burden of stress, our emotions follow suit.

I don’t know of a time in history where emotions, or conversations about how we feel, have been more central to our culture and ways of being than there is today. I think we’re seeing the impacts of being more emotionally honest in the world around us. It is giving a voice to people and groups that haven’t had one; it is waking the world up to injustice and mistreatment; it is asking us all to be present without turning away; and it is allowing us to connect with the painful truths and secrets that run in our families and communities.

Let’s be real: being emotionally honest is uncomfortable. So, if acknowledging our emotions is so uncomfortable, then why should we do it?

The case for emotional honesty

I don’t deny how difficult it is to bravely acknowledge the truth of a painful circumstance. I would even argue that it can be hard or uncomfortable to acknowledge all emotions— not just the painful ones but the joyful ones too. Becoming emotionally honest is about embracing the full spectrum of our emotions, not just the ones we want to feel or should be feeling. Emotional honesty helps us access our full truth, not just the emotions that should be true. Emotional honesty is a courageous attempt at owning our emotions so they don’t have ownership over us.

Being emotionally honest allows us to be present with what’s happening. It creates a space for the free expression of what’s happening inside of us. Being emotionally honest connects us to what we need and what we need to do. This is the base purpose of our emotions: they connect us to what we need and what we need to do.

Emotional dishonesty keeps us caught between two realities, one where we’ve mastered our emotions and another where emotions never get in our way or hold us back from living a full life. Both of these realities, however, reinforce a notion of emotion that isn’t possible. Emotions don’t need to be conquered or erased and emotions don’t just happen to some people. They are an integral part of living the life we want to, but we don’t have to master them or wish them away for that to be true.

I should also mention an important layer in this conversation about emotional honesty. We don’t all have the same capacity, comfort, and skill level when it comes to accessing our emotions. It’s hard to become emotionally clear when you’ve grown up in a family where other people’s emotions were more important than yours. It’s challenging to listen to your own emotions if you grew up in a family where one person’s emotions were the main focus, making it feel as though your emotions were not as important. It’s also difficult to become honest about your own emotions if you’ve been shamed, blamed, or made to feel bad for even having them. And lastly, it’s hard to be emotionally honest if you’ve been punished for being emotionally honest in the past.

It makes sense why you may need to protect against vulnerability. It makes sense if you’ve learned to keep your emotions in because being emotionally honest got you into trouble. No matter how you come to this conversation today, you deserve to be more emotionally honest. Being emotionally honest, even if just with yourself, may be the first step you’ll take on your journey to becoming less afraid and more free.

Emotional honesty is the way. It is one stepping stone on our path to becoming ourselves and becoming more free.

In order to best describe how emotional honesty frees us up, I want to compare and contrast it with a few other concepts that may hold us back or keep us stuck when it comes to our emotional health.

Emotional honesty or emotional expression?

Expressing your emotions isn’t the same as being emotionally honest. Emotional honesty isn’t just about what’s expressed or what’s said— it also includes what is unexpressed and unsaid. Emotions do not have to be expressed or spoken in order for them to be real or true. Emotional honesty is not “telling it like it is!” either. Being emotionally honest comes with discernment and regard for relationships.

You can still be emotionally honest without expressing everything that’s on your mind or communicating everything that’s going on inside of you. It takes practice, but sometimes we are the most emotionally clear when it remains vivid for ourselves and it stays uncompromised by the opinions of others. You don’t have to state your emotional truth out loud for it to be valid.

Emotional honesty or emotional flooding?

There’s an emerging cultural norm which suggests that the healthiest way to deal with our emotions is to express them or get them out. Emotional expression can quickly become emotional flooding, where our uninhibited expression of emotion takes us over, making it hard to contain or regulate how we’re feeling. Emotional honesty is not about flooding the room with what’s on our chest. Emotional honesty is about discerning what needs to be expressed and what needs to be suppressed or held in.

Emotional honesty is not about dumping everything onto someone we care about and it’s not about staying stuck in every emotion we experience. Sometimes the most emotionally honest thing to do is to reign the intense emotions back so that the emotions underneath can emerge and have room to speak or been seen also. Emotional honesty allows us to acknowledge our emotions without becoming trapped by them.

Emotional honesty or emotional perfectionism?

Emotional honesty is not about a new path to perfection either. It is about allowing ourselves to be with our true emotional experience instead of creating rules for what’s allowed and what’s not. Emotional perfectionism keeps us chasing what’s ideal, what’s most comfortable, and what’s perfect. Emotional honesty is again about allowing the full range of emotions to exist without a desire to erase the messy and imperfect parts of being human. Emotional honesty is about letting emotions exist without casting judgment on them. Judging our emotions and criticizing how we feel sets the stage for emotional dishonesty.

Emotional honesty or emotional sameness?

Pursuing emotional honesty is also not a way to convince others to feel how we feel. Being emotionally honest and true to ourselves sometimes means standing alone with our own emotions. As painful or as hard as it may be, emotionally honesty is about acknowledging where you stand, what you think, and how you feel, even when a room full of people may feel differently. A lot of us find ourselves pursuing emotional sameness as a way to preserve relationships or create shared feelings.

When we try to feel how everyone else feels, it may pull us further away from our own emotional experience. Emotional honesty is not about getting everyone on board with how you feel. It’s an invitation for others to empathize with us and it’s a way to remain in connection with the people who feel differently than we do. Being emotionally honest with ourselves allows others to see their own emotions more clearly; being emotionally honest with yourself gives people permission to do the same with themselves.

To conclude, while it is challenging and difficult, I hope I’ve made a solid case for why being emotionally courageous and being more emotionally honest is the right path to setting ourselves free. As I mentioned, emotional honesty frees us up to experience a more open, connected, and authentic version of what we need and what we need to do.

If emotional dishonesty has the power to hold us back, then emotional honesty has the power to propel us forward.

Take good care this week,

Jake

Things I’m noticing this week:

I’m feeling a lot more ease this week compared to last. I’m on a social media break and I highly suggest you try it. I’m feeling more connected to the people around me and I still find myself creating intentional space to keep current on what’s going on in the world without the algorithm overwhelm.
I was also on Global News this week talking about the new suicide crisis helpline in Canada (similar to the US, Canadians can now dial 9-8-8— three years in the making!). Catch my interview here.
In the past month, I’ve spoken at a number of schools and organizations about a range of topics: loneliness, burnout, social media, and (my new favourite acronym) MESH— mental, emotional, and social health.
This week, I also saw Dr. Lisa Damour speak at Havergal College here in Toronto. Thanks to Havergal for hosting! A takeaway from her talk: When kids come with big, irrational thoughts, we can validate the emotions driving the thoughts without feeding unhelpful narratives: “It isn’t true, but it is real.”
This article in The Cut also caught my attention: The Final Frontier for Helicopter Parents. Inside the Facebook and WhatsApp groups where moms arrange playdates for their college kids. The article shines a spotlight on the parents who keep tabs on their kids, potentially inhibiting their growth, well into the college and university years.
Finally, I’ve also updated my website! Have a look here.