Serious question. I know I’m supposed to “open up” and “be vulnerable” but how do you actually do that? Every time I try to talk about how I’m feeling I either go blank or downplay everything.
“How are you?” “Fine.”
“What’s wrong?” “Nothing.”
I’ve been doing this my whole life and I genuinely don’t know how to have an honest conversation about emotions.
Journaling. I know it sounds like a cliche but writing stuff down when nobody’s watching is way easier than saying it out loud. After a few weeks of that, I started being able to talk about what I’d written. Baby steps.
My therapist gave me an emotion wheel — it’s basically a chart with all these emotion words on it. When she asks how I’m feeling I literally point at the wheel. Sounds childish but it’s been incredibly helpful.
I started by texting my feelings to my wife instead of saying them. Sounds weird but removing the face-to-face pressure made it possible.
one thing that helped me was realizing that fine and nothing aren’t feelings. they’re deflections. my therapist made me replace them with ANYTHING else. even tired or stressed is better than fine because at least its honest