It’s not easy to show how you feel.
 |
| Image: All Rights Reserved, |
| New York: Philomel Books, |
| c2002 |
“What about your friends?” I ask. “Didn’t they help?”
Her lower lip trembles, and maybe this is one question too many. I really can’t take tears. But she pulls back from the edge, and she starts talking again.
“I guess I was popular before it happened, but that didn’t help. All the kids I hung around with just disappeared – all but Nancy, Nancy Fredericks. She was great. She came over almost every day after school, and she talked, and she just sat there and took it if I got mad and started calling her terrible names, and when I cried sometimes, she cried too. She could still see me, and she didn’t care about the blindness. That first year, my parents had special tutors come to our house and start to teach me Braille and all that blind junk – you know, like ‘Here’s your white cane to tap around with, little girl.’ But it was Nancy who kept me from going crazy. She told me about school and the teachers and the boys, and who had a crush on who. We still talk on the phone. It’s like she’s the only thing that didn’t change in my life. Everything and everybody else changed. . . . It’s like I disappeared along with the whole rest of the world.”
She’s done. And she’s self-conscious again. I don’t know what to say. I feel like I’ve been reading her diary. Risky stuff. So I just say, “Thanks . . . for telling me all that.”
“Why thanks?” she asks. She sits back in her chair and pulls her legs up against her chest.
“I don’t know,” I say, “I guess, because you didn’t have to tell me.”
She gets a devilish smile on her face. “Like yesterday, when you didn’t have to tell me about what’s happening to you right?”
“Yeah. Like that.”
And then I see what she means. Because I did have to tell her, just like she had to tell me all of this. I had to trust her. Sometimes you have to tell someone else what it’s like. Because if you don’t, you’ll go nuts.
Extract from the book Things not seen
By Andrew Clements
All Rights Reserved.
New York: Philomel Books, c2002.
Call No.: Y English CLE
Extract contributed by Lim Lee Lian, Associate Librarian
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Why do you think it’s important to share how you feel?
December 9th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
I think it is important to share how we feel because it helps to reduce all our tension and stress that has built in us. By sharing our feelings we also can receive helpful tips from those whom we spoke to about our feelings. They would be able to provide the support that we need as they get to put themselves in our shoes and also give their view about our tricky situation.
December 9th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
It is important to talk to people and share our feelings especially when it is something which worries us or which we are very upset about. Sometimes, we just someone to listen. It does not really matter if the person can help or not. But i feel that talking about it would definitely make one feel better.
But of course, there has to be a friend whom you can count on, whom you feel comfortable sharing your thoughts and feelings.
December 12th, 2011 at 1:47 am
Confiding in others about how we feel helps us clarify our feelings towards the issue that’s on our minds, and helps us cope with things that upset us. It’s definitely not easy to put in words how we feel, but once we’re able to do that with someone who’s willing to listen, it will take a great load off our minds.
Additionally, the other person might have alternative view points regarding matter, and beyond being a listening ear, he or she might be able to suggest solutions. From personal experience, chatting with a close friend really does help make one feel better.
Alternatively, writing in a diary or blogging about one’s feelings also give the same cathartic effect that talking with friends would give.
We shouldn’t only share our negative feelings with others, but positive ones as well. If I’m not wrong, there’s a saying that goes along the lines of ‘sorrow shared is sorrow halved, and joy shared is joy doubled’? That’s why I believe it’s important to share how we feel with people we trust.
December 12th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
If telling her makes you feel better, why not, but she will say you …..to her friends and points to you not to do this and that…should you ask her how she will feel towards you. Hestiate to reveal the truth and telling the untrue is easy but will utimately reveal out. How do approach her when you feel she is the right person to confide in.
December 24th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
it is important to share how we feel, if we bottle things up, we are going to feel worse n over time have depression. i have many troubles, n there’s no one i can talk to about my feelings. i have friendship problems n stuff n my family relations are not going cool, so i keep a journal n talk to god. sometimes, i also share some of my feelings with my aunts. i’m glad i have somebody nice to talk to in my family. my aunts ;i love them n i think, they are amazing. but most of my feelings, events and thoughts, i write in my diary, n i pray to GOD.
January 13th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
toxic will build up if you keep it inside too long
sometimes is hard to open our mouth
we need to have a truthful heart if we want to share thoughts freely
honest people tends to share freely e.g children
they have less hang ups…
January 22nd, 2012 at 11:43 am
I believe that God gave us a mouth is to talk and say everything out when there is a need. Sometimes, we may find it difficult to open our mouth and say, but keeping it to ourselves may be torturous. Often, we just have to learn how to open our mouth and everything follows eventually. The first step is always the hardest. When we finally talk everything out, we will definitely feel much fine and relieve.
Everyone needs a listening ear, so why not be a listening ear to somebody, and somebody will be there for you in time to come. Unpleasant thoughts may be toxic inside your body if it stays for too long, the faster you pour it out, the better you get.
January 31st, 2012 at 6:32 pm
Sharing how you feel inside allows others to know what you feel about things. Sharing can be by venting your angers, or just having a heart to heart talk with your friends and loved ones.
By sharing your throughts and how you feel, others can come to understand you better and know how to interact with you better. In the end, this will be better for both you and the other party. Taking a couple as an example, they have to interact with each other quite often and without proper communication and sharing their thoughts with each other, misunderstandings may appear and they may end up breaking up.
Also, having all your anger pent up inside you is not good for neither your mental nor your physical health. Many people keep these frustrations pent up inside them and some end up exploding one day, or others, not sharing their woes with others, resort to self harm to get away from any pain from these pent up frustrations.
January 31st, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Sharing our feelings is one of the most important things in life. It serves not only to allow other people to understand you better, it also allows you to relieve stress ,knowing you are not alone. Penting up feelings inside you creates the illusion that you are facing it all by yourself, with no one to turn to. Sharing your feelings would allow other people who care for you share your burden. It always feels better to have someone to talk to, someone to lend a listening ear. Some things are hard to explain, only through doing it will u learn to appreciate it as a gift to mankind.
January 31st, 2012 at 9:01 pm
It is very important to share how you feel inside, or how you feel about situations. Sharing can allow you to fully express your feelings, regardless of anger, frustrations, sadness or happiness. By sharing, you allow others to know you better, and this will in turn, allow easier communacation between you and the other party.
It is not healthy to bottle up all your emotions or feelings, as it damages not just your mental, but physical health as well. Many times, when people feel they have no one to confide to, or they are unwilling to share their feelings with others, they may turn to drastic measures such as hurting themselves in order to release the tension. More common cases for example are like drinking and drug ingestion.
If you do not share your feelings to others, there is no way others can reciprocate the same for you.
January 31st, 2012 at 9:08 pm
In the society now people are more closed, preferring to keep their feelings to themselves. It may be because that people can be more malicious now, and we are all afraid to let out what we feel inside for fear that we will be mercilessly teased. I believe that sometimes it is necessary to keep our feelings to ourselves, but at times one still has to know to let it out to people. If we do not do that, we will only end up drowning in self-pity when we feel sad, thinking, “Why doesn’t anyone care?” when in actuality, how can we expect people to know how we feel if we do not even show it.
People should be more open and accepting of one another. Is it because we are a society that has forgotten to care and share love? The distance between each person is gradually widening. We should not bottle it all up, because in sharing, we will actually discover how much we are cared for and loved.
February 1st, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Every one of us will reach a phase in life where it is filled with many rough patches and obstacles. Despite that, different people have different sets of problems and thus the way they might handle it would ultimately be different too. As for teenagers like the character in the book herself, would usually bottle up their problems and even if they did open up it would only be to a few people. The reason being that they are afraid of being judged. They are afraid to pour out their troubles to people in fear of being laughed at, or losing their friends and so on. Thus, they would think very carefully before they would let out their troubles. However, keeping everything bottled inside is very lethal and can cause dire consequences, so they must still find a way out nevertheless. In fact, most people focus so much on the cons that they neglect the pros. Through sharing we let people know how we feel and think and this helps others to understand us better and at the same time can get troubles off our chest. That is why i believe that one should always find a way to relief his or her stress and tension building within.
February 7th, 2012 at 1:30 pm
“Sharing”, according to the dictionary, involves “participate in, use, enjoy, or experience jointly”. One has to know whom to share our feelings with and also what to share with them. Often time, we share different things with different people. For example, I would share my emotional struggles with my husband and certain close friends and I would share stories of triumphs and celebrations with my students.
Sharing creates depth in our relationships. Else, relationship based on “hi”, “bye” and “how are you?” are too shallow to be called a relationship. It’s also important to show that we are humans with positive and negative feelings, not the perfect stranger that we often portray to those who are unfamiliar with ourselves.
February 14th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
To make your true feelings known is like the tearing down of brick walls — those strong defenses put up around one’s heart. But when we are willing to let our guards down around someone safe, it’s almost as if you’re liberated; a bird free from its cage. However, we must be careful with whom we share our deepest thoughts and emotions. Everybody would be interested to know, if they could. Yet only some are the ones who truly care. The rest are simply curious. And as always, hiding is the easiest way out. But if we don’t let people know how we really feel, how will they ever know?
February 14th, 2012 at 11:42 pm
Many people bottle up their feelings and thoughts, especially if the person is an introvert. It is important to show our feelings to others every once in a while as it is part of being human to do so. If we do not show our feelings to people we can trust when we need to, we would go nuts, as what the extract mentioned above. Many cases of depression in Singapore alone involves people unable or unwilling to show their feelings and thoughts to others, like to family members and friends. If we decide to bottle up all our worries, anxieties, anger, frustration and other negative feelings, sooner or later, we would “explode” and all our discontentment would be spilled out in a tantrum no matter how hard we try to hide our feelings.
February 27th, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Keeping your feelings to yourself is not a good thing. Letting your friends and family know how you feel is natural, and keeping them to yourself will only result in stressing yourself. If your feelings are complicated, your friends and family can help you out, so you should share your feelings with those close to you. Even if they cannot help you, it is always good to take someone into your confidence, so you do not have to bear the burden alone.
August 9th, 2012 at 11:56 pm
Human beings are feeling creatures. We cannot just bottle up our feelings without telling anyone about it. It is evitable that everyone has secrets that they do not wish to share, but sharing it with someone close to you might make things better as they might be able to understand you and comfort you. Furthermore, they might be able to help you with your problem. Bottling up your feelings is not healthy, keeping to oneself for too long might cause a mental breakdown after experiencing too much stress. Rather than bearing everything by yourself, it would be better to let it all out at times and make yourself feel better afterwards.
August 10th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
I am a person who seldom shows my feelings. I felt very uncomfortable to let people know what I am thinking and how I feel towards a particular issue. However I believe that it is important to show share how we feel with other people. For example, when we are depressed, sharing our feelings with people can help us feel better. Instead of worrying alone ourselves all the time and to make ourselves anxious, talking to our parents or friends will let us know that we are not facing the difficulties alone. They are always here to support us. If we always keep everything in our heart and not share with others, people will not know what we are thinking about and it is very hard for them to help us if we have any problem. It can be very dangerous if we continue to live in our own world and refuse to interact with the outside world. For instance, in many suicide cases, most of the people trying to kill themselves refuse to talk to people about their feelings and the difficulties they are facing. Since there is no one to encourage and to cheer them up, they have a negative attitude towards life and they feel that this is the end of the world. Without sharing our feelings, how can we expect people to understand us and to know more about us? Also, if we always express our feelings out, it will be easier for us to make friends with others as we are very straightforward and people do not have to guess our feelings all the time. Sharing our feelings is very important since it helps to make our lives happier and we will not keep a negative mindset when we feel sad. This is also essential in keeping a healthy mind.
August 10th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Feelings are meant to be shared. This is my belief; that feelings should not be kept to oneself as long as letting others know would not harm anyone. Personally, I find it important to share my feelings with close family members and friends as only then can they understand me inside out and love me for who I am. Another reason why I feel that it is important to share our feelings is that doing so would help us build a stronger sense of security for ourselves. Whenever we encounter any obstacle in life, there is a possibility that we would need help from another person or several other people. If we do not make it known that we are troubled or scared, no one would come to give us help. However, I also understand that some people like to make their feelings known while others prefer to keep them to themselves. Hence, at times, one is not wrong to keep one’s feelings to oneself.
August 10th, 2012 at 10:53 pm
In my opinion, while we struggle to deal with the problems in life, we always need a pair of listening ears to listen and to share our sorrow. Even when times are good, we need to share the joy with someone else. We do not feel happy unless our happiness is shared. Through sharing how we feel, we are able to gain support and strength from others and know that we are not alone. As the listener, just by lending our ears to listen to how others feel can be of great help to people who are desperate to let out their feelings.
Bottling up all our feelings and keeping to one can be stressful. These pent up frustrations may even affect our mental and physical health. Sharing our feelings with others also allow us to communicate better with one another. For example, the key to a successful marriage is actually the most basic form of communication, talking. Some married couples drift apart gradually because they assumed that they already know each other well enough to even communicate. This lack of communication eventually causes them to become distant as they realized they no longer understand each other the way it was. Sometimes, certain things have to be expressed and said before it is understood. We cannot expect others to understand how we feel without opening up and sharing with them.
Sharing how we feel allows others to know what we truly want and need. They can even provide us with useful advice which could help to deal with out problems. Even if they are unable to help, sharing about how we feel is actually a way of relieving stress because we do not have to keep it to ourselves and deal with it alone.
August 10th, 2012 at 11:55 pm
Sharing provides a platform to express our emotions and inner thoughts, relieving the pressure on us. Sharing is caring. In this case, what you share may not be tangible but it benefits our psychological and mental health. Sharing eases the inner burden inside of one’s heart as there are people who now understand your plight and are able to help, in one way or another. As we repeat our plight, we not only are able to expel the feelings we have for the issue, we are also giving ourselves and others a chance to understand and reassess the situation. Sharing provides a second opinion and this opinion is usually what makes things clear. A first person perspective may not be the clearest as emotions still run high but through sharing, a bystander could very well provide an objective view and simplify the situation.
Sharing is an excellent way to gain insights and solutions to the issue. Multiple opinions and repeated analysis of the issue through sharing will make things more lucid and allow us to view the issue at a whole new standpoint that could prove to be beneficial. For example, you witnessed a classmate cheat in his test and he received a higher grade than you without studying. You are furious and through sharing, you are able to release the anger inside. Instead of hitting the wall or screaming out loud, sharing your feelings with someone provides you with a much needed reply. The other party could comfort you and give his own thoughts about the issue. With the help of a logical mind beside you, you gain much more in terms of opinion and the feeling of knowing that there is someone that understands you.
August 11th, 2012 at 1:03 am
Sharing how we feel allow other people into step into our world. It allows them to get a glimpse of things from our perspective and to understand how and why we feel so strongly about certain things. It is to allow them to understand us a little better and to accept us for who we are. It is never easy for us to share how we feel and there are often times when we do not want to share how we feel with others, for fear of rejection, lack of understanding or be brushed off. We prefer to hold a part of ourselves apart from others, preferring to let things stay the way they are, instead of raising a possible ruckus by revealing how we feel. However, holding too much of ourselves apart are unhealthy. It might lead to depression or even suicide. Sometimes, sharing how we feel allow us to know that we have a strong support behind us, that there are people we can trust and we are not alone in facing all the problems. It also allows others to know what we truly need and want and to be understood. It allows people to be a part of us and see things through our eyes and heart.
August 11th, 2012 at 1:26 am
Feelings are meant to be expressed. Bottling up your feelings will not do you any good. Sooner or later when that bottle is filled to the brim, it will not be able to contain any more feelings and would burst in explosion. Whenever you find yourself in distressing situations, you should never keep it to the heart. Instead, confide in someone you are comfortable with that you know you can trust, share with that person about your views on the matter and don’t be afraid to cry. As friends of others, we should always be on standby as listeners and lend our friends a leaning shoulder for them to cry on. If we keep everything to ourselves, it may result in detrimental effects to both our mental and spiritual being. Hence, we should always express our feelings and share our troubles with a close friend.
August 11th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
It is important to share how we feel. Bottling up our feelings might result in an unbalanced mindset. Once we are ready to share our true feelings, it will help to open our minds, and accept others’ feelings too. When we share our feelings with someone else, they might be able to provide an alternative perspective to the matter and change our mindset. If we are afraid of judgment after telling people how we feel, we can post it on a blog or online journal anonymously. And who knows, we might be able to find someone who feels the same way as we do. Then we will know that we are not facing similar problem alone.
All of us need a listening ear sometimes. The other party does not have to provide any advice but we just have to let out whatever that is going through our minds.
August 15th, 2012 at 10:30 pm
Instead of bottling up all your troubles, feeling terribly miserably inside yet trying to put on a strong front on the outside, why not share your troubles and get it off your mind?
It is actually very effective at times when you confide in someone, telling them your problems and they may actually, however surprising, come up with many probable and good solutions or suggestions on how you could tackle your problems. By sharing, not only does it help you feel better, it also allows people to know more about you and some might even be having the same troubles as you. Letting this tension and stress out of you may even benefit someone else and if you realize you are not alone, you will actually feel a lot better.
Of course, it is not only in the negative issues. When you have something happy happening in your life, sharing with people also brings joy to them and there is always a sense of satisfaction that you will feel when you know that you put that smile on their face.
People tend to neglect the fact that there are people out there who truly care for you and approaching them to share how you feel would either allow you to release your stress or let you share your joy with these people. Talking to a friend about your feelings will actually bring about benefits you would never imagine.
August 19th, 2012 at 6:14 pm
One may feel that one is strong enough to carry the entire burden or constantly bottle one’s feelings inside and stand-alone from the world. For some, it is simply their personality to keep more to themselves, or some may have been hurt many times before by the outside world that they believe in keeping to themselves and hiding their feelings in order to protect themselves. Yet this is not always healthy for our emotional and psychological being. We may be able to hide our emotions for a while, but when emotions pile up and exceeds what we can handle, we should share our feelings with those we can trust.
Exchanging our feelings and thoughts is an important part of our lives. It can help relieve tension from stress and lighten our burden. The best part is the thought that someone else cares and is willing to listen to us. When we share our feelings, we are opening up our heart to someone, and any burden we carry can be lightened. Also, it allows us to see our problems in another light; when we share, we may start to see what we couldn’t see by ourselves before. For example, we might find a person who went through a similar situation before and it is comforting to know that they understand how we feel. It may not offer any practical solution to the problem, but it does help to know that you’re not the only one going through it.
Sharing also helps avoid misunderstandings and keeps the situation clear. There comes a time when we share happy moments and sad times as well, and going through this thick and thin is what makes bonds very strong. Sharing is beneficial because keeping everything in your mind is exhausting, and when you share or listen to another’s story, gives them a shoulder to lean out, it makes the journey more bearable.
This mutual support makes us united. Hence we ought to share our feelings, as after all, no man is an island.
August 20th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Communication is integral in fostering any relationship. Words are the most direct form of communication and avoiding misunderstandings by subjecting actions to misinterpretation. Without communicating our feelings directly to people, we may not be able to build a solid relationship. By sharing our feelings and reflections, we build mutual trust in each other. By having a listening ear, you know that someone loves you enough to care about your opinion. When you share your experiences, you share a part of your life, however brief a moment, with the listener. As we share our feelings, we are receptive to the feedback the listeners give us, and we can thus obtain some advice or simply words of encouragement that continue to drive us on.