Don’t apologize for your feelings. Life happens and situations change causing feelings to shift. Don’t apologize for expressing your feelings. Sometimes we all need to cry, laugh, journal, dance, run, scream, sing. Don’t apologize for sharing a very raw piece of yourself. Cry when you need to cry. Be angry when you’re angry. But on the other side of the coin, show your joy. There’s something contagious about joy and happiness. Don’t apologize for your successes. Don’t apologize for your failures. These things happen to the best of us, so stop apologizing for being happy or sad for success or failure.
Society tells us that we have to act apathetic when it comes to our feelings when something significant happens in our lives. Let yourself feel something, anything. Never apologize for what you feel. If you feel excited, don’t dim your excitement to appease others. You’re entitled to be happy and excited. If you’re unhappy, don’t lie about your unhappiness. When someone asks how your day is going, be honest. Sure, they may be uncomfortable, but they need to realize people can be honest about how their lives are going. If they didn’t want to know, they shouldn’t have asked. It’s okay to say things are going poorly. It’s okay to say things are going spectacularly.
Maybe we’ll progress to being more honest about how and why we feel what we feel. We were born with emotions to experience them, so why waste energy suppressing those emotions. I feel like the pressure to hold everything in hits many of us hard. From a young age, we’re told to be strong and don’t cry. Be strong. An interesting phrase. It can be used for many contexts. Who decided crying doesn’t make you strong? Who decided that reacting to feelings doesn’t make you strong? What does being strong even mean? Sure, you can provide support to those who need it, but even supportive people need support. That doesn’t make them any less strong, any to anyone who says otherwise, bask in your wrongness.