The Weight of Words I Never Said

“Have you thought of seeking talking and sharing things?” She softly asked me. I blink. Clean the brain; it must have been a mistake. Nope. It remained.

The suggested was strange for me. I come from a family where we don’t discuss feelings. Pushing through is our love language; emotions are treated like passing clouds—just wait long enough and it will drift away by itself.

Figures don’t lie! Studies suggest emotional stress can push inflammation markers.

Yet we tend to brush it aside, instead focusing on step counts and calorie-tracking apps and “wellness” through numbers alone.

I’m looking at my prescription. This one is not for pills; it is for therapy sessions every week.

I wonder what it would be like to live differently. To have space for my feelings. To heal. To have a clear mind and actually enjoy life. To not just survive my days—living them.

But then, my thoughts wander back to my childhood upbringing. The raised eyebrows in my family when I try to share anything (especially about the things that I can’t do). The eye rolls, the “just get over it” mutterings in soft tones—I almost hear them right now. The dismissive sighs and “stay busy” and “don’t think too much” advice they thought was well-intended.

It is such little things that made me bottle it all up, I think to myself. But could it be that I’m holding onto a slow death of a coping mechanism? I fold the prescription. Up. Out. Dramatic, I tell myself. But later, lying in bed, the troubling thought remains.

I can, in fact, live life otherwise. A life, for example, in which my body do not suffer the burden of unsaid words. A certain somewhere I can just breathe in, otherwise the constant pressure on my chest. A place here, my body is not a field for the buried emotions. Is healing merely about overt symptoms? About counting your macros and logging your miles? I, for a long time, thought so.

However, I am beginning to question what wellness is and if, by that definition, health sits somewhere between the mind and the body rather than existing solely in protein shakes and workout plans.

Weeks later, I’m doing a great deal of reading about the mind-body connection. The instances are countless regarding how emotional healing has brought about physical relief.

That is, a recent one published, chronic stress can have a far-reaching effect on all bodily functions, right down to the immune system, cardiovascular system, and metabolic processes.

“Headaches ceased. Once emotional health was put into the equation, the physical ailments which had been with me for so many years began to fade away.”

“Talking about feelings made the difference. You’re not just worrying about superficial stuff; you’re hitting the root cause. You’re not going to get that with a pill. I also sleep better now.”

A very similar trend is happening around the world. More and more individuals are acknowledging the interrelated nature of mental health and physical health.

It makes sense, doesn’t it?

I started with the tiniest of steps. A journal kept by my bed became the first sounding board for my thoughts. Writing the words “I’m not okay” felt like the first awkward attempts at a new language, immensely foreign at first, until it slowly became more natural.

I found a communication approach whereby a person would designate their topics during the conversations:

green was for easy topics (stuff like stress at work or things that just annoy you throughout your day)
yellow for things that made you moderately uncomfortable (disappointments from childhood, relationship difficulties),
and red for the heavy duty stuff.

“Start with green. You wouldn’t run a marathon without training first.”

I dream of lightness. A body that does not carry yet instead bears the burden of unuttered words, unworthy of feeling; heavy silence brings a comfort so foreign. This silence is definitely a poor choice when life goes on and my sanity is at stake.

Wait for the good part. The root of the word ‘emotion’ is from the Latin word ‘emovere,’ which means ‘to move out’ and is something worth pondering.”

Feelings are not meant to remain stuck inside. They are to be let go like flowing water.

I trained myself to start comments with “I notice…” not “I feel…” That was somehow less vulnerable. A statement like “I notice I get headaches when work deadlines pile up” soon found its way to my “I feel overwhelmed.”

Baby steps. I practiced my bathroom mirror, and then people whom I really trusted: one close friend, my sister, who already sensed when something was off anyway.

It’s an odd feeling. The realization that, for the very first time, he is almost free, living the life he wants for himself with no nagging sense of fighting his own body, should have been the only matter he was concerned about. But there comes the moment in his thoughts when he wonders just what it would feel like to live differently from his family and everything else he knows.

The breakthrough came during moments when expecting was the farthest thing from my mind.

When I finally told her those “just get over it” comments made me feel broken, and rather than being defensive, she began to tell her story—an untold one of her struggles with anxiety.

Healing is wonderful because it is never dependent. Healing is a series of choices. Decisions concerning leaving things behind that do not serve me anymore and stepping into possibilities.

Healing means making my peace with the past and having faith in a bright, different, unfamiliar, and entirely my own future. By respecting what I have felt, I will not only ascend into wellness but also find the space to begin living.

…

Start a journal—a place for your thoughts where you can find total honesty.

The traffic light system: green topics are easy to talk about.

Talk to your animals or practice in front of a mirror.

Start talking using “I notice…” and eventually work up to “I feel…”.

Find your safety person—someone who makes you feel accepted.

Share when doing parallel activities: walking, driving, cooking, where eye contact is not necessary.

Words are going to stumble out here and there. Perfection is not the goal here; progress is the goal.

Make smaller steps: one honest conversation a week, even if it is “I had a bad day.”.

Consider getting professional help—therapists are like personal trainers for emotions.

The journey of a thousand words begins with a single “I’m not okay.” And that’s perfectly okay.

…