Feeling you have to keep your true feelings to yourself, when you are in the company of others, can be exhausting, depressing and dispiriting. With family it can feel like there is no possibility of speaking your mind openly, that you have to keep replying to questions of how you are, in a false and inauthentic way. You nod and smile and move the conversation around in what looks like a cheerful manner, when all the time you are really feeling terrible underneath. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you stopped playing out the charade and just spoke the truth about your feelings. Imagine the feeling of liberation. Keeping the truth in mind requires no energy at all. It is lying and keeping up the pretence that exhausts us.
