Let all your emotions out. Why is it important to express them? Because there are so many side effects of not doing so.

First, it is not good for your emotional and mental health to be repressing your emotions.

It is also not good for your relationships. A failure to express yourself, set boundaries and stand up for ourselves results in people treating you like a doormat.

And if that’s not bad enough, not expressing your emotions leads to physical illnesses. Research indicates that there is a direct correlation between an inability to express our emotions or say no and certain illnesses. You can read all about this in Dr Gabor Maté’s book “When the Body says No.”

Sadly, when one person in a family has poor emotional intelligence, it has a huge impact on everyone.  Trauma gets passed from generation to generation.

If you had a parent who was uncomfortable with certain emotions, they may have punished you for expressing anger. Or threatened you with “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” It’s not their fault. It is probably what they heard growing up from their unhealthy parents.

As a result you learned that your emotions were not acceptable and perhaps you suppressed them. You may have dissociated yourself from them, so that you are no longer even aware of feeling them. But your nervous system is aware.

Depending on your style of adapting yourself to appease your parent, the suppressed emotions will have a variety of outcomes. We all have our own ways of coping.

In some people, when an emotion such as anger has been suppressed, it comes out later. It may appear in huge outbursts of rage, or even violence. Repressed sadness will turn into depression.

Other people turn their anger or sadness in on themselves and that is when illnesses such as cancer or autoimmune diseases occur.

Still others look outside of themselves for some form of medication such as alcohol or drug addiction.

Healthy ways to Express your Emotions

Thankfully, there are healthy ways to express your emotions. You can journal, do vigorous exercise, talk to a counselor or coach who will hold a safe space for you, and learn better communication skills.

In his book “The Body Keeps the Score” Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk talks about many solutions and identifies Yoga as the single most effective cure for trauma.

Finally, if you are a parent of one or more small children, allowing them to express their emotions will save you, them and their descendants from all kinds of emotional, mental and physical problems.

Matt Nettleton of The Centre for Healing says that he taught his toddlers to stamp and roar when they feel angry. Rather than punish them for expressing their emotions he helps them by stamping and roaring right along with them.

Whether we are children or adults we all need to feel what we feel and let all our emotions out.

You don’t need a coach.

Nobody actually needs one. That might be a bit surprising for those of you who know I’m a coach. Hear me out.

Nobody needs a fancy car, like a shiny new BMW i7 or a Lexus ES, but I bet you or someone you know, owns one. What does it give people? It makes them feel good about themselves and it makes them stand out as someone who is successful and significant. But appearances can be deceiving. Many of the people (not all) who drive fancy cars secretly doubt themselves. I’m often amazed to hear my successful clients say that deep down they feel “Not good enough.” The BMW or Lexus is a great way to feel good about yourself while having fun, but coaching is more effective on your inner self.

Coaching can help you feel great about yourself and empower you to be even more successful, while ridding you of that feeling of “not being enough’ for ever. You won’t need a fancy car – but you can still drive one!

Nobody needs cosmetic botox (unless it’s being used for rehabilitation purposes). But it can give people a huge boost of confidence in their appearance, so they can boldly present to an audience and seem young and relevant. And it feels like self care. But again appearances can be misleading. Hiding behind that perfect face there is often someone who feels insecure about themselves.

Coaching can empower you to feel confident and not care what anybody thinks. You learn to love everything about yourself. The glow you get from coaching is shining out from the authentic version of you.

So no, you don’t need a coach to survive. But it can help you in authentic and permanent ways to feel confident, successful and unstoppable. And depending on the coach, it’s usually a lot more affordable than a fancy car or Botox.

If I had to choose between a fancy car, regular botox or coaching, I know I would choose coaching every time. How about you?

What skill would you like to have one year from today?

One year ago the thought of running a half marathon was the furthest thing from my mind. I had never been a runner at all!!

This year there is an entry on my Google Calendar on the 1st September that says ‘Start training for half marathon.’ And the good news is I have already started running.

Last Saturday I went for a run and it was raining and muddy. On Wednesday I went out at lunch time and it was too hot. It felt hard and I wondered how I would ever manage a half marathon in the Caribbean by December.

But then I remembered that last year I had only thought of doing a half marathon on the 9th September. By coincidence there was a weekly running class starting the next day. I only signed up for the race once I had been running for many weeks. I didn’t know if I could complete the half marathon.

And now I have all the techniques from the class, right from the start of this year’s training. This Saturday I went out for over an hour and it felt doable. I am confident that I can do a half marathon.

It is the same with every skill we want to acquire. All we have to do is learn the techniques, put in the practice and watch our progress over time. We humans are so funny.

Whenever we’ve never done something before we think we can’t do it. We convince ourselves that we lack the talent.

Humans are incredible. Almost as soon as we’re born we start learning our mother tongue. We don’t have the advantage of learning from a text book or being able to use a dictionary. By the age of one we understand everything our parents say to us. And by the time we are two we are completely fluent.

It is the same with walking. Babies have to learn how to walk. At first they need to hold on to furniture and cruise around the room. They fall over a lot. It is true they get frustrated but nobody ever gives up saying “I’m just not good at walking,” unless they have an actual disability.

But then again people with disabilities are sometimes so determined that they end up doing awe inspiring things that other people can’t do such as driving without arms. So that goes to show that we can do anything we set our minds to.

Even highly skilled tasks like driving a manual car to get from A to B without crashing feels hard when we first learn. But once we have learned driving is super easy.

So what skill would you like to start learning today and be competent in one year from now?

You really are braver than you think! Remember all the things you’ve been through and survived. It required courage to deal with them and grow from them.

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you know that my sister and mother died within 5 weeks of each other. When that happened I saw a side of myself that I had rarely seen before. I took the lead in making arrangements for the funerals and other tasks that needed doing. It took courage to do all that. And to stand up in front of people and sing at my sister’s funeral.

My parent’s house was crammed full of memories. I was tireless in taking as much as I could to our house nearby. Later I stuck up 80 of their paintings and photos on our walls to remember them by. My husband and children were not so keen on our house becoming a shrine to my family. But it was necessary for me in order to process my grief.

Then when the pandemic hit and my bank account went from 6 figures to $0. So I decided to become an online coach. As a result of that brave decision I have developed both professionally and personally.

I am sure you’ve had situations where you needed to step up and take bold actions. You may have bravely spoken up for yourself in the face of bullying. Maybe you took on a job that you didn’t feel ready to do. Or perhaps you have moved to a new country or made significant changes in your life. These things take courage. I repeat you are braver than you think.

In all that you are facing now, you already have what you need inside of you. You are brave enough, strong enough and have the necessary skills and talents. And if you would like any support with anything, I would encourage you to reach out and speak with a coach. Not just any couch – The Courageous Coach!! It’s what I’m here for. And it may just be what you need to make the changes you long for.

I aim to do one courageous thing per day.

Yesterday I drove a huge vehicle on the right side of the road, which is the wrong side for me. We are on vacation in Portugal so it was in a location we had never been before.

My husband was navigating, using his phone. He kept talking over the voice that was giving instructions so I couldn’t hear them properly. Sometimes he even disagreed with the instructions!

At one point he told me to go down a street that was for people going in the opposite direction. I could see the road markings, so I refused to go down it.

Then a few seconds later he told me to pull out onto a roundabout but he didn’t notice there were cars coming towards us. And again I didn’t take his advice!

One difficulty for me is that my mother brought me up to always obey my husband. So I really have to consciously remind myself to question his advice. When I do remember, the result is usually that I do the opposite of what he is telling me.

The other difficulty is that he has a habit of speaking with so much authority that I find it hard to question his advice. But I have noticed that more often than not he gets his advice wrong.

In the end I told him I didn’t need him to navigate, as I can read the signs and I wanted to hear the voice giving me instructions on the phone. That led to the challenge that I actually need to pay attention every time I drive the car!

Throughout my life I have been so used to receiving advice, that I still sometimes fail to think for myself! Can you relate to this? Let’s not worry about it too much. As long as we are doing one courageous thing per day we are making progress one day at a time. I encourage you in your journey of courage. If you want a call with me you can book it here.