Mess or Unexpressed?
I'm not a mess. I'm unexpressed.
9/30/20242 min read
Sometimes I feel like a “hot mess.” It feels like I’m exploding all over, my emotions over run me and there out to be a very large caution sign in front of me with the words, “Not fit for human consumption.” It’s like I’m exploding all over the place. I feel uncontained.
But what if this feeling wasn’t a mess? What would it be then?
Unexpressed.
See, when we have something to express and it gets bottled in, it can’t help but come out in other ways. Whether that’s anger, joy, grief, frustration, or hot desire, if it’s bubbling under the surface rather than fully felt and expressed, it’s going to cause some perceived messiness.
And let it be messy!
When I first began my journey of expression, all I felt was deep shame and falling apart. I couldn’t even tell you that I needed to express. I just did in short burts of “messiness.” These expressions would look like manic episodes of creativity, rants to the wrong people, and sometimes just huddling up all by myself because I felt too much shame to share what was happening inside of me.
At the begining of this journey I simply wanted to make an ugly sound. I sought out a safe place to do so because, as my voice teacher put it, “In opera, we don’t make ugly sounds,” and this wasn’t an expansion, but a shutting down. You must only make certain sounds and they must be pretty.
In this safe place, I asked for exactly that, for it to be okay to make an ugly sound. I did. I made every sound I could make at that time. I was supported by those watching without judgment. At the end of my messy, ugly expression a woman said to me, “Darling, I know you think many of those sounds were ugly, but I’m here to tell you: you can’t make an ugly sound.”
Freedom! Those words stayed with me, and didn’t fully sink in until much later. From that place, though, I felt permission to speak my truth even it it wasn’t perceived as “kind.” But what’s kind about holding that all in?
When I began to express, it was messy. Gloriously so! I burned a lot of bridges. I said things that weren’t nice. Ultimately, those who were right for me are still around. They couldn’t help but be because I was in my truth. I spoke my words from alignment with who I am. Ultimately, my unexpressed anger, frustration, annoyance was kind and loving because I felt that truly I was kind an loving. I couldn’t make an ugly sound.
Sometimes that’s all we can do to let out expression out again. Blow up! Explode! Run naked in the fields! Do what your body wants to do.
Then speak. Sing. Let it all out. Be joyful! Be angry! Be juicy! Be the fullest expression of you.
