Written By: Che Marville
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to know exactly what everyone else needs and have absolutely no idea what you need yourself?
Most of us are experts on the people we love, or like, or sometimes barely know. We notice when our partner is withdrawn, when our child is struggling, or when a friend isn’t quite themselves. We interpret the behaviour of those around us with great precision, and yet when someone asks how we are really doing, we go blank, or we say to ourselves, “It’s too much to share.”
That is not a character flaw. This occurs because we were never taught to check in on ourselves in the same way that we check in on others.
For many of us, it goes deeper than that. It is about spending a lifetime apologizing for how we feel so often and for so long that we eventually stuff it down. When we do that long enough, we lose something precious. We lose the vocabulary of our pain, and even our own joy. We have no capacity for self-compassion.
After reading the messages from listeners of my podcast, Let’s Talk with Che Marville, I noticed something. People rarely want to talk about politics or leadership. It is always about relationships, and what those messages have taught me is this: most unhappiness in relationships does not come from a lack of love. It comes from a lack of self-knowledge. We bring our unexamined fears into our marriages and relationships. Our unspoken needs are in our friendships. We carry our past traumas into our fresh starts, and then we wonder why the same problems keep showing up wearing different faces, as we often fail to address our unspoken needs and unresolved old wounds in our friendships.
We have also been taught that emotions are a sign of weakness and a lesser intelligence, when in fact the opposite is true. Understanding the vastness of your interior life is a superpower.
That grief should be brief. That anger is the only acceptable signal that something is wrong, but sometimes anger is expressed instead of deep sadness, because you don’t know how to sit with the hurt; it has to be moved.
Sometimes a deeply felt emotion is fear and grief, an aching to be heard. and to be held, but there is no one there to help us. Some of us have been taught to hide our emotions so no one can hurt us, but instead we hurt more because of what we cannot name or release and find ourselves in a prison of loneliness.
Our emotions are not against us; they are an internal and intricate health system, the carriers of our journeys, the paths to a deeper understanding of our stories, and without our story, we trap ourselves in a myth that does not belong to us. The myth suggests that a perfect life is one that is not experienced emotionally.
The truth is this: “Life is imperfect, and it is meant to be deeply felt.”
Something to consider until next time.
Most of us were handed a few words to describe how we feel, whether we are happy, sad, angry, fine, or tired. This week, try expanding that. When something moves through you, pause and ask, “What is this, really?” Not the first word that comes. The true one. You may be surprised by what you find beneath it. That is where your power lives.
This column will explore love, relationships, grief, anxiety, and the quiet work of knowing yourself more honestly. Not to give you easy answers, but to sit with you in the real questions.
Do you have a question about love, relationships, grief, or the work of knowing yourself? Write to Ask Che! through the Toronto Caribbean Newspaper. All letters are held in complete confidence.
You don’t have to carry it alone.
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