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Why Speaking Up Still Feels Hard (But I Do It Anyway)
Because clarity is kindness—even when it’s uncomfortable.
Speaking up and expressing how I feel hasn’t always been easy for me.
To be honest, sometimes it still isn’t.
I often have to fight the urge to suppress it.
To brush it off.
To tell myself it’s not a big deal.
Half the time I’m still trying to figure out what I even feel—let alone how to say it.
In other words: my instinct is to avoid conflict.
I don’t think it was always that way, but somewhere along the line, I learned that expressing myself didn’t always feel safe.
Maybe you’ve seen this too:
People hold things in.
They stew.
They eventually blow up.
Or shut down.
And you’re left walking on eggshells, unsure of what just happened.
Most of us never saw healthy communication modeled.
Which is wild—because communication is something we need everywhere.
In school.
At work.
In friendships.
In marriage.
In family.
It affects everything.
But even though I hadn’t seen it done well, I always had this quiet belief:
There had to be a better way.
A way to express how you feel without losing connection.
A way to bring up the hard thing without burning the relationship down.
And when I learned that there’s actually a framework—a kind of emotional script—for these conversations, it changed everything.
It removed some of the fear.
Because the truth is, half the battle is knowing what to say.
How to:
Cut through the baggage
Stay focused on the present moment
Name what’s not working without making it a “you’re wrong, I’m right” situation
And ask for what you need
Even if your voice shakes.
💡Here’s a simple example:
Let’s say you’re feeling hurt by a significant other who dismissed something important to you.
Try this:
Start with care
→ “Hey, I want to talk about something—not to fight, but because I care about how we connect.”Share what happened
→ “Yesterday when I was telling you about work and you looked at your phone…”
🧠 Quick tip: Stick to what actually happened, not how you interpreted it.
Instead of saying, “You never listen” or “You clearly didn’t care,”
say something a camera could’ve recorded:
“You looked at your phone while I was talking.”
That keeps the other person from feeling accused, and helps them stay open.
Name how it made you feel
→ “...I felt kind of brushed off, like maybe what I was saying didn’t matter.”
💭 This is where it’s easy to slide into blame.
We start saying things like:
“You always do this.”
“You don’t care about me.”
“I guess I just care more than you.”
But those are judgments, not feelings.
Try naming the real emotion underneath: hurt, disappointed, disconnected, unseen.
The goal is to open the conversation—not shut it down.
Name what you need
→ “I know that might not have been your intention—but I’d love to feel more heard when I’m opening up like that.”
✨ Keep it simple. One clear ask.
This isn’t the time to unload every past frustration or fix the entire relationship dynamic.
Just focus on the one knot you’re trying to untangle—not the whole ball of yarn.
That’s it.
No big speech.
Just truth, gently shared.
I read this quote by Tim Ferriss years ago and it stuck with me:
“A person's success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations they’re willing to have.”
It’s true.
Jobs, boundaries, healing—they all start with something unspoken finally being said.
And it’s something I still strive toward.
Not because it’s easy, but because avoiding it just creates more distance.
More guessing.
More resentment.
For a lot of us, unhealthy communication is the root of so much pain—not just in relationships, but in how we see ourselves.
Learning to communicate clearly doesn’t mean we’ll never have tension.
But it does mean we’re giving ourselves a real chance at understanding.
At intimacy.
At peace.
I’m not perfect.
But I’m getting better.
And this has been the foundation.
🔁 Reset Moment
🫂 Soothing self-talk
“It’s okay if this feels hard. You’re learning how to show up for yourself.”
📺 Comfort rewatch
Anne of Green Gables (the original) — idealism, awkwardness, and a reminder that passion + honesty = connection, even when it’s messy.
🧠 Journal prompt
What’s one thing I’ve been holding in that might be worth saying—kindly?
See you next week.
And remember—you can always start over.
Even in the middle of a messy conversation. 💌
🫶🏽 Bina