PLAYING ‘COWARD’
“Welcome to this calm and chaotic place, it’s barely calm though, mostly chaotic, filled with conflicts; conflicts that barely get resolutions. They just come, give me so much anxiety, stress me out, and instead of fixing them, I just match on to another conflict, leaving the previous one and hoping that some invisible power will solve it. I honestly don’t know if I should actually be welcoming you into this place because, trust me, I don’t think you’d want to come in. it’s a mess, but believe it or not, it’s also my haven. HOW IRONIC AND PARADOXICAL! Yeah I know, but it is what it is, and what this is, is a movie comprised of so many scenes in my head, where I get to play the role of a loud coward.”
“As a guy who’s dogged, tenacious and with the melancholy-choleric temperament, best believe I’ll get work done before you say ‘jack Robinson’, it is in my nature, if only I could apply this strength into fixing up the emotional mess lying around in my head. My mind is like a warzone filled with emotional bullets coming left, right and center. I still don’t understand how I haven’t dropped dead (not literally) from receiving so many bullets. AMAZING!
“In reality I am the coward, and everyone else I know and relate with are the strong and bold ones. You see, there’s a cage you’re unknowingly put into when you start thinking that expressing your emotions is classified as being weak or being a coward. You drown yourself in so much work and activities, acting bold and confident about your abilities, without a pause, and to people, it’s like you’re the most fearless person they know because you are a risk taker or because you seem tough. But unfortunately, that isn’t the case, it’s just a front, a mask, and people don’t seem to understand that. Once that mask falls off, you’ll see a broken bold coward. A coward who is so scared to take probably one of the most important risk ever. Once that mask falls off, you’ll see me”
People express their brokenness, inability to show and articulate emotions in an up-tight way, and most times, it boomerangs because in a bid to seclude these emotions — by acting tough, acting bold or confident in a way that comes off as too much, they eventually make their fears as loud as a roaring lion.
One of my mentors, someone I really admire, explained something — that a lot of people need to get rid of that idea that expressing emotions equates to being weak or a coward, she also explained that we humans need to understand that these emotions are a part of us, and rather than being scared to express them, we should always try to be in control of them and not the other way around. We can feel, express and articulate these emotions and still be in control of them, it doesn’t have to be one at a time.
“Right there is what I was lacking — basic emotional orientation and understanding. My fears have always been so evident, it’s just no one ever noticed. I just wasn’t ready to do all that mushy stuff people do and call it “expressing emotions”. In my head, I asked loudly “Why do I NEED TO EXPRESS EMOTIONS AND WHY DO I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THEM? And before I even got an answer, I already said a resounding ‘NAHH’ in my head. My dictionary explains cowardice as ‘lack of courage’. It doesn’t say lack of courage to do a particular thing, it just says ‘lack of courage’, this meaning makes me understand how much of a chicken I have been in regards to the one of the important attributes that makes me human — my emotions”
Being a coward doesn’t always mean you’re scared to only do the typical and conventional things people would be scared to do. Expressing your emotions is such a big deal and a lot of educated folks still don’t understand that. For some, it isn’t so hard to express, but for a lot of people, it requires a lot of effort and strength, like;
*For those who feel scared to express and articulate emotions because they fear being vulnerable. The problem is about the fact that some of these people wish to be vulnerable to someone, but fear clamps their will and eventually defeats them.
“I have always been evasive and dismissive when it comes to being in tune with my feelings, it’s like I have been living life in reverse; thinking I was the happiest and most courageous person I know, when in reality I was just trying to cover up the real problem — I was too scared to deeply feel my emotions, too scared to understand that these emotions are a part of me and I can’t shy away from them forever.
For instance, I now understand that vulnerability is like a gamble, I can only hope for the best and the best would be that the person I choose to be vulnerable to, appreciates and doesn’t break that trust. Which brings me to the issue; trust. The saying ‘no man is an island’ couldn’t be truer, because fact is you’ll always need people at some point, and while it is important to trust no one, it is also somewhat important to trust someone. I understand that humans can be really unreliable and won’t always come through for you, and that’ll always be at the back of my head, even whilst trusting.”
Shout out to those who understand what it means to express emotions, shout out to those who are still figuring how to go about it(you’ve got this), shout out to those who are helping people figure out this thing. You all are the realest!! So, keep maintaining that title!
