As a Man, I Was Taught to Suppress Everything… It Almost Broke Me

I am just a guy who realized from a young age that suppressing emotions was something I learned from the environment I grew up in. Growing up I suppressed everything, that's just how I coped.

 But it was only when I reached my 20's after I graduated that I realized it was a cruel lie to suppress everything. I made a conscious decision back then to go against everything I learned. 

Before I suppressed emotions but on  that day I made a decision to go deep and release my emotions. I am a guy so growing I learned that it was a "wimpy" stigma to express emotions as a guy like it was some kind of weak thing. 

But by the time I was 20 I had had enough of the anxiety, fear and self destructive behaviours I had become because of the buried emotions within me. So that's what I started, I started to do shadow work. 

I didn’t know the term shadow work at the time but that's what i began to do, somehow i felt there was some kind of truth within me but deep down under layers of anger, sadness and shame and fear. Intuitively i knew that that was where my truth lied because nothing made sense. 

Fast forward 20 years, I am in my 40's now and I am still processing these emotions that keep coming up  within me. One thing I've learned with shadow work is that it can be a long life journey. There is definitely no quick fix. Healing takes its time. I am still striving to feel whole to this day.