The Power of Opening Up Emotionally in Relationships

In a world where emotional expression is often stifled by societal norms and personal fears, the act of opening up emotionally can feel like an insurmountable challenge. Yet, this vulnerability is not merely a source of discomfort; it holds the key to deeper connections in our relationships. When we allow ourselves to share our innermost thoughts and feelings, we foster a profound sense of trust and understanding with those around us. The journey toward emotional openness requires courage and self-awareness, but the rewards are immeasurable—leading to healthier interactions and richer experiences.

As we navigate through life’s complexities, buried emotions can become daunting monsters that disrupt our peace and hinder genuine connection. Drawing from insights in psychology, such as David Richo’s reflections on childhood influences or Daniel Siegel’s perspectives on mental health, we begin to understand how vital it is to confront these hidden feelings. By recognizing the barriers we’ve built over time—from fear of judgment to learned avoidance—we open ourselves up not just for personal growth but also for nurturing intimate relationships that thrive on authenticity and empathy. Embracing this path may seem intimidating at first, yet each step taken towards emotional honesty brings us closer to thriving partnerships filled with warmth, understanding, and love.

Buried Emotion​

Feelings desperately avoided become fearsome monsters. They frighten us. When we repeatedly ignore and avoid emotions, emotional experiences create discomfort confusing and disrupting our life. As a child, we felt emotion, crying when discomforted; but when messages from the adult world, discouraged expressions of emotion, providing little or no guidance for processing discomfort, we dull experience and avoid feeling. We copy the examples, running from feelings, burying experience, and living buried in cold nonfeeling layers of logic.

David Richo, Ph.D., shares in his wonderful book Five Things We Cannot Change how his childhood experience impacted his relationship with emotion.

Richo wrote:

“I see a connection to my childhood, with anger being expressed in abusive, violent ways and so I become frightened by rage. My powerlessness in childhood now makes me afraid of healthy anger” (Richo, 2006).

Our childhoods may be a blessing or a curse to lifelong relationship with emotions. We learn from our parents skills of regulation, attunement, and openness; or numbing, avoidance and denial.

Vulnerability and Opening up Emotionally

We can’t run around emotionally open to the world. Unfortunately, many dishonor our openness, attacking vulnerabilities, and manipulating sensitivities. Those worthy of our openness attune to our feelings, reflect our experience, and embrace the connection. Others reject and ridicule, using intimate knowledge to hurt.

Charles Ford, a psychiatrist in Birmingham, Alabama and author of several books on human deceit explains that the young child is “unaware of how his or her demeanor and emotions are signaled to other persons.” Our emotional disclosures “can be used by others for manipulative purposes.” The person who does not learn this difficult lesson, and repeatedly exposes these vulnerabilities is “often prey to the unscrupulous.” He concludes that the child learns to protect themselves by presenting “a face to the world that is not necessarily accurate of the internal self” (Ford, 2004, p. 16).

There are times for emotional openness and times for protections. When we effectively learn a balance of expression and protection, we flourish in both dangerous and safe environments.

People don’t have descriptive tags for our examination. We don’t know who is safe and who is dangerous. Offering a window to our souls is a slow process of building trust. Accordingly, we must tentatively offer a few bits and pieces, cautiously watching if potential lovers and friends will cherish or abuse our guarded secrets.

Unfeeling Logic

As an adult, many of us live in the bleak greyness of words. The emotional outbursts of others ignite uncomfortable swirls that we rather not feel. We point and laugh, denigrating the empath as broken, not whole like the unfeeling monsters that we are.

​Logic is nice. It offers helpful insights to assist courageous voyages into the unknown. However, logic is only a single element of wisdom; left alone it fails. In addition to logic, we need emotions to guide. In dialectical behavior therapy, therapists refer to wise mind as using both the logical and emotional mind.

See Wise Mind for more on this topic

Emotional Openness and Relationships

Can we change this closed-hearted world? Are we destined to an existence where an emoji is the depth of emotional connection? We need much more than a cartoon smile to connect.

Ada Lampert wrote in her difficult to find book Evolution of Love that:

“Marriages in which the major emphasis is on the cortex would be dry, like accounting, in which loss and gain are the central issue. All warmth, emotion, and tenderness would be missing” (Lampert, 1997, p. 60).

Lampert also wrote:

“Our brain is a close-knit fabric of interlacing qualities that foster each other and turn each other on. Evolution, which takes its job seriously, builds a complex network of neural highways, which connect rationality to emotionality, desires to deliberation, eroticism to wisdom, so that optimal functioning is achieved in a human couple’s married life over many years” (Lampert, 1997, p. 104).

While these neural connections are crucial, they develop in varying degrees of strength, depending on our environments. Mindful attention to emotion aides the connection process. Giving attention to our feeling experience and empathetically attuning to our partners strengthens neuronal connection that utilize healthy emotion in decision making.

A Healthy Relationship With Our Own Emotions

​Daniel Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, explains:

“By developing the ability to focus our attention on our internal world, we are picking up a ‘scalpel’ we can use to re-sculpt our neural pathways, stimulating the growth of areas of the brain that are crucial to mental health” (Siegel, 2009).

Emotional openness begins with a conscious, compassionate relationship with our own emotional world, then we expand to the emotional world of others, and allowing a carefully selected safe group of others to intimately participate in our feeling experience of living. 

Building Emotional Openness in Intimate Relationships

Emotional openness is a cornerstone of strong and fulfilling intimate relationships. It allows for deeper connection, understanding, and trust. Here are some strategies to cultivate emotional openness:

1. Create a Safe Space:

• Open communication: Establish a culture of open and honest communication.
• Active listening: Practice active listening to show that you value your partner’s perspective.
• Empathy: Try to understand your partner’s feelings and experiences.

2. Express Yourself:

• Vulnerability: Share your thoughts, feelings, and fears honestly.
• Assertiveness: Share your wants and needs with your partner.
• Avoid defensiveness: Be open to feedback and criticism.
• Use “I” statements: Express your feelings without blaming or accusing your partner.

3. Practice Self-Reflection:

• Understand your emotions: Become more aware of your own emotional patterns and triggers.
• Challenge negative thoughts: Identify and challenge negative thought patterns that might hinder emotional openness.

4. Seek Professional Help:

• Therapy: A therapist can provide guidance and tools for improving emotional communication.

5. Patience and Practice:

• Build trust: Emotional openness takes time and effort. Be patient and consistent in your efforts.

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By implementing these strategies, you can foster a deeper level of emotional intimacy and connection in your relationships.

Associated Concepts

• Emotional Connection: This refers to a state of connection crucial for navigating personal desires and needs within a partnership. Emotionally connected couples support each other’s emotional experiences, fostering trust, compassion, and security.
• Self-Disclosure Theory: This theory addresses the benefits of revealing personal information, thoughts, or emotions to others. This can occur in various forms, such as verbal communication, body language, or written correspondence.
• Emotional Attunement: This refers to the process of recognizing one’s own and other people’s emotions.
• Emotional Validation: this refers to the act of recognizing, accepting, and affirming the emotions and feelings of another person. It involves actively listening to their experiences, acknowledging their emotions as valid, and expressing understanding and empathy towards their emotional state.
• Social Exchange Theory: This theory posits that individuals maintain relationships through an equitable cost-benefit analysis. The theory sees self-disclosure as a strategic exchange of information that can lead to rewards in relationships.
• Emotional Intimacy: This concept refers to an element in relationships vital for deep connections, fostering trust, vulnerability, and the ability to share thoughts and feelings openly. This connection plays a crucial role in building lasting relationships by enhancing understanding and empathy.
• Emotional Safety: this refers to the supportive environments where opening up about one’s emotions is safe.

A Few Words by Psychology Fanatic

We need more emotionally intimate connections, escaping the “me first” psychology and joining in a togetherness and belonging movement. Others are extremely important. Our mental health relies on healthy connections, not logical dismissals. We must bathe in the swirling world of emotions, seeking connections where emotional expression is acceptable. We can enhance our journey by expanding our emotional vocabularies, understanding the nuances of feeling, and social niceties of expression.

​The journey of sharing and giving through opening up emotionally connects our internal world to the internal world of others, supporting and validating each other during struggles and joys. We can engage in these intimacies without a frightening threat to our delicate ego. Emotions are important. We can, even as adults, explore the world of emotions. We can feel and enjoy the emotional ups and downs of living—connecting, sharing and exploring through emotional openness.

Last Update: October 17, 2024

Resources:

Ford, Charles V. (2004). Lying and Self-Deception in Health and Disease. Ivan Nyklícek, Lydia Temoshok, Ad Vingerhoets (eds.), in Emotional Expression and Health: Advances in Theory, Assessment and Clinical Applications.Routledge; 1st edition. ISBN-10: 1583918434; DOI: 10.4324/9780203484104
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Lampert, Ada (1997). The Evolution of Love. ​Praeger; First Edition. ISBN: 0275959074
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Richo, David (2006). The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them. ‎ Shambhala; Reprint edition. ISBN-10: 1590303083
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Siegel, Daniel J. (2009). Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation. Bantam. ISBN-10: 0553386395; APA Record: 2010-04183-000
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