My husband has written a lot of articles on his own blog. He has a lot of passion for writing and mostly writes about spiritual stuff, esoteric, paranormal and things to do with self development. He wanted to share this one particular piece for my blog. It’s about the consequences of ignoring the part of you that craves self expression, about truly being yourself. I hope you enjoy it…

“Like I said before, I have always been a deep thinker of life. I love writing and the freedom of expression it allows. I love creating music, designing websites, drawing because I have always had that something inside me, that inner something we all have. You might call it your music or you might call it your inner artist. But I have always believed that we all posess that part of us that loves to express and share with the world.

I honestly do not know what form that may take with any of you, whether its writing, music or sculpting, the human imagination is vast and we cannot even begin to comprehend it’s size and vastness. Whether we are aware of it or not, our thoughts are what shape our reality. Yes, I know you might be thinking that I believe in the Law Of Attraction, and some of you might think that its all hocus-pocus. But thought is what shapes our world, the world we see on the outside. Life is the canvas to which we paint our thoughts and expression on and to surpress that expression is the greatest mistake we can ever make.

Surpression of expression is something so many of us do. Many of us have busy lives, are too busy being busy, caught up in the fast treadmill and frantic pace that is modern day living. As children the world was a wonder to us all, seeing all the colours, the shapes, nature itself. It was magic discovering everything for the first time. Then the world started becoming a habit and eventually we all grew so accustomed to life. We filled our lives up with obligations and commitments and there were moments when we felt that inner longing for something we had to do, that need to write, to play music or paint, whatever it may be. I know because I always ignored my inner longing to express myself through writing. I had a vivid imagination. I use to daydream a lot in school, never really paying attention to what was being said by the teacher in class. As I grew older, it felt like a big emptiness, that something was missing and that I could not put my finger on it. My thoughts would always wonder, keep me up at night. Eventually I began doing the worst thing anyone could do to numb it out, turning to addictions like alcohol and shopping (buying dumb shit I didnt need).

The most horrible thing any of us could possibly do was numb out that thing we felt eating inside us with alcohol or drugs or other addictions like shopping. It was alcohol and shopping with me because I had convinced myself, like so many of us do that it would replace that void in my life, that it would just drown out that thing that was eating away at me. You see, when you surpress what is inside you, your inner expression, it gives way to emotions like depression, sadness and any other negative feelings. Addictions develop as a result because we simply want to drown out what we are feeling inside. But, alcohol, drugs and any other addictions only offer a temporary escape. Eventually we have to face that thing inside that we are surpressing.

It might feel like we are facing inner demons. But our inner demons are, in fact, just our way of avoiding facing up to truths about ourselves. It was only when I began embracing my need to express and learning to do it through writing that those inner demons turned into angels and stopped plaguing me.

To truly find your own expression and show it to the world, you sometimes have to stop playing it safe all the time. You may sometimes have to soul search to find what it is that resonates with you truly. The simplest way is to find what it is you enjoy doing. Just remember, when you work hard at something you don’t care about, it creates stress in your life which can lead to all manner of bad habits that I mentioned earlier, alcohol, drugs, excessive spending, comfort eating. You know that you are on the wrong track, going the wrong way in life, out of balance and alignment.

But, if you work hard at something you love doing, something you really enjoy, it called passion. That could well be your inner expression, your inner music. You just have to use your instincts on this.

Once you have found your inner expression, your inner music, its a case of acting on your dreams. Many of us are held back by our fears. The fear of failure, the fear of what other people will think of us. So many of us were conditioned since birth to follow the all-to-familar-path in life, the linier path of going school, college, getting good grades, getting a job, getting married and settling down. Many of us don’t even want to rock the boat and upset anyone. So we put a mask on and show the world, society what it wants to see from us. If everyone was free from fear and could express themselves, people wouldn’t have so many of the problems they face in life and the world would be a better place if we were all not afraid of being ourselves.

Its only when you can overcome your fears, your limited thinking, that you open up a world of possibilities before you. Everyone fails at things, but I don’t believe there is such thing as failure. We only produce results. And I learned how not to worry about what others think. You can’t please everyone all the time and most of the time people are too preoccupied with their own dramas in life to even care. I’ve learned people will only care if you produce something that they see as value to their lives be it a product or service. But no successful person has ever worried about what other people think.

When you go with your own self expression, theres always the chance and possibility you’ll inspire others to do the same.

Supression of expression is a spiritual crime, the worst spiritual crime we can ever commit against ourselves and it is only when we start to embrace our need for expression that we can truly find the one thing we all want in life, happiness.”

Glenn Riley.