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Why do we lie when they ask us if we are wrong?
Psychology
Shame, fear of rejection or not understanding what we feel stops us from expressing it to others
Not everyone has the same facility to express how they feel. Shame, or the fear of not being understood and of rejection, means that, even if something burns inside, it cannot be shared with others. Even when someone asks directly if we are okay, they can lie, and pretend nothing happens.
There may be multiple reasons for us to “hide” our feelings. The most common, indicates Rafael San Román, a psychologist for the ifeel platform, usually have to do with need to preserve our privacy (We do not want others to be aware of our discomfort), the need to appear normal and strength. Inside the fortress, the psychologist explains that you must have
Take into account several things: «The reason may be that, if we are down in front of an adversary, we do not want him to know that we are more vulnerable than normal. At other times, maybe we are bad but we have someone in front of us who is worse and then we make an effort to “appear” normal.
The difficulty of accepting how we feel
The reasons for not expressing how we feel with others are not always rooted in the fear of exposing ourselves, but also in our inner care. It may be difficult for us to talk about it, because we do not finish accepting how we feel ourselves. “Sometimes we do not want to share it with another person because we do not want it to overwhelm us,” says San Román, who adds that it may also happen that we do not want to worry others, or “we cannot allow ourselves to share what happens to us. which would make us connect with that emotion – because there are other more urgent tasks to attend to and we decided that it is a priority to put aside what we are feeling ».
Are we ashamed that others know that we are not well?
There are many reasons why it can be difficult for us to explain to others how we feel, and one of them is the feeling of shame. Rafael San Román, a psychologist for the ifeel platform, comments that in general, this shame depends on the trust we have with the person we are talking to, as well as the trust they transmit to us. “Although it is essential to have healthy interpersonal relationships, it is not always easy to show others our vulnerability because we confuse it with ‘weakness’, which is a distorted way of seeing things,” explains the professional.
It is easy to realize that, in general, it is always negative feelings and emotions that generate difficulty to be shown. «Positive emotions are expansive and difficult to repress. We tend to share them and we want to do so, it is always uncomfortable to be very happy about something and not have anyone to tell it to, “says the psychologist, who sums it up by saying that it could be said that these expressions” come out alone “because of their spontaneity.
In general, it is difficult to keep a secret that we are very happy, excited or proud. On the other hand, the same does not happen with negative emotions. San Román comments that we can hide with some ease that we are afraid, that we are melancholic or that something has made us wrong and we are angry. “It is true that anger is also expansive but it can be experienced with a certain coldness in emotion,” he adds. He also comments that fear and sadness are quite inhibitory at the behavioral level and these emotions make us more introspective. “One of the functions of sadness is, through its expression, to inform the other that we are not well to promote their support,” he says. It also addresses the idea of feeling guilt, a difficult feeling to share, as this implies admitting that we have made a mistake or that we have hurt someone or ourselves.
Tips to fearlessly explain how we feel
In order to begin to overcome these difficulties or fears, and to be able to express to others how we feel, according to Rafael San Román, the first step is «take time to process what’s going on inside of us; be patient with ourselves. We must also understand that it is necessary to feel compelled to share or confess our state of mind, especially with a person who does not make us feel comfortable or transmit security. Likewise, the psychologist reminds us that it is important not to feel obliged to tell everything: «We can tell only part of it and leave to our inner heart what is most uncomfortable or that, directly, we have not yet been able to put into words even to ourselves ».
As a final piece of advice, he recommends that, if it is difficult for us to explain what is happening to us, but we feel that it would be good for us to do so, «we can choose one or two people who we feel will be understanding of that particular topic». Remember that “we must not shout from the rooftops or summon a hundred people for help and listen”: rather, with one or two people who are there to help us, we will feel that we have the support we were looking for.