Dear Fearful,

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had a moment when we had to hold back a comment, hold our tongue, because we were afraid.

We could have been afraid for a few different reasons. We could have been afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or because of the repercussions of saying what we really feel.

When it comes to being afraid of hurting someone’s feeling, this is a good reason to hold back what you really want to say, but it isn’t healthy for you or for the other person. The truth is always the way to go. Especially if this person means something to you, you have to tell them what you want. Whether it is our opinion on something or you need to talk to them about some problem in your relationship, you have to speak up.

It’s scary, and not everyone reacts well to things that they don’t want to hear, but it has to happen. Bottling up your opinions will just make you go crazy. If this person is really someone that you care for and appreciate, they will understand. They may be mad at you at first, but if they are really important to you and you to them, they will come back to you.

On the other hand, if you're afraid of speaking your mind because you are afraid someone won’t like you or because you think someone will never want to talk to you again, that’s fine. Let them go. If they are uncomfortable with someone having an opposing opinion or someone saying something that will make them upset, then that is their problem. Out in the real world, not everything is hidden or sugar coated. In a way, you will be preparing them for what they will have to face in the future. They owe you for that lesson.

It’s easy to be afraid of speaking your mind because you are shy or scared of what may happen, but those are just things that you will have to deal with. There will come times where you have no choice but to speak your mind because keeping it all in will become unbearable. When that happens, don’t run away from it. Embrace it.

Keeping things bottled up can make you distracted from your everyday life. For example, say you were fighting with someone and they just kept telling you all these things that you did wrong and you just stood there and listened. You would be thinking about all the things that you could have said to them for days. Instead, you could have told them how you really felt, and you at the very least would feel relieved to get all that anger off your chest. Speaking up may even lead to solving the problems you may have had with the person.

Everyone deals with this fear, some are just more experienced at it than others. How did they do it? By overcoming the uncomfortableness and just going for it. If you do the same, you may feel a great weight has been lifted off your shoulders. Words can carry a huge weight, the best thing you can do for yourself is say what you need to say.