Why Do We Encourage Self-Expression Of Others And Not Of Ourselves?

There is something quite interesting about the way we encourage other people to be themselves.

We tell our friends to speak their mind.

We tell our children to be confident.

We tell someone who is changing careers to follow what they really want.

We admire the person who walks into a room and seems completely comfortable being exactly who they are.

We even encourage people to stop worrying so much about what everyone else thinks.

Yet somehow, when it comes to ourselves, many of us become much more careful.

We think before we speak.

We question whether something is too much.

We wonder what people will think.

We edit the story.

We soften the opinion.

We hold back the excitement.

We change our clothes because someone might think they look strange.

We stop ourselves from pursuing something because we cannot explain it properly to other people.

We can see the value of self expression very clearly in everyone else.

So why is it so difficult to give ourselves the same freedom?

We often recognise authenticity more easily in other people

It is so refreshing to meet someone who does not seem to be performing.

They laugh when something is funny.

They say what they actually think.

They have interests that are not necessarily fashionable.

They wear what they like.

They change their mind.

They admit when they do not know something.

They are not constantly checking whether their behaviour is acceptable to everyone around them.

We often describe these people as confident.

But confidence is not always what we are seeing.

Sometimes we are simply seeing someone who never negotiated with themselves over every little part of who they are.

That is very different.

Research into authenticity has repeatedly connected feeling able to be your true self with greater wellbeing, life satisfaction and stronger relationships.

Yet many of us have spent years learning how to become acceptable rather than learning how to become ourselves.

That distinction matters.

Somewhere along the way we learned to edit ourselves

Most people do not wake up one morning and decide that they are going to suppress their personality.

It usually happens gradually.

Someone laughs at the way you speak.

Someone tells you that your clothes are unusual.

Someone dismisses an idea you were excited about.

Someone tells you that you are too sensitive.

Someone makes you feel foolish for caring about something.

Someone repeatedly questions your decisions.

You start correcting yourself before anyone else has the opportunity.

You become your own editor.

You learn what parts of yourself receive approval and what parts create discomfort.

Then you begin showing people the version of yourself that feels safest.

This is one reason self expression can become complicated.

It is not always about having nothing to say.

Sometimes it is about having learned that saying what you really think comes with a cost.

We give other people permission that we do not give ourselves

Think about how easily we can see someone else making a brave decision.

A friend says she wants to leave a job that makes her unhappy.

We tell her to go for it.

A friend wants to start a business.

We tell her she has nothing to lose.

A friend wants to dress differently.

We tell her that she looks amazing.

A friend wants to move somewhere new.

We tell her that life is too short to stay somewhere that no longer feels right.

Then our own turn comes.

Suddenly the questions begin.

What if it does not work?

What will people think?

Is this really sensible?

Am I being unrealistic?

Should I wait?

Maybe I should do something more practical.

Maybe I am asking for too much.

The standards change completely when the person making the decision is us.

We become the person who needs convincing.

We are often more compassionate towards other peoples uncertainty

This is one of the stranger contradictions of human behaviour.

We can look at another person who is struggling and immediately understand the bigger picture.

We can see that they are tired.

We can see that they have been carrying too much.

We can understand why they are frightened.

We can recognise that one mistake does not define them.

We can tell them that they deserve another chance.

But when we make the mistake, suddenly the story becomes very different.

We should have known better.

We should have handled it differently.

We should have been further ahead by now.

We should not have allowed ourselves to get into this position.

The compassion disappears.

The judgement arrives.

And when you repeatedly speak to yourself this way, self expression becomes harder because expressing yourself requires a certain level of trust in your own judgement.

If you do not trust yourself, every decision becomes something that needs approval.

There is also the fear of being misunderstood

This is something people do not always talk about.

Sometimes we are not afraid of expressing ourselves.

We are afraid that somebody will misunderstand what we are expressing.

You can explain yourself perfectly and someone can still decide that you are arrogant.

You can be honest and someone can call you difficult.

You can set a boundary and someone can decide that you have changed.

You can be enthusiastic and someone can think you are trying too hard.

You can be quiet and someone can assume that you have nothing to say.

There is no version of yourself that will be interpreted correctly by everyone.

That is an uncomfortable truth.

We cannot control the meaning another person gives to our behaviour.

We can only decide whether the way we are living feels honest to us.

We have become very good at managing perception

Modern life has made this even more complicated.

We have more opportunities than ever to express ourselves, but we also have more opportunities to be watched, judged and compared.

Social media is an obvious example.

People can choose what they show, when they show it and who gets to see it. Research from Pew Research Center found that people who are highly engaged with social media describe a wide range of approaches to authenticity, from showing almost everything to deliberately separating their online identity from their offline identity.

That is not necessarily a bad thing.

We are allowed to have privacy.

We are allowed to be selective.

We are allowed to change depending on the situation.

The problem begins when the edited version becomes the only version we feel safe enough to show.

Eventually you can become so accustomed to managing how you appear that you lose touch with how you actually feel.

You know what looks right.

You know what sounds right.

You know what other people expect.

But you are no longer completely sure what you want.

Self expression does not mean saying everything

There is an important distinction here.

Being authentic does not mean telling everyone everything.

It does not mean having no filter.

It does not mean being deliberately controversial.

It does not mean refusing to consider other peoples feelings.

It does not mean turning every private thought into a public announcement.

Self expression is not about making yourself the centre of every room.

It is about allowing yourself to have a self.

You can be thoughtful and still be honest.

You can be private and still be authentic.

You can listen to other people without abandoning your own opinion.

You can change your mind without feeling that you have betrayed yourself.

You can choose not to explain yourself.

You can also choose to say exactly what you mean.

The point is that the decision should belong to you.

Perhaps the real question is not why we struggle to express ourselves

Perhaps the better question is this.

When did we start believing that every part of ourselves needed to be approved before it could be expressed?

Because that is often what is happening underneath the surface.

We wait for permission.

Permission to take up space.

Permission to have an opinion.

Permission to change direction.

Permission to want something different.

Permission to admit that something no longer works for us.

Permission to be interested in something that other people do not understand.

Permission to become someone we have not been before.

And the uncomfortable part is that the person we are waiting for may never arrive.

There may never be a moment when everyone agrees.

There may never be a moment when nobody questions you.

There may never be a point where your decision is completely free from risk.

At some point, you have to decide what you are willing to stand behind.

Start giving yourself the advice you give everyone else

This may be one of the simplest ways to begin.

The next time you are talking to someone you care about, listen to the advice you give them.

If you tell them that they deserve to be happy, ask yourself whether you believe the same thing about yourself.

If you tell them that they should stop worrying about other peoples opinions, ask yourself why their opinions still have so much power over you.

If you tell them that they are capable, ask yourself where you have decided that you are not.

If you tell them that one mistake does not define them, stop using your own mistakes as evidence against yourself.

If you encourage someone else to express who they are, consider what part of yourself you have been asking to stay quiet.

That question can tell you a lot.

Because perhaps self expression is not something we need to learn from the beginning.

Perhaps it is something we need to stop interrupting.

You do not need to become a completely different person

There is no requirement to suddenly become fearless.

You do not need to become louder.

You do not need to become more outgoing.

You do not need to reinvent yourself.

You may simply need to become a little less edited.

Say what you actually think when it is appropriate.

Wear the thing you keep putting back in the wardrobe.

Admit that you want something.

Stop pretending that something does not matter to you when it does.

Allow yourself to be interested.

Allow yourself to change.

Allow yourself to have preferences that do not need a committee meeting.

Allow yourself to be seen by the people who matter.

And accept that being yourself will not make you universally liked.

That was never the deal.

The point of self expression is not to make everyone approve of you.

It is to stop abandoning yourself in the hope that they will.

Perhaps we spend so much time encouraging other people to be themselves because we recognise something in them that we have forgotten to recognise in ourselves.

The freedom we admire in someone else may be the freedom we have been denying ourselves.

And maybe the next time we tell someone else to be more themselves, we should quietly ask ourselves one question.

Am I allowing myself to do the same?