Should You Open Yourself Up and Share With More People?

Are you ready to break free and thrive, regardless of external situations?

Then stop being stingy with yourself and others.

You heard me.

You may think you’re the most generous person in the world, but if you’re feeling alone, deprived and unfulfilled, that means you’re not sharing enough.

I don’t mean that you’re not sharing resources and caring. What I’m saying is that you’re not sharing your dreams/intentions/goals enough.

The only way we create our lives is through conversation. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re always having a conversation with yourself. Sometimes it’s a helpful conversation and sometimes it’s self-defeating, but it’s always going on in the background.

When was the last time you took a moment to declare your goals to yourself in a powerful and intentional way? How often does your background conversation support those intentions, dreams and aspirations? If you’re human, it’s probably not as often as you’d like, and definitely not as often as needed to be effective in reaching your goals.

That’s why it’s also important to share your goals with others. Not just anyone, but someone, or a group of people, who have earned your trust.

Secrets can be useful in many ways.

When it comes to national security, for example, certain secrets keep people from hacking into various systems and shutting down the power grid or something equally bad.

Secrets also can make room for surprises. You can’t throw a good surprise party for someone if you don’t make secret plans and keep that someone out of the loop.

But secret-keeping can become habitual. Things that don’t need to be secret become closely guarded, and you share less and less. Before you know it, you’re a mystery to most who encounter you.

This, unfortunately, can lead to a bigger issue. The more secrets you keep, the more closed you become. When you become more closed, you start to be a mystery not just to those who encounter you – but also to yourself.

You have secrets nobody else needs. Hence, you shouldn’t share your bank account number, SSN, PINs, passwords, and so on.

When you approach this from a less literal notion of sharing – it’s time to talk about mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

It is still incredibly taboo to discuss mental health matters with others. There is a stigma attached to sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and other greater and lesser mental health issues. You might be loathe to share if you’re in therapy, taking an antidepressant or antianxiety medication. It’s often implied – if not stated outright – that to share with more people is to make yourself more vulnerable.

And that’s the rub. Nobody wants to be vulnerable. Why? Because being vulnerable makes you an easier target for derision, ridicule, shame, and more.

Or does it? What if opening yourself to share with more people – and the vulnerability that comes with that – is actually empowering?

When you’re closed off, you’re like a wall. Impassible, often in the way, creating division.

Ever run into a wall? Ever reach a wall and become increasingly frustrated by how it’s in your way? Likely, you have.

When you share with more people, you offer a door or a window rather than a frustrating wall. You become someone that can be connected with. And just because you open yourself up and share with more people doesn’t mean you can’t maintain some walls and privacy.

The trouble comes when you are so private that you’re disconnected. Disconnect can make you feel increasingly alone, lost, and separated.

Even the most introverted people need to make connections. It’s part of human nature. And connecting walls creates blockages between you and all else.

Choosing to be vulnerable by opening yourself up to share with more people can be scary. But is it worth it?

Through the practice of being honest with myself and with the world about where I’m at in life, I somehow feel closer to achieving my dreams than ever before. By sharing more, I have begun to uncover what my true dreams really are and I have reached a more profound understanding of what I would like my life to look like in the future. At the same time, I have begun to live more presently than ever before.

In order to achieve true fulfillment in life, it is our duty to take our dreams seriously. If we do not pay attention to the inner voice that guides us then we will not live out our purpose and therefore live a meaningless life. If we are to take the illusion of our tangible reality seriously then we must live out our existence in such a way that truly resonates with what is inside of us. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Sharing more about myself and my journey has allowed me to start removing layers of fear and self-doubt that have been accumulating inside of me for a long period of time. Throughout this process, I genuinely feel that I have have started to uncover who I really am deep down inside. What I have learned is that the more self-aware we can become, the more we will start to live in alignment with who we really are and the greater the impact we will have on the world. Something as simple as sharing more and being honest about where we’re really at in life can have a profound impact on the overall quality of our well-being and perhaps move us one step closer to finally understanding what its like to simply, be ourselves.