To be emotionally healthy we need to learn as children that we voice what we are feeling to our friends and family. By doing this with your children you are setting up healthy emotional ways of being. We need to make this a normal way of being and talking with our children. If you do not voice your feelings to those in important relationships with you, you will not be taking care of your emotional health. A healthy emotional person is aware of what they are feeling and is honest in how they talk to you and what they say. They do not bury feelings and thoughts but look after themselves and their needs. They say the truth no matter how hard it is sometimes to be honest. The only way to work with someone and resolve an issue is to say how you really feel. If a person does not do this they will end up with unresolved issues that they will need to work on later in their life. Sometimes it can be hard to say what you feel and be honest but it is the only way that will keep you healthy and doing what it good for you, your well being and the other person. It can also be hard to hear another persons truth and what they feel about a situation but you need to stay open and listen to them make it safe for them to talk to you. A person with high self esteem is an aware person who knows what they are feeling emotionally, mentally, physically they will do what is good for them. If your children have had a hard day or situation let them debrief to you about how they felt about what happened till they are feeling better about the situation. Make it safe for them to come to you and talk to you if they need to or you could have it a practice that you talk at the end of the day or week about their feelings. If they need counselling then organise this but don’t say “don’t worry about it” or “it does not matter”. Because the truth is it does matter what they are feeling about what happened to them. We know families where no one talks to each other about what they are feeling or what happened and this family will be dysfunctional to some degree their will be trauma to family members in some way because of the no communication and not talking about honest feelings. The truth is no one benefits from this just more problems and issues to work on later on.

Anyone who has been in domestic violence will know how it feels to not talk about what you are feeling and felt. How being scared and unsafe stops you from talking your truth to those around you and to your abuser. There will be secrets, lies and cover ups in this family. Often family members will not feel safe enough to be honest in their feelings and thoughts, their beliefs. This is a very unhealthy way of living and the person in this situation needs to get out of it as soon as possible as no one is benefiting from this. Domestic Violence creates a situation where people are not being honest with themselves others and don’t talk about what happened and how they feel, how it affected them and what they need to feel good, the truth. Domestic violence is very damaging to you mentally so you need to work on this till you are feeling better and are being honest about your feelings.