In this reflection we sit with what remains unsaid. The body knows before you do. Tension in the jaw. Tightness in the chest. That grip in your stomach before a difficult conversation.
These are not just physical sensations. They are information.
The feeling arrives before the words. Sometimes long before.
Knowing what you are carrying is one thing. Being able to express it is another.
Some families do not do vulnerability. Some workplaces punish honesty. Some communities treat emotional expression as weakness.
The silence is not always a personal choice. Sometimes it is the only available option.
Even when space exists, the people around you might not be equipped to receive what you are carrying. Listening is a skill. Holding space without fixing, advising, or deflecting is rare.
Many conversations that could be openings become closings because the other person cannot meet what is being offered.
Sometimes the barrier is internal. The words do not exist yet. Feelings can be present without being nameable.
There is a difference between sensing something and being able to articulate it clearly enough for someone else, or even yourself, to understand.
Holding things in takes effort. The body works to contain what has not been expressed. Over time, this effort becomes invisible. It feels like nothing because it is constant.
But the body does not distinguish between a secret and a conversation that keeps getting postponed. It just registers the effort of containment.
Expression does not require an audience. It does not require the right listener or the perfect words.
Sometimes it is writing something that was never meant to be sent. Sometimes it is speaking out loud in an empty room. Sometimes it is just naming something internally that has been floating without a shape.
The barriers to expression are real. Cultural. Relational. Linguistic.
But the body still carries what it carries.
Finding even small ways to acknowledge what is there, privately, can shift what your system is spending its energy on.
Not everything needs to be said. But everything needs somewhere to go.