If you’d like to be included in this slot, please get in touch: estherchilton@gmail.com. Poems can be up to 60 lines and prose 2000 words. If you’d like to add a short bio and photo, then great. All I ask is that there’s nothing offensive.
This week’s guest is Rohitash Yadav, who appears on my blog as a guest for the first time. When I read Rohitash’s inspirational piece, I found I could truly identify with the words. I hope you enjoy it and find it as motivational as me.
Who We Become When We Stop Waiting for Permission to Feel
By
Rohitash Yadav
There was no dramatic breaking point. No loud confrontation. No door slammed. No tears that changed everything overnight.
It was quieter than that.
It was the moment I noticed I was editing my own emotions before allowing them to exist.
Softening sadness so it would not make others uncomfortable. Diluting disappointment so I would not appear ungrateful. Smiling through fatigue because saying I am fine had become a habit more than a truth.
That was the day I realized something unsettling. I was not living honestly. I was waiting for permission to feel, to express, to be.
And once you see that pattern, you cannot unsee it.
The invisible training we all receive
Somewhere along the way, many of us are quietly trained.
Do not cry too much. Do not be too sensitive. Do not express anger because it is unattractive.
Do not speak your grief because it makes others uncomfortable. Be strong. Be composed. Be manageable.
No one announces these rules formally. They arrive through reactions, raised eyebrows, awkward silences, praise for compliance, and discomfort with honesty.
So we adapt.
We learn to package our emotions in socially acceptable ways. We become skilled performers of emotional stability. We grow fluent in pretending.
And the most dangerous part? We begin to believe that this performance is maturity.
But suppression is not maturity. It is survival.
The cost of being emotionally convenient
For a long time, I lived as someone who could hold space for everyone else. I listened deeply.
I empathized fully. I offered calmness, perspective, reassurance.
Outwardly, I appeared emotionally strong. Inwardly, I was emotionally disconnected from myself.
Because while I could witness the feelings of others with sincerity, I was often negotiating with my own.
Is this emotion valid enough? Is this reaction too much? Will this burden someone? Should I just stay quiet?
Over time, the cost revealed itself not in explosions but in exhaustion.
A quiet loneliness. A subtle heaviness. A sense of living slightly behind myself, as if I were always managing the experience rather than actually inhabiting it.
The truth is uncomfortable. You can be helpful to everyone and still be absent from yourself.
The turning point was not dramatic, it was honest
There was not a single moment that changed everything. It was a slow unlearning.
I began noticing the moments I suppressed instinctively. The times I forced positivity. The times I silenced discomfort because it felt inconvenient.
And instead of correcting those feelings, I began listening to them.
Not romanticizing them. Not amplifying them. Just allowing them.
If sadness arrived, I let it sit. If confusion appeared, I stopped demanding clarity. If exhaustion surfaced, I did not shame it away.
This was not self-indulgence. It was self-respect.
And something surprising happened. Honesty did not make me weaker. It made me lighter.
When truth replaces performance
We often fear that allowing ourselves to feel fully will overwhelm us. That we will become too much. Too emotional. Too unstable.
But suppression is far more destabilizing than expression.
When I stopped performing emotional strength and started practicing emotional honesty, life did not become easier, but it became real.
I stopped explaining my silence. Stopped justifying my sensitivity. Stopped apologizing for depth.
Not out of rebellion. But out of alignment.
You realize something important when you stop waiting for permission. You do not become louder. You become clearer.
The quiet losses and unexpected gains
There is a consequence to authenticity that no one glamorizes.
Some people become uncomfortable around the version of you that is no longer performing.
Some connections quietly loosen. Not with conflict, but with distance.
The easy version of you, the agreeable, accommodating, emotionally filtered one, is often more convenient for others.
So yes, you may lose certain dynamics.
But what replaces them is something far more grounding.
Fewer connections, but deeper ones. Slower conversations, but truer ones. Less validation, but more resonance.
And most importantly, you begin to recognize yourself again.
Not the curated version. Not the approved version. But the honest one.
The myth of emotional strength
We misunderstand strength.
We are taught that emotional strength looks like control, restraint, composure, resilience at all times. But real emotional strength is not the absence of feeling.
It is the capacity to remain present with feeling.
Strength is allowing grief to exist without drowning in it. Strength is acknowledging fear without being ruled by it. Strength is expressing tenderness without shame.
Sensitivity is not fragility. It is perception. Depth is not weakness. It is awareness.
Once you stop waiting for permission to feel, you stop fearing your own humanity.
Who I have become now
Not fearless. Just honest.
Not louder. Just grounded.
I have become someone who listens inwardly before responding outwardly. Someone who no longer edits emotions for the comfort of others. Someone who understands that boundaries and vulnerability are not opposites, they are partners.
Softer in the right places. Stronger in the right ones. Quieter, but clearer.
And perhaps that is the real transformation. Not becoming someone new, but finally allowing the self that always existed beneath performance to breathe freely.
The quiet invitation
Many of us are still waiting. For approval. For validation. For emotional permission.
But the permission never arrives externally. It must be claimed internally.
You do not need anyone’s approval to feel what you feel. You do not need justification for emotional honesty. You do not need to earn the right to be human.
The moment you stop waiting, life does not suddenly become perfect. But it becomes yours.
And that difference changes everything.
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Author Bio:
Rohitash Yadav writes reflective prose on emotional wellbeing, inner growth, and the psychology of everyday life. He is a teacher, writer, and the voice behind urbanwellbeingtips.com, where storytelling meets quiet self-awareness.
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Image credit: pinterest
Esther Chilton 
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