Fear of Emotional Expression: Leaving Your Comfort Zone

Who doesn’t know someone who seems to be afraid of showing their emotions; who may be very caring and giving on other levels, but who just can’t manage any real “feeling” words and actions?

Often these are men and women who may hide behind the cover of continual work commitments, who have a multitude of friends (generally of their own sex) with whom they insist on spending a great deal of time, or who simply always maintain a veneer of reserve, even with their closest and dearest.

So you can never really get close to them. They simply don’t let you.

And it’s almost impossible to have a conversation of any emotional depth; it may feel like struggling to grasp a slippery, wet fish if you try talking about emotions with them.

If you are feeling a vaguely uncomfortable twisting in your solar plexus, or a prickly tremor of warmth running through your chest and heart region, or your face heating ever so slightly, you might recognize yourself as one of the people that remain in the emotional comfort zone.

Any comfort zone exists in order to maintain the status quo. That is, you keep it up so that different areas of your life remain under control, that nothing changes, and that you feel secure. As you leave your emotional comfort zone, you start getting twinges of fear because you are entering unknown territory where you run risks, most particularly of becoming vulnerable and getting hurt.

What is actually happening is that by braving out into the unknown territory, by feeling the trepidation and fear, you are granted an invaluable opportunity to discover new facets of yourself, to enrich yourself, and to stretch and grow beyond your present limits. In this same way Columbus discovered the New World, man stepped on the moon, and you can also begin to express emotionally.

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch:

Rewiring the Soul

Click here to download the first chapter.

To see the Table of Contents click here

Reviews From the Back Cover:

"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre

"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself 

"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human

The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

To download the first chapter, click here
To see the Table of Contents click here

Praise for The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

“All humans seek the illusive touch of another's Soul, which opens us to the sense of belonging to something bigger than the self. Dr. Kortsch has given us the true "tao" of relationship in this brilliant exploration of emotional tapestry. We will be grateful for this illumination of spiritual partnership for generations to come."
Chris Griscom: Spiritual Leader, Author

“Eloquently and comprehensive, showing how your primary love relationship may be a sacred vessel that transports you and your partner to a place of mutual healing and expansion.” 
Robert Schwartz: Author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born 


The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self (coming October 2013)

My new book: The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self, is due out later this year. Here is a brief excerpt from the Introduction:

It is your right to live a life of love. It is your right to understand that loving yourself first is not a selfish way of behavior, but one that allows you to live that life of love. However, it's highly probable that you never got the instruction manual explaining exactly how to accomplish this. Possibly your family - and it may have been a loving family - considered loving the self an act of selfishness. Or perhaps the members of your family simply didn't practice loving the self, and of course, what you didn't see - what was not shown to you - while you were growing up, meant that you just didn't learn how to apply it to yourself. The closer you are able to move towards loving yourself, the closer you will be to living a life of love - quite independently of whether you are in a love relationship or not. A life of love can be lived with or without a partnership, because a life of love implies that you know that it all begins with you by loving the self. The more clearly you understand how to love yourself, the more clearly you will see that it is very hard - if not impossible - to love others in ways that are unrelated to fulfilling any of your needs. Loving yourself first is - for so many of us - one of the hardest things we will ever learn how to do. But know this: the benefits affect you in every particle of your being - body, mind, and soul - and are greater than you will ever be able to imagine.

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for my new book. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed.