Am I Allowed to Feel?

When I was three years old, crying was not permitted.

If I cried, my parents would say:
“Stop crying, or the beggar will take you away.”

Fear was used to silence emotion.

So I learned very early:
Emotion is unsafe.
Vulnerability invites punishment.
Strong children do not cry.

I stopped crying.

When I grow up, the message didn’t disappear — it evolved.

At school, I was expected to compete with male classmates. Achievement became my protection.

One day, an elderly neighbor told me:

“You are doing well now as a girl now. But when you reach high school, the boys will surpass you.”

I remember the feeling.

Humiliation.
Worry.
A quiet determination to prove myself.

But I was trained not to talk back to adults.
Not to express anger.
Not to say, “That hurts.”

So I swallowed it.

And I worked harder.

Later, in the workplace, the rules became even clearer.

Emotion was weakness.
Sensitivity meant lack of professionalism.
Talking about fear or doubt? Not motivated enough.

So I created a new strategy.

I projected an image:

Cheerful
Confident
Always in control
Always okay

And it worked.

I became successful.
I became respected.
I became reliable.

But slowly, I became disconnected — not from work, but from myself.

Here is something I did not understand at that time:

When we suppress emotion, we don’t only suppress sadness.

We also suppress:

intuition
empathy
creativity
courage

Because emotions are not noise in leadership.

They are information.

Today, I realize:

The ability to connect to our feelings is not a luxury.
It is a leadership capability.

A leader who cannot feel:

cannot read the room
cannot sense tension
cannot recognize disengagement
cannot understand conflict

They may still manage performance.
But they cannot truly lead people.

Many leaders try to control emotions by ignoring them.

But emotions do not disappear when ignored.
They go underground.

They show up as:

defensiveness
overreaction
avoidance
burnout
silent resentment in teams

What we do not feel consciously, we express unconsciously.

The first step of emotional regulation is not control.

It is naming.

When we can say:
“I feel anxious before this meeting.”
“I feel threatened by this feedback.”
“I feel disappointed by this outcome.”

Something changes.

Naming an emotion reduces its intensity.
Awareness creates choice.