Not Everything Can Be Figured Out in Your Head and Why Saying It Out Loud Can Change How You See It
Written by Kirstey KAE, Founder & Resilience Educator
Kirstey KAE is the founder of Embrace Head & Heart Inc., where she specializes in translating the science of resilience into everyday practice. Drawing on neuroscience, behavioural science, and trauma-informed practice, she helps people understand the patterns behind stress, behaviour, and resilience so they can create meaningful, lasting change
We spend a lot of time in our own heads trying to make sense of what hurts. We replay conversations, analyze what happened, question our reactions, and carry thoughts we haven’t quite found the words for. But what happens when we stop thinking about the experience and start talking about it? Resilience educator and thought leader Kirstey KAE explores the science behind how verbalizing emotional pain can change what we carry. From naming emotions to challenging the stories we tell ourselves, she considers why resilience takes more than relying on ourselves and how the right conversations can help us see ourselves, our experiences, and what comes next with greater clarity.
There are some experiences we can think about for months without ever feeling as though we’ve made sense of them. We replay conversations. Analyze what happened. Question what we should have done differently. Tell ourselves we’re overthinking it, that other people have bigger problems, or that enough time has passed that we should be over it by now. Those thoughts and feelings feed on silence and turn into tension both in the outer world and in our inner experience.
When we finally voice what we’ve been carrying to someone who listens, someone who stays, someone who allows it to exist without immediately trying to change it, somehow the experience can begin to feel different. The circumstances haven’t changed. The past hasn’t been rewritten. There may not even be a solution, but something that existed only inside of us has now been witnessed, and that matters more than we sometimes realize.
Putting words to what we carry
There is something powerful about finding language for an experience. When thoughts and emotions remain inside of us, they can feel tangled together. We may know we’re upset without understanding exactly why. We might feel angry, even though underneath the anger there’s disappointment, fear, grief, embarrassment, or a need that was never acknowledged.
Speaking about an experience requires us to begin organizing it. We have to find the words that answer questions such as “What actually happened?” “What did I feel?” “What mattered to me about this?” “Why am I still carrying it?”
Research into emotion and the brain has shown that putting feelings into words, sometimes referred to as affect labeling, can influence how we process emotional experiences. Naming what we’re experiencing doesn’t magically make a difficult situation disappear, but language can give shape to something that previously felt overwhelming, daunting, or difficult to understand. Sometimes hearing ourselves say the words is the first time we fully acknowledge what’s been happening inside of us.
Being heard is about more than talking
There is an important difference between speaking and feeling safe enough to be heard. Most of us have probably experienced the difference. We share something difficult and immediately hear things like “Have you tried?” or “At least.” Sometimes it’s “Here’s what I would do” or “You shouldn’t let that bother you.”
The intention may be good. People often offer solutions because they care and don’t want someone they love to hurt, but sometimes what we need first is for the other person to say, “I hear you. What you’re experiencing matters. You don’t have to convince me that this is difficult.”
Being witnessed doesn’t require another person to completely understand our experience or agree with every thought, decision, or feeling. Being witnessed means feeling safe enough to be honest and open about where we are without feeling that we immediately need to defend, minimize, explain, or fix it.
Connection changes what we carry
Human beings are profoundly social. Our relationships don’t simply make life more enjoyable. Connection has always played an important role in how humans experience safety, cope with adversity, and recover from difficult experiences.
Resilience as interdependence
We often talk about resilience as though it lives entirely inside a person. We admire independence. We celebrate the person who handled something alone. We describe resilient people as strong enough to keep going regardless of what life placed in front of them.
But resilience has always been relational too. It looks like having the courage to say, “I’m having a hard time, and I don’t want to carry this by myself anymore.” Allowing ourselves to be known is an act of courage that builds resilience.
Hurt, guilt, and shame grow differently in the presence of safe people
Some experiences are particularly difficult to speak aloud because they carry shame. We may carry thoughts like these. “What if they think differently of me?” “What if I’m the only person who feels this way?” “What if I should have handled this better?” “What if saying it aloud makes it real?”
Shame has a way of convincing us that whatever we’re struggling with says something about who we are. Silence reinforces that belief because we never receive information that challenges it.
When that belief is challenged, an experience that felt isolating suddenly feels human. The struggle may still exist, but the belief that we are somehow uniquely flawed for having it can begin to loosen.
The power of a circle
In a safe group, we learn through our own experiences and through witnessing other people. Another person may put words to something we’ve felt for years but never knew how to explain. Someone may see a situation differently than we do and offer a perspective we hadn’t considered. Someone may share a struggle we assumed we were alone in. Someone else may show a strength they don’t recognize in themselves, and in witnessing it, we may begin to recognize our own.
One of the most powerful things about community is that we often understand ourselves better by witnessing someone else come to understand themselves. A circle changes the expectation that one person has to have all the answers. Some of the most powerful healing can come from people coming together with different stories, experiences, questions, strengths, and perspectives and making room for one another. The most meaningful thing we can offer another person is often our presence.
Carrying emotional weight in tandem
There will always be parts of life that require us to look inward. Resilience includes learning to trust ourselves, learning to sit with ourselves, and discovering that we’re capable of navigating difficult situations, people, and environments. But relying on ourselves and being resilient aren’t the same thing.
Strengthening our ability to carry difficult experiences doesn’t mean we have to become overly independent. Growth can happen privately, but more often it happens in tandem with others, in an environment where we feel safe enough to express ourselves and exist as we are in the moment.
Calling the Circle
This belief is at the heart of Calling the Circle. This winter, I’m bringing together a small group for eight weeks of virtual sessions centered on making room for ourselves, something many of us rarely do.
Over those eight weeks, I’ll guide the group through conversations and reflections on the experiences that have shaped us, the patterns that continue to show up in our lives, our strengths and values, relationships and boundaries, meaning and purpose, and the small changes that can help us move forward with confidence, intention, and trust in ourselves.
Just as important as what we’ll explore is how we’ll explore it. This is a space to slow down, get curious, and make sense of what’s happening beneath the surface. We’ll reflect, listen, ask questions, learn, laugh, and have those “Wait, other people do that too?” moments. There will be room to speak openly and also to listen, think, and take things at your own pace.
You don’t need to arrive with the right answers. You don’t need to have everything figured out. You don’t need to become a different version of yourself to belong here. You can simply show up as you are, knowing that you’ll be guided through a process designed to help you understand yourself more clearly, recognize the patterns that may be holding you back, and identify what you want to do differently.
That’s what Calling the Circle is about. I’ve created this experience to bring together the science, reflection, conversation, and practical tools that can help us better understand ourselves and to do that work alongside people who are also ready to grow.
You’ll be in a space that is intentional, welcoming, and thoughtfully guided. If this feels like the right space for you, I invite you to join us.
Read more from Kirstey KAE
Kirstey KAE, Founder & Resilience Educator
Kirstey KAE is the founder of Embrace Head & Heart Inc. and a resilience educator, speaker, and coach passionate about making the science of resilience understandable and practical. With more than 14 years of experience, she draws on neuroscience, behavioural science, and trauma-informed practice to help people understand why they think, feel, and respond the way they do. She believes resilience isn't about pushing harder, it's about understanding ourselves more deeply so we can respond to life's challenges with greater awareness, confidence, and choice
