The Unspoken is to the Soul as fat is to the Body.

The unspoken is to the soul as fat is to the body. The unspoken can weigh down the soul just as surely as fat can make heavy the body. The problem is, though you can weigh the body, there is no scale by which to weigh the soul.

It is difficult to assess how much unspoken fat covers your own or another’s soul. You get used to carrying around the weight, and only discover how tiring and costly it has been only when you talk through with a counselor or trusted friend, that which had previously been unspoken. You can then realize how heavy of heart you had become, how you had added ever more psychic fat by choosing not to speak about the things you thought and felt, saw and sensed. You experience how good it feels to let your heart speak, how freeing to your heart. You discover that when you speak the unspoken, it generates energy; for like fat, the unspoken is stored energy just waiting to be summoned and released.

A burden that cannot be shared, cannot be lifted. And the only way to share is through speaking, through permitting what is in you to be uttered. The unspoken is already word, word that simply has not been given a chance to be heard, even by yourself.

Every day I seek to think and write and speak about whatever is weighing on my soul. So that even though my body is overweight, my soul is relatively light and limber. I refuse to carry around any longer what I once did, silently and dutifully. A dysfunctional family is one where problems are not talked about, where a gag-order has been issued and remains in force.

Interestingly the healthiest person in a dysfunctional family is the one who acts out in protest to the gag-order. When I was a counselor, people often came to me ready and willing and needing to talk about those family of origin issues which the family did not want them to talk about. They were tired of carrying around all that fat, tired of the amount of energy required to remain silent, to hold back what they now wanted to let be verbally aired, to let the unexpressed finally be spoken.

Most of us have things we really want and need to say to certain significant others, but for whatever reason we never have. So we carry around the fat of our unspoken sentiments, whether unspoken love or unexpressed hurt. The thing is, we do not have to carry around this fat; we can speak what is in us whenever we choose.

I have instructed persons to write a letter to whomever, but without ever sending it. Even if the person is deceased, you can still write that person and say everything you always wanted to say. Only by so doing can you get closure, finally letting the past become the past. Perhaps you never told someone you loved them, and then they died. Write that person a letter, then read it out loud, as if they could hear it. Perhaps what you feel is pain, regret. Then utter it in letter form. It is of course helpful to say what you need to say to a counselor or friend.

This is a singular path to emotional freedom. If it is possible and you are comfortably prepared, say what you must to that significant other in person. Discover how wonderful it feels to get your soul in shape.