Safeguarding emotions

I feel for people who think twice or even thrice before expressing themselves and at the same time I know that, sometimes I am one of them.

We are so afraid and we ensure not to truly express our emotions. We lock them, not because we are afraid of getting hurt, it's just because we do not want to go through the pain of heart break again. So we develop this habit and we never really show our true selves to anyone, not even the ones who we are close to. It's not because we don't want them to know how we feel it's just that we subconsciously do it with the loved ones without even realizing it.

I generally try to express as much as I can to the ones I am close to, but I also know that many times I hold back my feelings because I feel it's too much of a burden to let anyone know how I truly feel. I also feel that it makes me a cry baby.

Just the other day my friend showed me an interesting article over here . It talks about how women are conditioned to believe that we are complicated creatures and all that so we try a lot not to show our vulnerable side to others. I do it myself many times, if I am hurt I won't say it, my text would contain a message for which I've selected some assertive words along with a '':)'' smiley at the end of it just to ensure that the person whoever I am sending this text to does not get a hint that I am mad or upset or anything of that sort.

The question really is, when to safeguard our emotions and when to let it show? I really don't know. I try really hard to get it right many times, but I err and I fail and I learn again. The problem is also that I am easy to trust people and despite being stabbed plenty, I can't leave this habit.