Not everyone deals with their feelings as an open book for others to read.【小题1】Learn to open up in order to improve your mental health.

【小题2】Accept this and move on. Give yourself some time to have sweaty palms or a shaky voice, since it will get better with practice.

Ask people open-ended questions. To begin practicing opening up, you need to engage in honest, open conversation. Try a question like, "How are things going at work?" instead of "How's it going?” to get an open answer. Then, in turn answer open-ended questions with honest answers, instead of "Fine" or "OK".【小题3】However, in most cases people are flattered that you are listening to them and interested in their life.

Try emulating（效仿）someone who is very open. Observe them in a social situation. Then, try to act as if you are them occasionally. Many open behaviors are learned, and not a natural part of personality.【小题4】

Avoid being a "know it all". Some people think advice is opening up, but it is unlikely to help you more open. When you want to give advice, listen and try to learn something new from the situation.

【小题5】Schedule at least one long conversation per week. In the conversation you tell someone about the emotional and difficult part of your life. Get into the practice of opening up about what's good and bad in your life.

When my daughter Sara was in the fifth grade, she came to me with a problem. “Marcy hates me!” she cried “Because Kathy is my friend, too. She wants me to be her friend and nobody else’s. You talk to Marcy. You tell her that I want to be her friend, but I can have other friends, too!”

Oh! I looked at her for a few moments, wondering how I got into this mess (困境), when suddenly an idea came to me.

Picking up two baskets from the living room, I explained, “When everyone is born, he or she has a little basket. This little one here is yours. The big one is mine. As you grow, so does the basket. You can see your little basket is inside mine because when you were born, there were too many things you couldn’t do for yourself. I did everything you couldn’t do on your own.”

She nodded.

“Well, as you grew older and began to do some things on your own, I began placing a few more things in your basket. When you learned to tie your shoes, that went in your basket.”

She said softly, “I can tie my own shoes.”

“Right. As you grow older, there will be more and more things you must do on your own.” As I spoke, I gradually took her basket out of mine and handed it to her. “You will finally carry your own basket with things only you can do.”

She looked up at me and said, “I understand. There are some things that I have to do by myself because they are in my basket.”

Friends should always be honest with you, right? 【小题1】 You want to trust your friends and that means knowing that they’ll tell you the truth no matter what. But a friend who lies isn’t always trying to hurt you. 【小题2】

The lying can be as simple as telling you that they love the latest dress you bought (when in fact they don’t), or as horrible as lying to cheat you. Sometimes friends lie about an outing that you’re not invited to. Other times people may lie about being friends with someone else. 【小题3】

One of the biggest reasons friends lie is simply to avoid hurting your feelings. Questions like, “Do you think I can sing?” might lead to a little white lie or an avoidance of telling the truth. Some people don’t understand the difference between being gently honest with a friend and being so straightforward that you leave a verbal (言语的) wound. 【小题4】

What can you do?【小题5】 You could even tell them “Be gentle, but be honest,” and then no matter what their answer is, let them know you appreciate (感激) it. If you overreact (反应过激) or get angry with them, they won’t feel comfortable telling you the truth again.