an invite to my emotions

Last week was a very hard week for me, and in that hard week came fear, and in that fear came understanding, and in the understanding came a new direction; a direction of allowing myself to welcome whatever is here no matter how hard or scary that is.

Since I was a little girl, as young as 5 years old I learned to hide and tuck away my emotions into little tiny boxes inside my soul and not let them be seen, heard or spoken.

I wrote small notes about how I felt, folded the paper up and stuffed them inside a hole in the wall I made in the closet so that no one could find them.

I made huge efforts to hide my emotions as a child, and even today as an adult I hide my emotions at any cost, and although I don’t stuff pieces of paper inside a hole in a wall inside a private closet … I isolate myself from the world and people around me – which is another form of tucking away my emotions.

I struggle to let people see me for how I feel. I have this fear inside that if I let people know how badly I feel, it will make them feel bad, and or they wont be able to handle it. So what do I do? I hide them by being strong, or try finding ways to cover them up and masking my true emotions with other things. It’s like being a child at the dinner table and hiding your vegetables under the potatoes .. you make it look like nothing is there, but it’s there.

This past weekend I made a conscious decision to make a shift out of the hard week I had last week. I decided that I am going to invite my emotions and feelings instead of standing here with a shovel getting ready to bury them out of fear.

I made a decision this past weekend that I am no longer going to fear the unknown, I am going to invite the unknown, get to know it, and make a connection to it.

I will write my blog the way I want to write knowing that I will be seen. I am going to open myself up and allow whatever is here to be here so that I can embrace what is here, rather than to fight against what I don’t want to be here.

I have had a battle with my emotions since I was little and I am tired of the fight. It doesn’t mean I am giving up, it means I am letting go of the rope in this tug of war and allowing the fear to fall and not win, but guide me to where understanding meets healing.

Emotions are fed off of fear, and if I show no fear, maybe I can allow myself to be open to whatever is here. Maybe I can talk and be open to all those around me without protecting others.

last week was a hard week because I was protecting another persons feelings, and what that got me was a place of disconnection. It caused my support to jump IN the boat with me instead of being on the outside helping me to steer the boat to shore; a shore of understanding and direction.

I invited my feelings, and thoughts today and gave it a shot. I showed up to session this morning and instead of protecting my therapist from my feelings, I told him what was going on with some things I am struggling with.

I held my breath in tight and kept in mind that if I not protect him, that allows him to be outside the boat steering the boat, and each time I open up about what is going on inside, it gets us closer in the right direction to my healing…. and I have to admit, it was the best feeling in the world to go into session today inviting my feelings, thoughts and emotions knowing that i could talk about anything and not be responsible for anyone else but just me.

The struggles I went through this past year were all about me working hard to push away rather than to open the door and let in. I feared the unknown instead of finding peace in what I “DO” know.

My therapist has helped me to see that just because I understand something and find empowerment over it, does NOT mean I don’t have feelings about it, in fact it’s quite the opposite – it gives me room to explore those feelings that I spent so much time trying to hide and have empowerment over.

There is no empowerment over emotions .. emotions are the empowerment, and that is something I am going to have to work hard through.

It’s like being thrown in a whirlpool going in the same direction for 40 years.. it’s going to take some time to turn around and walk in the opposite direction, but if you work hard enough going in the opposite direction of the lies, truth will prevail.