a healing revelation

Have you ever had one of those moments when something has been said to you over and over and you don’t quite get it, but then there is a moment when it finally hits you and you realize something SO big and SO life altering?

That is what happened to me today in therapy. I realized that a belief I held onto for years, was actually something that was doing me more damage than good.

I want to share this with you all because I have a feeling most of you will get something from this and you may be able to use it in your own life; your own healing path – that is my hope every time I sit and write in my blog.

I have struggled my whole life with allowing people to see the real pain I am in when I am struggling or going through something really tough. I struggle to really let people in and see the real me when I hold so much of what I am going through at that moment.

Since I was young all the way up into adulthood I have always had this stopper inside of me. I only let so much out that I “THINK” people can handle, and then I pull in and take care of the rest by myself.

being told that I am too much to handle as a child, or that my emotions were too much kinda grew on me. I held my emotions in and licked my own wounds as a child and when I became a mom I hide behind my own children by providing for them, and yet keeping all my needs and emotions tucked away to self-care.

Since I began therapy 6 1/2 years ago I have learned at a small pace of letting that stopper inside of me loosen. I have opened up, talked more about my past, let some emotions be seen and heard, but no matter how much practice and hard work I have done in therapy, there is always a gauge of how much I will allow myself to put on another person before I shut it off and take care of myself.

When I am going through something hard I have a hard time fully letting my therapist know what is going on in fear that I am putting too much work on my therapist or I am putting too much work on the people around me – so I try to take care of it myself.

What happened in therapy today was a revelation of years and years of an old belief come to a FULL understanding. My therapist helped me to see today that its when I DON’T let him know what is fully going on inside, that is when  it becomes a lot of work for him, and when I fully let myself be seen and heard, that is when its EASIER for him to lean in, support and how easy it is to carry me along in that.

When he said that, It was like something hit me and I came to a full understanding around something I have struggled with my whole life. I turned to my therapist with this big smile and he smiled too because he saw that I FINALLY got it! I finally understood that by trying to protect others from how I feel is not helping anyone, in fact it’s creating a harder place to fully be in connection with me.

My therapist (Andy) said “when you fully open up and tell me what is going on inside, do you know how easy it is to support you and be in that energy with you? when you give me an opening it’s so much easier than trying to push through a closed and sometimes locked door”. he said “it’s easy to support you and care for you, it’s when you shut down it becomes very hard and yes sometimes its a lot of work”.

I sat there completely dumfounded that I finally allowed myself to understand and accept this. I realized that healing is found in being open to those around you even when it feels like it’s too much for me – it’s not too much for others. That being in silence creates more work than being open and truthful about the pain or hardness I am going through.

Well, this just opens up a whole new level of healing for me. I imagine if I let go of trying to protect others all the time, how much that allows others to be here for me, and how healing it could be to be heard, seen, and supported – maybe even comforted.

It’s amazing on how one LIE from my past became such a wall to my healing and others now as an adult. I wonder if this new-found revelation in my healing will be the next tool to allowing myself to accept love and support without feeling the fear of dependency …….  Shhhh I shouldn’t say that too loud, my therapist may hear me and do the victory dance!

It’s amazing what realization in something I have struggled with for years can do. I feel like I just got this new cool toy to play with, and I am holding it, looking at it, and wondering where I can apply it and see all the cool things it can do!

it’s both scary and amazing at the same time to know that I can be open and be heard.. it’s the blessing and the curse.