Is the most common frustration I hear from clients
Each time I’m coasting along and everything seems magical, peaceful, predictable….along comes an old wound to knock me off of my throne to the underworld of unhealed past hurts.
This isn’t meant to be a punishment, but it can most definitely feel like that. It’s extremely hard and makes you feel as if all of the work you have done has left you hurting more. I will offer to you, that if you remain curious and unattached to being eternally healed, the possibility of change and a life with freedom is there.
This summer an old wound of abandonment and rejection was activated again. This is a repeat pattern and one that I am ready to finally feel and break. I’m actually breaking it by writing this to you and re-reading it to me. Part of my pain is that I feel so alone in this wound and that I feel like I have to hide it to be who everyone thinks I am. But, I’m not that. I’m me, and this is a part of me and one of the reasons I feel so deeply and have transmuted most of my anger to its real expression, hurt.
I have spent years, off and on, not having a relationship with an important person in my life.
This is something that I have been deeply ashamed of. I’ve tried to hide it numerous times, not only for myself but for the sake of the relationship we did have and the one I wanted so badly.
I’m terrified to speak my truth, to go against the image that we had both wanted but I do know that this writer’s block is not going to ease up until I start being authentic about what it is.
What it is, is rejection.
In the past, I’ve responded with anger. I’ve been consumed by angry thoughts about why someone can be like this or how they can do this to me but this time I am just deeply sad. The anger was a much stronger shield and protected me from the truth of the deep, deep rejection this caused me and the unconscious belief that I am unlovable.
I’ve finally touched the feeling of sadness by breaking past the shield of anger.
. I no longer identify with the “witch”, being aggressive or demanding. I’ve confronted the aspects of myself that have used those identifiers as a shield and I am now in touch with what I truly need from relationships.
This is only my truth, my perception, and I’m fully aware that it is not absolute but it is where I’m currently at. My personal reality and my personal truth is something that I have previously denied myself of because I have felt unworthy of my own story and obviously, I want it to be different.
I have shared the darkest parts of my heart in order to heal but have always, always held this back. I fear rejection to my core and to delve into this deep knowing could lead to a rejection I’m not yet prepared to handle.
Being iced out by my purest source of love has led me into a destructive relationship with love. I have craved love but not known how to give it. I knew how to fight but not to say with clarity what I wanted.
I’ve expected people to read my mind because if I speak my truth I’ll be turned against. I have stuffed my feelings inside and then exploded with anger.
I have walked up steps and listened to my inner voice say “ok, now try not be evil, just try to pretend you’re nice” If you hear something enough it is subconsciously a piece of you. After practicing nidra for so long, I can now hear these voices as separate from me and I was shocked at what it was saying. I haven’t been mean. I am simply asking to be heard and listened to without being shut down and cut off and denied.
I have been battling imposter syndrome since July, thinking that if I can’t heal this relationship that causes so much turmoil within me, I must truly be a piece of shit. Who am I to do all this work and this still happens.
I’m writing this because when I finally had enough emotional regulation to share in my women’s circle, I was met with someone going through the exact same thing. She mirrored back to me and it was affirmed that my purpose is to share my heart and in doing so, might help others who are bound by anger or feelings of not being enough.
The truth is that no matter how much we want a relationship to change, we can’t do it for anyone else and pretending is not healing.
I can’t pretend my reality is not what it is. I can’t pretend my way into feeling safe with people who have given me no reason to feel safe with them, even if it is the one thing I want.
What I can do is heal the relationships that mean the most to me, the ones that I have let the “toxic” behaviors infiltrate. I can hold myself through the turbulence of emotions when every body memory I have says RUN, ISOLATE, REJECT. It used to be how I kept myself safe from this pain. Now I can see it kept me in pain. It kept others in pain.
These aren’t methods that have ever given me anything but fear and a broken heart too afraid to really love.
What I can do is ask those I love and who love me, to support me as I unwind the thoughts that are no longer mine to keep. Most of us hang onto outdated programming that was rooted into our psyche from conception and through our early childhood years. These programs are stored through the lens of a child and were used to keep you safe and alive.
We can, and do, outgrow our programming and how it serves us by changing our lives through conscious awareness that can be found through increased presence each day.
How I learned to do this, and will hold in gratitude until the day I die, is through the practice of yoga nidra. It is a tool that can be accessed anywhere and teaches you to unlock the infinite healing power within over and over again.
It taught me how to sit with my turbulent emotions as my nervous system fired up and told me to run. It taught me how to be with myself through even the scariest rejections because I know that I have surrounded myself with people who love me, have my back and this only happened because, ultimately, I chose to love myself.
I choose to love myself.
I believe I’m worthy of love and listening to my unconscious thoughts try to convince me otherwise is a powerful act of sovereignty. I am not those thoughts.
Healing is a spiral journey and one that has many surprises in it. When we’re fully healed, we have taken our last breath. I choose to be curious about my pain and tenacious about my consciousness in this life. Each day I hope to be better and love myself through all of the wounding that continues to ask to be seen.
I teach the same way I practice, through the lens of curiosity and asking what’s underneath. The trainings continue to be a rapid expanse of growth everytime we come together and I am truly grateful for every student who has trusted me enough to sit with me and beside through their own, and my own, unveiling of the unconscious.
Comments