When I hear the word healing...it is not this beautiful sunsety warm, with the relaxing ocean sound, vacation kind of feeling. It is more like an overwhelming feeling of “Nooooo, I don’t want to.” I have learned that healing is a painful process. First, there is this deep awakening inside one’s self. This awakening brings awareness that there is something there to look at. Something you maybe stuffed down into layers of avoidance. When the pain comes up it must get out. For me I had to accept the pain, surrender to its story. For years I had these layers of pain I never dealt with.
Suddenly, the pain cannot hide anymore, and it finally has a voice. This awakening has brought up so many feelings in me. This is how I see it… right after this awakening of pain there are some options we all have: 1. Justify others behavior. 2. Blame. 3. Acceptance. (which seems to be the road less traveled)
I have been awakened to so much that gets to be healed. It has required accepting the truth of the hell I experienced.
For years I justified others' bad behavior towards me. One of the relationships I did this the most in was with my ex-husband. I justified his behavior and ignored how his bad behavior actually made me feel….which is why I remarried him after nine years of being divorced. I never connected with my pain from the first divorce. I focused on his feelings more than my own. I have also severely blamed myself for the way others treated me. The blame eventually overflowed into blaming others and the world. Both justifying and blaming stopped me from telling my true story.
I spent way too much time telling others stories. Like my ex-husband did this, that and the other and he did it because…. I never actually connected with how everything he did made me feel. So, he cheated on me! My brain went to, “why did he cheat on me? Didn’t he love me? He is an addict, so he did not mean to cheat on me. I was not enough for him! Poor him, he must feel so terrible about it” This is so messed up. Why was I trying to justify his behavior and twist it all around in my head? He cheated on me. The core of my soul hurts. I feel betrayed. This is how I feel. END OF STORY! My story!
You see my point? I avoided my feelings by talking about HIS story. I do not care why he cheated. He cheated and it hurts me. No excuses, no blaming myself, no focusing on blaming him. Just good old fashion acceptance, acceptance of the pain he caused me and moving that pain up and out. Feeling every single part of myself that was affected by his actions. Believe me it is more difficult for me to accept my pain; it is much easier to just wish he would stop hurting me. But he will not. He will not stop. I cannot focus on him anymore. I get to focus on myself. Facing myself is HELL. I have been searching within myself in a real way. Why did I get stuck in this pattern of justifying and blaming? Where was it in life that I was taught to not look at myself and live my own story, my reality. (I was living in my ex-husband's reality. All his pain, all his problems) How did I get here? I believe I was born into this world with a gift. I lead my life with my feelings. I am a highly emotional person. As a child this was not a good thing. I became the target in my family. Emotions were scary in my home…so everyone in my home was not comfortable with emotions that were not the “happy” emotions. But guess what!? When did anyone need to heal from “happy?” When you come from a home where everything is stuffed under the rug, of course a highly emotional child (trying to accept her own reality) is going to be annoying. As a kid I was often told that. “You are too emotional.” “You are making things up.” “You dramatize everything.” “That never happened.” “One day you’ll see what you really experienced.”
I felt shamed every time I tried to accept my pain/FEELINGS. My very nature is to feel, and I believe highly emotional people are trying to accept their feelings and work through them. I was trying to live in my own (pain) reality. As a result of this shaming, I learned to stuff my childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse. I was told to shut up so to speak. I was taught to live in my mom’s reality, and this taught me to live in my siblings, my ex-husband's reality and out into the world’s reality. NOT MY REALITY. NOT MY FEELINGS. This journey of life is supposed to be “my” journey. Right?! So, let me have my own experiences dang it! So, now I am a stuffer of my feelings. So, I stored all this trauma in my body! It is no surprise I have an autoimmune disease and life is exhausting for me even to this day! Being a target in a family is a real thing. In my home, I had a brother that teased me so badly I wanted to crumble to the earth, a sister that nitpicked at my every move, and the entire family had zero boundaries. Therefore, I was not allowed to have any either. I had zero ways to protect myself from being hurt. I had a mom constantly telling me that everything was fine. I was taught to ignore my feelings and trust that the people around me really were not hurting me. So, I must have been crazy? Living in this war does not leave much space for healing. I could not fully accept the truth. I could not live in my own reality.
My feelings did not match what my mom kept telling me. I felt pain, she told me I was fine. So now I am at war. I feel something bad is happening to me but “everything is fine.” My attempt to get out of chaos was to conclude that I must be bad and instead of experiencing my feelings I stuffed them, and my feelings became my identity. I am my feelings. These layers of stuffed pain now made me an angry child. Living a life of “freakouts” and throwing tantrums created an even bigger problem for me in life. My feelings just kept layering and I could not make sense of it all. I could not control myself or my world because I was completely disconnected from myself and living in other’s reality.
As a child, I slipped into many emotional comas. My mom always thought I was playing some kind of game with her which made the entire family think I was playing games. One day I was checked out and my sister and cousin starred at me making fun of my behavior. They did not see my pain and my inability to move. Another cousin picked me up in her arms. This cousin was a tender mercy in my life. Maybe she thought I was crazy but for a moment I felt safe.
I have 13 siblings and some of them still will not accept my reality and blame their bad behavior on ME. This is my experience, and I am certain that all 13 siblings have their own stories to tell. But this is mine. And I am done having anyone tell me it is not REAL. I get to live my own life experiences. I get to feel what I feel. I get to heal my childhood to become a better me today. Here’s the deal friends, I have to face my truth. I must unravel the years of pain I stuffed and layered up. I need to heal my body, mind, and soul. If I do not, I will continue this path of being abused by people. The severe consequences are that if I do not heal myself, I will pass this crap onto my daughter. She will follow my example. She is learning about life by taking steps after mine, much like following my footprints in the snow. I want more for her. I want her to have her own story with her own feelings about her life. She needs her mommy to be healed!
Guess what?! I had a breakdown at the beginning of last week. And some people would go, “oh, she is mentally unstable. She is weak” etc etc etc (all the things people who don’t understand say.)
“FALSE” (says Dwight from The Office)
No family and world, I am strong! I just walked into hell pulled out the trauma and threw it away. My body shook in pain, my thoughts raced with terrible memories of all the abuse. My nerves snapped (the connection sucked anyway) I survived, and I keep on surviving. So today, I am rewriting my past. I am rewiring my brain. Nerves are healing. And I am becoming a better me. A “me” that loves me better than anyone else could.
So, friends, I began writing my story and I had a breakdown. I uncovered a layer of pain that needed to leave. My body shook free from the stored pain. I am exhausted. I am resting. I am staying away from toxic people for now. I am learning new life skills to conquer the self. I am building a stronger armor against abusers. I am choosing me first.
As I choose me first, I will love myself, and as I love myself that love inside me will overflow to my loved ones, especially my daughter.
HE will not hurt me anymore! The WORLD will not hurt me anymore! I will not hurt myself anymore because I get to choose my surroundings and I get to feel whatever the HELL I need to feel. I am healing so get out of my way! My friends! Choose to heal your life. Let us do it together. I am sorry it is not easy. But let us choose the road less traveled. The unknown road is scary. Let us build an armor of strength together! What is YOUR story? No justifying others. No blaming. What is the truth to YOUR feelings and emotions? Raise a glass to HEALING! Cheers.
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