I’ve been feeling a little bit heavy these past few days and my emotions having been getting the best of me.
Mind you, I have no good reason to be sad and yet, the feelings of sadness are overwhelming me.
What I have learned is, if I am feeling sad, I’m hanging onto pain.
Sometimes I feel like I am looking through the telescope of life and I don’t really like what I am seeing. People abusing people, corruption becoming common place, the earth being destroyed, and animals being mistreated. All the while hate, war, vengeance and malice are apart of our daily lives. Seems people are becoming tolerant of it all and are learning to just advert their eyes to some other distraction.
We numb ourselves, from feeling anything; pain, sadness and happiness included.
We take medication, booze and illegal drugs to numb our bodies from feeling. Become Facebook zombies, take vacations and drive fast cars to distract our minds from unsettled feelings.
Even women who experience mood swings and sadness during their menstrual cycle are frowned upon. So they take hormones to “balance” them out for fear of being labeled as having PMS.
Maybe we are feeling sad for a reason.
Maybe it’s ok, to just be sad.
Maybe it’s ok to be off-balance and fully experience what are bodies are trying to feel, so we can learn from those feelings.
It’s ok to feel. We are bodies that are meant for feeling. Love, pain, happiness, all of it. We’ve stopped ourselves from feeling for so long that we don’t even realize that we are suffocating ourselves. We are cutting off our life source, our oxygen, our LIFE!
If I have learned anything in these past 6 months, since I have been on this journey, I have learned to start feeling. I have learned that when sadness comes, to feel it. Sit with it, cry with it, embrace it… fully, openly and lovingly, because after you do, you will feel something new in its place.
Release. Freedom. Love.
Love of yourself.
Once we learn to fully love ourselves, even in the embrace of pain, we can start to love each other. The truth is, someone who truly loves themselves, is not capable of hurting anyone else.
First we must learn to feel again. Everything. Then we can learn to love.
Love yourself.
It is the single greatest thing we can do for this world. If we are ever going to change what we see through the telescope of life, we must first turn that telescope and look in.
What ever you may find, no matter how deep and dark the secrets may be, no matter what they are dressed in; shame, blame, pain or anger. Love it. Love all of it. Feel it. Feel the shame. Feel the blame, feel the pain of it. Feel, feel, feel it.
Then watch as it disappears.
Once the pain is brought to the light there is no where left for it to hide.
We need to free ourselves from our pain, so we can live this life full of love.
Write back soon, love Annie.
I’d like to share a very personal voice memo with you. I recorded this 5 months ago, just one month after I started this journey to self, my journey to finding my purpose. I have done a lot of self work since then and I am felling really proud of what I have accomplished. This was the beginning for me, the beginning of my journey to feeling again, and I can promise you, it was worth all the pain, to be where I am at, experiencing so much self-love. xox
“For we can not suppress the pain in our life, without also suppressing our ability to feel love.”
I think it’s a balance. Should you hold back from doing the things that make your soul happy even if it is to take your mind off of the troubles of the world for a time? Absolutely not. We need that re-charge time so we can weather through sitting and soaking up the sorrow, pain, guilt. There are times when I realize I am becoming too distracted and I step back reconnect with those feelings when they wash over me. It keeps me grounded and reminds me of my adjusted outlook. However we’re not made to sit and wallow in the negative as the mind and body connection is so strong. There’s a fine line but it’s about finding the balance and bringing yourself back when the world starts to carry you away.
Beautifully said Jamie. We most definitely deserve times of mindless activities that bring us joy to help re-charge our souls when they are heavy.
Like getting lost on a run, reading a book, watching tv or surfing the web. Yet, like you said, the feelings still need to be addressed and felt. Not just pushed away or buried deep somewhere where they will be forgotten, because they will wait and take up residence until they are dealt with.
Life often brings on painful experiences. It’s through that pain we sometimes find our greatest growth even though we can’t see it at that time…
The point is to feel the pain but don’t get lost in it. We just need to accept it and release it… Not keep it like a battle scar and know that one day, we will be past it.
Totally agree and understand it. I know when I need to lay in my room and relax and can’t stand when people keep badgering me if I’m depressed or why am I tired. I just know that my body feels like I need to lay and rest in peace.