You Can’t Heal What You Won’t Feel
It was an early morning, and I was sitting on the floor of my room in deep meditation, trying to clear my mind of the racing thoughts that kept flooding in like a rainstorm, so were the streams of tears down my face. I felt the heaviness of all the things I was carrying. The emotions that I bottled up and didn’t take the time to feel. This was so loud internally, but it provided me with the peace I needed to move forward.
I was grieving, coming out of survival mode. The conditioning that’s built up in you when you couldn’t fully express yourself as a child without harsh criticism due to poor communication skills and unhealed trauma, feeling misunderstood (socially and culturally), parentifying your parent who was emotionally neglecting, losing a parent at a very young age, having to be mindful and responsible for others’ emotions and problems, while not being able to be a child that had goals and dreams that were ignored and dismissed.
Being disappointed by my parent, other adults, and even friends would trigger me so profoundly that I would shut down without explaining. It led me to a place of survival where trusting others, being oneself, or letting one's guard down is impossible. One must always assume the worst from people and not let anyone get too close to knowing who you are. In that meditation moment, I realized that I had to release a lot of that old baggage if I wanted to grow and not be weighed down by my past, old habits, and belief systems.
This wasn’t a one-day “ah-ha” moment; this was an awakening period that wasn’t pretty. I had many epiphanies during this period in my life. I didn't think life transformations could happen in this way. I would have much rather gone into a physical cocoon and come out as a beautiful fly ass queen. Instead, metaphorically, I felt like I was hibernating in my home for months that at times felt like a mental prison where I was left to tussle with my thoughts.
I had to shed so many emotions around my family that often made me feel guilty for even showing up as a lesser version of myself, as I felt like I was being insensitive to their needs. They’re not supposed to see their mom this way. I wasn’t used to showing such a broad range of emotions because I didn’t grow up in a place where that was allowed. It was a hidden skill, and you were rewarded for how well you could mask your feelings and appear “OK “ to the naked eye, like the time when I would cry myself to sleep because I missed my late father, as I was told not to cry about something that hurt so much. Or the time when I saw my mother shed real tears when a friend or family member passed away, other than that, I only heard it randomly, like whispers through her bedroom door. As the wave of tears calmed and my meditation came to an end, I felt a peace that could not be explained. It felt like the ending of a profound chapter. A chapter that I desperately wanted to come to a close.