Sharing Your Feelings is Dope as Hell

I could feel disharmony within me and I knew there was a separateness where there was meant to be oneness. I started the work of uncovering my soul twenty years ago because I knew there was a more beautiful and purposeful way of living if I could do it with my soul.

My internal life prior to beginning my journey of wholeness looked a lot like a kid dropped in the wilderness and left to make her way through with nothing in her pockets.  

I spent a lot of time afraid of every click and snap I heard, hyper-aware of danger and predators. Often I’d find what seemed to be a safe place where I could rest a bit and not be in danger (for me this looked like not getting in trouble, following all of the “rules,” attending church, not having a boyfriend…) and I’d stay there until it wasn’t safe or good anymore and then move on to find the next safe spot.  

I was always looking for something secure, but even when I thought I’d found it I knew not to get too comfortable.

I learned quickly how to fashion weapons out of what I found around me - how to weave this vine into a net to throw on things coming at me, how to sharpen this branch into a spear to keep danger from reaching me, how to throw stones, how to stack boulders to wall myself in, all in an effort to survive and stay safe.  

I didn’t really understand that I was meant to be living.

Survival largely meant maintaining distance from everything to keep me safe. I’d internalized that I wasn’t worthy of maintaining a relationship with as a child because of the abandonment and neglect I experienced through the divorces between my parents and each of their spouses, and from other adults who - for a time - poured time and love into me but then left, too.   

I learned that being highly sensitive was a nuisance to others so I became snarky, sarcastic and, witty AF to keep from actually feeling things as deeply as I did, and to keep anyone from getting close enough to discover that I really was that sensitive.  

We moved every year. I went to 9 schools between kindergarten and graduating from high school. I went through more than my fair share of “little t” trauma. I experienced adult-sized anxiety as a 12-year old that stayed with me for decades, and then its cousin Depression came to hang out.  

The bottom fell out from under me frequently. 

I felt very much like a burden growing up.  

More than once in my internal wilderness journey I found myself at the foot of a mountain with sheer faces, massive altitude, and questionable weather at the top. It was the only way forward - summiting this mountain - but I didn’t think I had it in me to make the climb. So I’d sit at the base of it for as long as I could (sometimes for many years) and make do with what I had around me. The same is true for when I faced descending into deep valleys for as far as I could see. I’d pull way back and think to myself: 

“I don’t want to do this. I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS!”

I knew that “good” was on the other side of the valley and mountain - but what I know in hindsight is that the “good” was the valley and the mountain. That’s where we’re stripped of some of the false tools we’ve fashioned to keep us safe (which is to say “the same”) so that we come out on the other side carrying less, knowing ourselves more, resting back a little more into the gifts and resilience we’ve learned we have. 

What happens in these places happens for us, not to us. And what I’ve realized is that sometimes the most profound things we endure are yes - meant for us - but may actually be meant more powerfully for those around us. The teachings come through us, to everyone else. We are a conduit of healing for others - if we will allow ourselves to be - by doing the healing, uncovering work first.

Through my journey back to reclaim my soul (my “self”) I had such a softening in my heart for what I went through during those formative years and for the choices I made in the years that followed, and I found a ton of grace.  

Uncovering yourself allows you to see how you’ve been conditioned; where these layers of limiting beliefs, patterns, behaviors, attachments, and wounds came from; how they separate you from how you are meant to be living; and how to heal from them. And yes, there’s anger and hurt and grief when we deal with a lot of these layers and where they came from, but eventually the softening you experience within yourself extends to those who wounded you because you realize they were wounded too, and up flows grace for them and yourself.

I learned that to find that inner harmony, that oneness - where we’re uncovered enough to be authentically living from our soul - we must use love. That’s the only way to heal what we have been through and become whole.  

It’s through loving yourself enough to do this work. This is the excavation of your before born self and I believe it is the pinnacle of self-love. It’s not easy, not everyone will do it, but for those who step into it - we become part of the salve for the wounded world and its people.

*Sharing Your Feelings is Dope as Hell - Timothy Goodman