While driving home from my daily Starbucks run to get my grande chai tea latte, I had a soul-weary breaking moment.
Everything I’ve been facing these last weeks had finally gone past my limit. Not my daily limit . . . not my monthly limit . . . not my annual limit . . . but my absolute limit.
The anxiety I feel every time I put something out there. The endless questions and doubts it raises in my head.
The fear and the ‘what ifs’ from all of this had finally reached a breaking point.
Something in me gave up. And then something else opened and said to me, “I’m tired of the fight.”
I felt the thing giving up in me, continue to lose ground.
The something new that was opening up was encouraged by this and said, “I’m tired of hiding.”
I felt the giving up thing crack all around me . . . I felt huge chunks of it fall away.
I took a big satisfying breath.
I felt my feelings surface as my body relaxed and let go.
Something new then said, “Others are going to think whatever it is they are inclined to think when they read or hear your words.”
More letting go . . . more surrendering . . . tears of relief filling my eyes.
” . . . If you’re going to be judged and misunderstood regardless . . . then why not let yourself just be who you are inside? ”
“. . . at least that way, you’ll know with complete confidence that you have nothing to be sorry for . . . ”
“. . . and whoever it is that you are . . . whether it be evil . . . whether it be good . . . what does it matter? How can you expect yourself to be anything other than who you are?”
I expend so much energy trying to hide so many parts of myself from others. All of the things that have tried to come out, and then were yelled at or told they were bad by others. All of the things misunderstood . . . tighten themselves small and they huddle inside my core seeking protection.
Afraid to be seen . . . afraid to be judged . . . afraid to come out and find out that they are evil . . . hated . . . unloved.
I’m tired of the fight . . . the fight to keep those things hidden when I’m around others.
I’m tired of hiding these parts of me.
For me, they are my emotions. They show my sensitivity. They show how much I care. They show how much others affect me. And I am ashamed of them.
I’m ashamed of how easily I cry. I’m ashamed of how much and how often simple things move me.
I don’t like how others respond to me when they see my tears . . . I want to say, “My tears don’t mean I’m weak. My sensitivity doesn’t mean I’m fragile or that I need to be handled with kid gloves.”
If I’m crying . . . then I’m okay . . . I am in my power. My strength and my power comes from my deep emotions. My tears are my strength.
When I hide my tears . . . when I use all of the muscles in my body to stop them from showing . . . when I use even more muscles to keep from looking like I’m trying to not cry . . . then I’m not okay. Then I am being weak. Then I am closed. Then I am not in my power. I am hiding. I am fighting myself to not be seen.
I keep waiting for a day when it’s okay to be me. Waiting for others to be more accepting and understanding of each other. While I wait for this fictitious day to arrive, I corral my sensitivity and feelings into the dark shadows and lock them behind a gate when I’m around others so they don’t accidentally pop out unexpectedly. I seem to think this will up my chances of being accepted by others.
I’m sure others do the same. All of us walking around with the parts of us that we hide in the shadows whispering, “Please accept me . . . please accept me . . . ”
My breaking point is being breached . . . and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t hide any of myself in the shadows anymore. I just can’t.
I’d rather die.
When I hide aspects of me, it already is a sort of death. A slow suffocation.
But I also feel like I will die if someone sees me in my raw emotions. It would almost be easier for me to go into the middle of downtown and strip down naked.
When I write that I am crying . . . I am literally crying. There are actual tears happening. But to most who know me in real life, my crying is like some myth. Sure, you read stories about it . . . but you don’t actually ever see it for real.
For me to be healthy, I must feel whatever I’m feeling in the moment I’m feeling it. I hate meetings or anything that forces me to be around a bunch of people, because then I feel forced to restrain my emotions until I can get away to a quiet place alone and feel all of the emotions I repressed. If I’m able to. Usually once I’ve halted my feelings, it’s hard to call it back to express it. Which is why it is so important for me to feel it in the moment, so that it may leave me immediately.
If I were to learn how to be comfortable expressing my emotions no matter who I was with or how many people were around me . . . I would always wish to be in other’s company. I would no longer need to hide away.
I am so reserved around others because I’m using all of my resources to keep my emotions from showing. It’s exhausting for me to hold things in for too long. However, too many times when I’ve let my feelings show . . . I’ve felt humiliated by the person or outright rejected.
I don’t think others doubt how strong I am. But I feel many would be surprised by how much I feel . . . how much I care . . . how much I love . . . how much the world I see around me moves me.
When I go for walks alone . . . I may just see a butterfly in the middle of a field of grass . . . or two of them . . . and see them start dancing with each other . . . and I feel something so profound move through me, that tears will just start pouring down my face . . . and then it’s gone, but I’m left with such gratitude, satisfaction, and happiness for life.
All my Aries in the 1st house, my emotions are raw . . . I feel and emote with no filters. They burst out of me in all of their rawness taking myself and others by surprise. Not so much my anger . . . it’s my tears and my laughter. I don’t know when it’s going to happen . . . I don’t know in advance what is going to move me . . . so I hold myself tight and rigid at all times I’m in public so that one doesn’t escape me and embarrass me.
The older I get, the harder it becomes to stop holding myself tight even when I’m alone. I can’t be one way at home and another way in the world. I need to always be how I am at all times. I’m always changing from moment to moment . . . while I stay constant in being myself.
It’s not something I will ever overcome . . . I either am expressing and living it . . . or I am suppressing and repressing it. There is no overcoming it. There is no transcending it. Why would I want to? It’s pure expression from my soul.
Why am I so ashamed of it? I don’t know. I don’t think it matters anymore. I just need to start being it again. No more analyzing it. No more rationalizing it. No more avoiding it. Just start living it.
God I’m so scared of this.