Breathe, Feel and Heal
I’ve lied to myself and to the world without even knowing it… I’ve lied that I’m balanced, that I know what it means, but I didn’t.
My whole life I was bouncing from one extreme to another. Even subconsciously I was looking for external stimuli to keep me happy. I was accusing the world or my past or anyone else for my sadness or pain. I THOUGHT I was living in NOW, I hoped I was doing it but deep inside of me there was a storm that was swinging my whole being to the right or to the left. I grew strong legs that were keeping me fairly on the ground, otherwise I would be swept away. I presented myself as a calm person but no-one, including myself, knew what was going on inside of me. I’ve sealed up all the emotions – fear, sadness, happiness, passion, love and hate. I was designed by the society and upbringing to be a good girl.
When I was a teenager I was writing the poems, I was journaling a lot and everywhere I could find the stories about the masks and my true self that was hidden behind them. I wasn’t able to show myself to the world because of the fear of the rejection. The nasty and ugly deeper truth was – I didn’t even know who I am under all these masks as I put them so long time ago and they stick to my face so badly that I had no idea what was behind them… or maybe I was too scared to look?
As much as I wasn’t accepted the way I am throughout my life I put different disguise just to be loved and seen and not to feel pain. But… I armoured myself so badly, putting so many protections around, that I was able to feel only… pain.
Everything I was doing was to avoid it but to feel something I was attracting subconsciously suffering into my life. Every feeling that wasn’t strong enough to knock me down I haven’t noticed and, from the ones that were knocking me down, I tended to escape to dreamland. Pendulum. If there were positive emotions I felt only the ones that were so intense that put me on the edge. This is paradox of trauma. We escape from things that hurt us but to end vicious circle we attract them into our lives.
The healing starts when we decide consciously to peel off the layers of the conditionings, dig through the traumas and pain, see ourselves as little babies – vulnerable and naked and finally in the end we forgive ourselves. The truth is that no-one got enlightened by imagining figure of eight but by doing the work of dealing with dark side of their soul. I’ve been there, I was meditating, working hard on calming myself down but avoiding to deal with the darkest part of me. I remember one profound “Journey” session when I approached dark matter, I looked at it and said “Meh! I know all about it. Can we just go somewhere else, do something more exciting?” That was one of the steps to feel and heal.
The first step, I’ve done long time ago, was to acknowledge the demons and lessons but later I needed to face them, embrace them and work with them otherwise they would remain in the state of “knowing” but active like the dark matter I’ve encountered. They will do their job just behind the closed doors.
The final stage of healing for me started with one breath during the BioDynamic Breath and Trauma Release workshop. I peeled off all the false images I created, tons of masks and I’ve done it in front of the strangers. I’ve shown them my ugliness, my soft heart, my pain, my sadness, my anger and lust. I was allowed to have all these emotions, I was allowed not to be happy puppy all the time, I was allowed to say no or yes, I was allowed to be myself. I found myself.
I realised that it doesn’t matter what story stands behind the trauma. Pain wants to be felt and the circle of trauma wants to be accomplished. It can be done with a help of gentle breath and bodywork. Just trust and do the first step to heal yourself.
Just breathe.