Today I was remembering my life before. Before this. I seem to remember a very busy life of rushing from meeting to meeting, office to office, project to project. Days passing by in a blur. Always waiting for a break and some down time. Always busy.. but there seemed very little time for  feeling. Feelings were always suppressed and inconvenient when there was so much to be done. 

I guess there were emotions like frustration, stress, curiousity and determination, but as I sift through those times I don’t get a sense of depth of feeling. It seems curious to me now because now it is so very different. 

Now I feel so many things all the time. In fact it is my daily struggle to ensure that some feelings are kept in check or they can become too much to manage on top of everything else. 

For example, if I allow myself to feel all the pain, and dwell on it for too long I can quickly feel defeated. 

So I have learned to try and switch some of it off. I think that is sometimes why people underestimate the pain and suffering that many of us go through because we have spent so long teaching ourselves to internalize and disconnect from what is actually happening inside us. There is a strong message that people don’t want to know, so we try to never show it. 

Doctors appointments can become strangely sterile as we try and explain the pain and suffering that may take place each day. There is aways the real risk that many doctors and specialists underestimate us or dismiss us because of how we try and control our emotions when we are out in the world. If we told the truth or showed emotions we would be labeled as unstable and simply depressed. 

Out in the world I feel like an open wound where I am exposed to the elements and the people around me. This is not the case when I am in the privacy of my home. I am free here. I am safe here. That’s why I try to stay in this safe place as much as possible, where I can battle on and manage with the aid of my protective home around me. Out there is where all the judgements and discrimination lie. 

In the sanctity of my home I have been working at developing a much more genuine relationship with my feelings, as I have gotten older and my circumstances have changed this is becoming much easier and more rewarding. I have questioned why I have felt the need to mask or hide my feelings for so long when they are such a part of who I am and my life. 

Is it for sake of others that I have done this? Of course it has been! But what has it really gained or benefited me? Not very much at all. It has simply made me complaisant in my own suffering.  

Our feelings tap deep into us and how we see and experience the world. Our feelings put our personal stamp on the things we do and the things that happen to us and it is only by expressing them that I can see them develop and change over time. 

It is now my intension to live a far more honestly feeling life and be at peace with it. Seeing my feelings as a sign of my personal honesty and not a sign of my weakness. 

Perhaps I shall see this as a small step in taking back my humanity and accept who I truly am. For so long denying how I felt was sending a message that it is not ok to feel and I am not good enough when I feel things. 

Only time will tell if it will add new dimensions to my life and coping and I feel I owe it to myself to try. 

Gentle hugs, 

Trish.