Have you reached a point in your life where you felt lost, disconnected, confused, defensive, struggled to let others in, struggled to open up your heart and let your walls down?
I sure did… and a huge part of my journey with self-discovery and self-awareness has been acknowledging just how disconnected from myself I truly have been. I realized that it was having a huge impact on how I showed up in my relationships, in life and even how I would treat myself. I learned a long time ago to disconnect or detach from myself in order to survive and not feel the pain, upset or even anger that I was feeling and holding onto inside.
I reached a point in my life where I really wanted to end the story I kept telling myself of being “emotionless” or unable to feel emotions. I really wanted to be able to connect not only with others but also myself, to love and accept myself for who I was and for who I am, to embrace and feel my emotions without them consuming me, to open up, to be vulnerable and share or show up wholeheartedly.
And then I got into the breathwork. With every practice I realized and acknowledged a lot of really hard truths about myself.
- I was codependent.
- I put myself in situations that make me feel unworthy because I already felt unworthy.
- I would read into things too much.
- My communication skills were lacking.
- I overanalyzed.
- I let people walk all over me.
- I never stood up for myself.
- I was overly emotional.
- I would self destruct.
- I would overthink.
- I never asked for what I wanted.
- I needed to feel needed.
- I would try to surround myself with people who would tell me nice things in hopes that one day I would be able to believe them or feel them. The truth is I never did and I acknowledge that was because I didn’t believe them for myself.
- I hated being alone (abandonment issues) .
- I had built up a huge wall that stemmed from anger.
- I never asked for help as I viewed that as a sign of weakness.
My Godfather expressed to me that I will have to give up control and be willing to surrender to the experience. Surrender?!? I LOVED being in control and the thought of giving that up was absolutely terrifying. I developed this sense of control to cope with the lack of control I felt in my life as a child. I was terrified of the unknown, I was scared of “losing myself”. I spent years creating this version of myself to project myself, and embracing a new version of myself would require me to let go of the old one. To be honest I was very comfortable in who I was as a person because she was the only person I knew. She was my safety blanket but she was also my biggest challenge and limitation.
This version of me was a survivor, she was a warrior and a fighter. Her thoughts and feelings are valid but her lifestyle and story didn’t have to continue to be my lifestyle and story. I had two choices… I either continued to play as a victim or I choose to learn from my experience and use that to grow and evolve into the next version of myself. When I decided to work on myself, I was ready to SURRENDER and embrace a new perspective, to feel all of my suppressed feelings, acknowledge and take responsibility for myself and to let go of old stories, patterns, and behaviors that I continued to let consume me. I was ready to free myself and to use what I was going to learn as a stepping stone towards a new version of myself… an evolved version. I wanted to leave my old self forever. A highlight that stood out for me was I felt as though a piece of me had died. I worked for months on myself and walked out, for the first time feeling free, happy, present and relieved. I acknowledge now that a piece of me didn’t die but it rather took a back seat. I never realized just how much my ego was in control and fear was running the show. My fear exists because of trauma, conditioning, patterns, and behavior (my blueprint) and has consistently been there for my protection but has come with a price… and that price is my limitations (not stepping outside my comfort zone, not taking risks-playing it safe, not investing in myself, not going after what it is I want and holding myself back. I have always been my biggest obstacle.
What a powerful moment though in being present and being able to feel that, experience it and be aware of what had happened or was happening.
My experience of surrender and what I have learned is there is no weakness in surrendering. To be able to surrender and give up control is one of the most courageous things you can do. It feels scary and even terrifying but it is also beautiful, exciting, healing, enlightening and playful.
Surrender:
It is strength.
it is not doing — it’s being.
It is not giving — it’s receiving.
It is not certainty — it’s trust.
It is not wanting — it’s gratitude.
It is not judgment — it’s intuition.
It is not resistance — it’s acceptance.
It’s letting go and being present. TO BE IN THE NOW! So why am I sharing this?
I share this because we all have a past, we all have stories that we tell ourselves, trauma or pieces of ourselves we have to heal, we are all not perfect and there are parts of our story that require us to take responsibility for ourselves in order to continue to grow, heal and move forward.
What’s a part of yourself and your story you are are ready to acknowledge, work on, heal and not let limit you anymore? What would it look for you to start healing that piece of you and what kind of support would you require in doing so?
