This morning I woke up and had the this thought ringing in my head, so like a good vessel, I felt called to bring this thought to life and allow it expression. When we run from others’ emotions, we are also running from our own. As I woke up today, this thought kept plaguing me and so I felt it must be a message from the divine that is aching to be heard, though it isn’t an entirely comfortable piece to write because it doesn’t paint me in a magnificent light.
I’ve seen this in my 2 closest relationships. For a long time in my relationship with my fiancé, I ran from his emotions. When he would bring up his feelings about the relationship or me, I would start chucking stones over my emotional wall. It is only now, as I am removed from this place in my life that I can see how hurtful this was and can see that this is what I was doing to him. When I was behaving in this way, I couldn’t see it. You know the song, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found… was blind, but now I see.” Now that I’ve been granted eyes to see, I want to share parts of my journey in the hope that if you are currently still in darkness with some of these matters, you may begin to see things a bit more clearly. My goal is to give you the insight that I wish I had come across much sooner in life because it would have made the trip smoother and a lot more fun.
For example, when he would indicate that he felt something was “off” in the relationship and discuss how he wanted to improve us, I would often shut down. I would sit there and literally not say a thing. I would put on my face of stone. If I did say anything, it was probably just as bad as saying, “Uh huh, Ok, What’s Up, Shut up!” (you may know this song as well). I was incapable of responding in a loving way to his emotions because I could not do so with my own. At that point in my life, I was so far removed from myself and had been in the horrible pattern of denying any emotion that came up for so long, that when others brought up emotional conversations, I ran.
I avoided deep emotional conversations because I did not know how I felt 99% of the time. My emotions would only come out in a roaring rage, which happened more often than I would like to admit. Under the surface, I was like the bubbling volcano, just waiting to explode for some type of emotional release. All my emotions were transmuted into anger because every other uncomfortable emotion was “unacceptable.” I had repressed for such a long time that I couldn’t feel anything other than anger because this was the defense I had used to keep people from tapping into the emotions that I spent so long denying within myself.
I had the false mindset that to be vulnerable in any way was weakness. Although, I am female, I had the “macho man” persona, which resembles the lyric from Frozen, “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.” I believed that to be strong, was to be hard. I believed that I had to be impenetrable in order to keep myself “safe.” My nickname at this time in my life should have been “Fort Knox” because I was always full of artillery ready to fire off at anyone who attempted to breech my high emotional borders.
Where did this thinking come from? I can sum it up by saying, “I had been hurt and was still hurting.” There are quite a few things that probably contributed to this belief which range the gamut of my mom telling me to “Stop it!” in an angry tone any time I had an emotional response that was not positive, not being chosen/honored by the boys I liked in my earlier years, being back-stabbed by people I thought were friends, not wanting to be a burden in my family when my grandmother became ill, being targeted by girls who wanted to harm me in junior high, etc. Your beliefs usually don’t form after one experience, but several that culminate into a way of being.
I’d developed this impenetrable barrier to keep myself safe, but it was also keeping those who were trying to love me out. I locked myself in and in doing so I prevented any light/love from reaching me. I wondered why I never truly felt happy when I seemingly had a “good life.” I would then beat myself up with the “shoulds.” I would tell my I self I “should” be happy. I “shouldn’t” feel irritated. I “should” be in a better place in life. I “should” feel like I was in a romance novel with a hot burning passion for the person I was with. I “should” be more, do more, have more, love more, make more, travel more, live more. I struggled in the land of “should” and “shouldn’t” way longer than I would have liked.
All of this was invalidating myself and continuing to evade what I truly felt. I didn’t want to look at any of my life and admit that I had been hurt. I didn’t want to feel pain because I felt it was weak and unjustified. Because I couldn’t admit that certain events had hurt me, I never took the time and space to feel and heal. I couldn’t even admit at that time that I needed healing because I thought all of this was “normal.” All this repression led me to seek unhealthy ways of feeling something, feeling better, feeling worse, feeling anything just for the sake of feeling. I sought comfort in the wrong places until finally this approach broke me and I had my moment of reckoning.
Iyanla Vanzant always says something to the effect of, “I got tired of being sick and tired,” when asked about how and why she decided to turn her life around. This is really what occurred with me. When I hit the bottom, I looked in the mirror and asked myself, “Who are you?” Looking back, there was always a knowing that I had ventured quite far off of the path of who I was meant to be. All the “shoulding” on myself was my way of saying this to myself, but in a way that made me feel worse instead of empowering me to change. It wasn’t until I couldn’t recognize the good in myself anymore that I admitted that my running had caught up to me. It was that moment that I knew I was at a crossroads. It was then, that I sought help through therapy, church, and yoga.
I’d mentioned there were 2 relationships that have shown me my innate desire to run from emotion. The other is the one I have with my daughter. She is like me in a lot of ways. One of them is that she is a very sensitive little soul and has emotions that express themselves in extremes. In times where she is “melting down” it is still hard for me to remain present. The more upset she becomes, the more I want to evacuate the premises and I realize her extreme emotions bring up my own discomfort around my emotions. I’m learning to stay present (in mind, body, and spirit) when these outbursts occur and am working to remain centered, calm, and loving in these times. I do not want her to learn to stifle her emotions because she feels they are “not ok” like I had done for so long and so I am hyper aware of how I respond to her emotions now that I’m on my own spiritual journey.
I’ll always be a work in progress, but the difference between who I was and who I am now is that I am committed to doing the work. I’m committed to healing the pieces of me that still need some love. I’m committed to bringing more of what truly brings joy into my life. I am committed to myself in a way that I had never been. In hindsight, I realize that I had wanted to leave the broken parts of me behind as though they never existed, but we can never leave ourselves behind. Everywhere you go, there you are. I encourage you to start excavating your own broken pieces and beginning your own inner work because there is nothing more rewarding than realizing the truth of who you are.
Does this resonate with you? What parts of yourself have you tried to run from? Have you stopped running? Share your journey with me in the comments or reach out privately using the form on the contact page.