Healing by Feeling
The only way out is through
I don’t feel okay and probably never have. But I long to. I’ve been clenched in fear for as long as I can remember. I’ve talked about my feelings at great expense, but have only recently begun to feel them.
The more I do, the more I realize that I have the same feelings I have had since childhood. But until recently, I couldn’t entertain them. That’s changing now.
I don’t know another way past my pain other than directly through it. I wish there was some other way, not just for me, but for everyone. I want everyone on the planet to be able to heal. I want there to be an easier way.
It’s not even that I mind this so much. I kind of like it. Connecting to my pain is, after all, connecting to parts of myself I haven’t felt in a long time. But I also understand why I ran away from it. A culture of facing emotional pain might help, but I also take solace in the fact that maybe healing hurts more for some of us than others. I like to think it will hurt less for you.
Either way, there is lots of replenishing hope in it and only more suffering without it. Much worse suffering actually. I’m more in touch with my feelings than ever. Instead of quickly reacting in the same knee-jerk ways, my adult self is now online and present enough to take in the info and make choices. Every day brings more options and greater freedom from the prison of my unconscious fears. I’m opening and expanding.
The price of healing by feeling may be temporarily high, but the payoff appears to be everything I’ve longed for.
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This is so beautiful and true. We have to go through the pain to heal from it. Like you expressed in your drawing, it can feel kind of elating afterwards. Thank you 🙏🏼😇