Tag Archives: emotional healing

Letting go letters

I’m a crier. Hard core. You know, one of those people who can’t seem to hold it in AT ALL, who wells up even when she’s not sad. It happens when I’m mad, when I’m frustrated, when I see a mother love a newborn baby, when I watch videos of soldiers surprising their kids with an early homecoming,  or maybe when I’m too hungry and something super minor happens…like when they mess up my order at the pizza place. Well, come on…you can’t just PICK OFF olives, you know. That oil soaks IN, dammit. Anyway, I turn into a mess, and get emotional and it kind of bubbles up and ruins whatever conversation I was supposed to be having and turns it into feelings overload. Not a big deal with the soldier videos, but kind of a big deal when it’s from me being hurt or frustrated. Basically when my emotional expectations are not met.

That being said…I haven’t done that in quite some time now. Months, really. It’s actually kind of awesome to have this new sense of calmness about me. I mean, sure… I still cry. When sad things happen. Or when I think long enough about sad things. That’s normal. That’s what people do when they are sad…they cry. And I enjoy the cry when it’s about something beautiful. I don’t ever want to lose that type of cry. But, I don’t do much of the over crying about people not meeting my emotional expectations anymore. Especially when I want to talk to someone about something important. Last summer, every time I talked to someone I cared deeply for, about things between us that was hurting me, it always ended up with me hard-core emotionally crying, which caused them to completely shut down and run away.  I was trying so desperately to get them to see my point of view, and it simply was impossible. Frustrating, devastating at times, but inevitably impossible. Ugh.

A few of these people, well…we haven’t talked in months. In the weeks that followed us not talking, I still did all the heavy-duty crying, just all by myself. I was no longer trying to get them to see my point of view, but I still wanted them to. Or at least, I wanted them to understand my point of view, except that was never going to happen with all of my emotions, combined with their emotional unavailability. That’s an incompatible, yet common mix right there.  Anyone who’s been reading my blog understands that I’m a magnet for emotionally unavailable men because I was raised in a family of emotionally unavailable men. (Yes, it’s THAT easy to figure out!) I’m not sure if me crying to myself was better or worse. I’m sure MUCH better for them, but not so much for me. I still felt all those feelings, and had to hold on to them. Well, I didn’t have to, but I did. That is, until I didn’t.

Want to know how I finally realized how to not hold on to those feelings anymore? Letters. Yep. I wrote them letters. Long, organic, messy, handwritten, stained with tears letters. I poured the contents of my soul out in those letters. Vulnerable, raw and honest. I wrote all the things I couldn’t get out of my mouth, either due to crying, or due to fear, or due to interruptions or whatever other reason keeps one from getting their point across. I was able to say the things I that were eating away at my core. I got them OUT of my body, my  mind, my soul. When the words left me, they took the emotions with them. Emotions were meant to be felt and released, not ignored and hidden. Many of the things I wrote were things my insecurities would NEVER allow me to say to someone. But in those letters, I was free to say it all…the good, the bad…the ugly. Because, no one was ever going to read them. That’s right, I never sent them. Sure, I’ve sent people in my life plenty of emotional letters over the past few years…that’s what I do. I write. But these letters, these ones are different. These are therapy. These release angst and lead me to the path of inner peace, by gracing me with the gift of letting go.

Those letters, along with many other things I do for myself,  have helped me to let go of any expectations from people I love. I don’t seek validation from them anymore. I accept their decisions as things I have no control over, and that they are not any reflection of me. I only cry once in a while, and it’s just to clear out the cobwebs of sadness from them not being in my life anymore.  If I cry more than that, I’ll just write another letter…but I haven’t written one since December…

I can let go of anything now.

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS May 5/18

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I’m fine.

“I’m fine”. Wow. Crazy how those two words can mean such different things, depending on where you’re at in life. “Hey, your mom and I are getting divorced, and she’s moving across the country…OK?” “I’m fine”, replied the little 9-year-old girl. Except she wasn’t fine. She wasn’t sure what she was, but it definitely was not “fine”. She just said that because she knew it was the expected answer. She knew better than to say otherwise. She knew her role, without even being instructed, or handed a script. Her role was to be “fine”, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t play that role with perfection. She rarely even had to say the words…as long as she acted fine, that was all that counted. Acting fine kind of comes easy, after a while. Even when things couldn’t be more opposite of “fine”. She acted just fine during that period of time when that hormone fueled teenager effectively ended her childhood. No one had a clue. She acted just fine when she was treated like Cinderella…that is, Cinderella before the ball. You know, when she was the despised step-child and made to do all the work and was unloved, while the golden children lived a life of adoration? Yeah, that Cinderella. She acted just fine when no one blinked an eye at her being that Cinderella step-child. Just fine. Not one person blinked a damn eye.  I suppose she acted that way because it’s all she knew. If it’s just fine to everyone else,  then it must be just fine, right?

She played that role right through high school and into adulthood. Boys and men doing things…it’s just fine, right? I mean, it was just fine when she was a kid, so…

She played it to Golden Globe status as an adult. She was sleep walking by this time. Just sleep walking through life, through that script written out for her. No improv. All script. At this point, it wasn’t even her anymore. Just some typecast actress, playing the same old role, over and over and over, until one day…she woke up. When you wake up while sleep walking, it can be pretty jarring. You most definitely are NOT fine. Everything you thought was real turns out to not be real, and you realize there’s some real shit in your life you pretended didn’t exist. Or you didn’t understand, because you were never taught to think otherwise. She absolutely became not fine. She started to speak about how not fine she really was, and all the people who expected her to play that fine role became nervous. They were playing roles, too…and now they didn’t know how to act. God, NO ONE ever steps out  of character! Who did she think she was??? They tried to force her to say the lines that narcissistic director demanded, but she just didn’t have it in her anymore. She realized she just might love her new role a bit more than she needed that conditional love from her co-stars. She asked if she could just play her new role, and let them continue to play their roles, and still be in the same movie…because she did love them, regardless of the conditions. But those character actors are sticklers for routine, you know? So, they kicked her out of the movie. Just like that. No getting together for coffee, no catching up. No “it’s not you, it’s me”. Just out. She found herself alone, sad… and not fine. Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not, I swear…

Even though she loved her co-stars more than anything, she really hated the endless movie they were all acting in. Seriously, it was a movie with NO ending. Who would sit through a movie like that? No one. It’s exhausting. Her sadness eased as she realized that them kicking her out of the movie was not a reflection of her, but a reflection of them. It was actually textbook behavior of a co-dependent family. Textbook. She began to feel sad for that 9-year-old girl, and the teenager she became, and learned how to nurture that inner child. She learned how to nurture herself, as an adult. I mean, God…SOMEONE had to do it, right? She learned how to nurture others, in a healthy way. She learned so much, and continues the learning process to this day. Definitely not perfect at any of it, but at least she’s wide awake now, and is following her own script. And though she misses her old co-stars more than anything, she can sleep at night with her decision. She’ll always be waiting, with open arms, for them to wake up and join her. She can do this because she’s been touched with grace for traveling the path of the awakened. She experiences everyday miracles. Who do you know that you can say that about? Not too many, I think. It really is quite magnificent. Healing is quite magnificent. Now, for the first time in her life, she means it when she says, “I’m fine”.

 

This post was written in response to Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Social Consciousness Saturday. Check out her page at the link below. Anyone can join…

 

 

 

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS March 3/18

 

 

 

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