The more I progress through my healing journey, the more obvious it gets that my physical symptoms are tied to anger, fear and shame. I used to think the symptoms were 'physicalisations' of my emotions, sort of like somatic metaphors, but the writing of Max Goodbird (Superb Owl) has helped me understand that emotions are physical things in the first place. They're always your body doing something, and when it gets stuck doing the same thing on a loop you have 'chronic' problems.
Weekly Gestalt therapy is currently my best tool for addressing my shame, although 'hard' is damn right - the only way to let the trapped feelings out of my body is to actually feel them, and that can be torture. What's encouraging though is that even if I'm not exactly *happier* day to day (things have to get worse before they get better), I feel somehow lighter, more capable and more resilient. I notice myself acting more confidently and looking forward to used-to-be-difficult things more (or at least dreading them less).
So even if my head is full of past wounds that need healing, I feel better equipped to handle what's happening *now* than I used to, and that's setting me up to have a future that's more joyful than my past. Does any of that sound familiar to you too? :)
I'm beginning to think time just gets us adjusted and increases our threshold to where we can't feel things as intensity, and what we do in between to get there is just bonus. You can go the hard way or the soft way. The soft way is growth, understanding self discovery. The hard way presumably just drowning oneself in self pity, but I think even that can't last. It seems most of us on this path end up finding softness. And with that the intensity of the pain subsides life returns and we can begin to forget.
The more I progress through my healing journey, the more obvious it gets that my physical symptoms are tied to anger, fear and shame. I used to think the symptoms were 'physicalisations' of my emotions, sort of like somatic metaphors, but the writing of Max Goodbird (Superb Owl) has helped me understand that emotions are physical things in the first place. They're always your body doing something, and when it gets stuck doing the same thing on a loop you have 'chronic' problems.
Weekly Gestalt therapy is currently my best tool for addressing my shame, although 'hard' is damn right - the only way to let the trapped feelings out of my body is to actually feel them, and that can be torture. What's encouraging though is that even if I'm not exactly *happier* day to day (things have to get worse before they get better), I feel somehow lighter, more capable and more resilient. I notice myself acting more confidently and looking forward to used-to-be-difficult things more (or at least dreading them less).
So even if my head is full of past wounds that need healing, I feel better equipped to handle what's happening *now* than I used to, and that's setting me up to have a future that's more joyful than my past. Does any of that sound familiar to you too? :)
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I'm beginning to think time just gets us adjusted and increases our threshold to where we can't feel things as intensity, and what we do in between to get there is just bonus. You can go the hard way or the soft way. The soft way is growth, understanding self discovery. The hard way presumably just drowning oneself in self pity, but I think even that can't last. It seems most of us on this path end up finding softness. And with that the intensity of the pain subsides life returns and we can begin to forget.
A lot of things are just time aren't they. This piece of James Harris' is very honest about that: https://stiffupperquip.substack.com/p/dont-write-the-trauma-memoir-until
I adore this piece you shares. Thank you
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