The past three weeks have been an emotional time for me, a lot of grieving and healing, which I am grateful
for (better to go thru it then ignore it!).
Last week I had an interesting experience of healing that I
would like to share with you and is a good example of what happens when we hold our truth deep inside our body.
On Monday night I was watching my favorite show
So You Think You Can Dance, two dancers began to perform a Broadway
number and the song they danced to was Mr. Bojangles. The minute I heard the first
chord of the song I started crying, I remembered the song from when I
was a child and loved it, as it continued to play I could feel an overwhelming constriction (best word I can use to describe an
indescribable feeling) in my body. At
the time I thought “wow isn’t that interesting, I must be emotional or going thru something”
and went to bed thinking "tomorrow I will download that song because I really
like it". The next morning I did just
that and as soon as the first chord played I had the exact same reaction as the
night before. What the hell? Now I am
thinking “okay Tracy there is way more going on here”!!
I tried it a couple of more times throughout the day and yup same
thing! I knew intuitively that it was triggering a repressed memory but I had no idea what it was, so I decided to meditate and see if
anything came up. I put the song on and
brought my attention into my body, slowly the constriction became centered in
my throat, it felt as if I was being choked, I knew it was the day my Dad died, and the memory of my Mom telling
me came into my mind. At the time (I was
10 years old) I had not shown much emotion, sure I cried, but my younger
sister screamed and screamed and everyone was so sad and so worried about me and my sisters, I just wanted it to all
go away, I wanted everyone to be happy again (fascinating to me even now as I write that). As I allowed the physical sensations to permeate my body, I was sobbing and I knew that in that moment I had not been able to express my TRUE feelings.
Bringing this up had
turned out to be one of the most painful emotional experiences of my life, I
knew this was going to be a difficult process and thankfully I had enough awareness to
know I needed to be kind to myself and not push. I ended my “session” and decided I would take
it slowly; it would need to be healed one day at a time, maybe one minute at a time! (Some very good
awareness for this overachieving personal growth junkie!! lol) I woke up the
next morning feeling “strong” and decided to give it another try. I put on the song and the same feeling arose, once again I allowed it and went into my self
inquiry. I knew now what I wanted/needed to say and how I needed to react to the news
of my fathers death, I said out loud what I needed to say, I cried and screamed and breathed through it to release the long held emotion. Phew! Slowly it dissipated and I felt like
a weight had been lifted off of me! A
little later in the day I played Mr. Bojangles again and guess
what? No tears, No pain, instead I felt
JOY, and was dancing, remembering how much I loved it as a child. Yay!!!!!!!
My Dad died 41 years ago, so it has been an eye opener as to
how when we don’t speak our truth, and express our true feelings,
they weigh us down in ways we can’t even conceive. When my children’s father died 8 months ago I
remember saying to them “you grieve in whatever way you need to and don’t care
what anyone else says or thinks about it”, obviously I knew instinctively how damaging it is to keep it bottled up.
If you need to scream, scream; if you need to cry, cry; if you need to
get angry, get angry; if you need to grieve, grieve; if you need to talk, talk;
if you need to write, write; if you need alone time, take it. It is so much more important to express ourselves authentically
then to do what we think is the “appropriate” response or what others think our
response “should” be. For myself I
believe that my inability to express myself is based in a high need to be nice,
I don’t want to hurt people and if they are already hurting I don’t want to add
to it. So I would rather suppress my own
feelings and my own truth, thinking this will make them feel better. I call this being a Martyr and it runs deep
in my Catholic roots, but how can you be
nice to others if you can’t even be nice to yourself? You can’t give what you
don’t have. Please, please, please be kind to yourself!
Join me today in taking a vow to express our feelings, speak
our truth and share our beautiful TRUE selves with the world . . .Always and with Everyone!
Stand in the Light and Be Seen As You Are.
Open. Open. Open.
xo Tracy
