Recently, I’ve noticed I feel uncomfortable after writing sections for my book. At first, I chalked it up to sometimes writing is just freaking hard to do, so of course I would feel uncomfortable.
However, it started happening more and more, and I wanted to figure out why.
What I realized was that it wasn’t always fun to write about and re-live my past. My intention during writing is to share how I’ve moved through my past struggles, lessons, traumas, hardships, etc., and it can get a bit heavy.
For instance, I got very uncomfortable while I was writing about an extremely difficult internship program I completed back in the day. It was a tough time in my life. The program required me to move out of state. I was excited because it meant that I could live with my sister and her family.
However, the demands of the program were so intense that all my time was consumed by working or studying to keep up. In addition, I was in a long-distance relationship with Dave (my now husband) after dating for only four months. Plus, I had a long commute in traffic each day.
To say I was stressed does not fully describe how I felt at the time.
I’ve kept in touch with one of the women from the internship and for a long time we joked about having post-traumatic stress (PTSD) from the ten long months we endured.
Over the years, I’ve done a lot of healing work to learn from and move through tough times like this. So why was it still making me uncomfortable? I was remembering to clear and cleanse my energy.
That’s when I took a break to sit and allow the uncomfortable feelings to come to the surface. Slowly, I could feel sadness, frustration, anxiety, and some anger arise.
I briefly allowed myself to feel these emotions and then I took a deep breath in and as I exhaled – I released the sadness, frustration, anxiety, and anger.
Then as I inhaled, I breathed in forgiveness, acceptance, and peace. I did this multiple times until I slowly started to feel less and less uncomfortable and more and more at peace.
I remembered . . . part of the healing process is to allow ourselves to feel all of our emotions, both the ones that feel good and the ones that don’t feel so good. Minimizing or avoiding how we feel doesn’t make the feelings go away. They are still there underneath the surface waiting to be acknowledged so they can be released.
I remembered . . . healing happens in layers and sometimes emotions we thought we already dealt with may come up again. It’s okay. It’s another opportunity for us to heal deeper and release more of what we are ready to let go of and bring in more of the good stuff.
I remembered . . . what happened was in the past and I cannot change the past, but I can choose to accept it and learn from it.
I remembered . . . how important and freeing forgiveness is for everyone involved, myself included.
It helped. I felt a sense of relief and a sense of clarity surrounding this time in my life. The experience made me wiser and stronger.
“When I start to see healing as unfolding layers of strength and wisdom . . . it doesn’t feel so unfair.” Lysa Terkeurst