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thehappymessproject · 5 years

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71-73/100 - On dancing with our shadow

What does it mean to face and sit with our pain and discomfort?

I’m often talking here about the need to face our darkest parts in order to grow and change. But know first hand that this concept is hard to grasp for most of us.

Not only is facing our darkness and weakness super uncomfortable and scary, but it is also very counter-intuitive in our Western culture, urging us to be happy and to power through even our most normal and human emotional processes like grief. “Keep yourself busy and get back to life already! Be productive, you’ll feel better!”

When we add on top of that cultural toxic soil the hardship of trauma or mental illness, it is not hard to understand why most of us avoid our unpleasant feelings more than we face them.

Too often we assume that people who seem to be doing better than us have the privilege to not suffer from bad things, negative self talk, bad self esteem or toxic patterns. That’s simply untrue. But they are very privileged to know how to deal with them in our emotionally illiterate world.

Regularly in my life, as many others, I am confronted to bundles of hardship, those periods where the Universe itself almost seems to be against me, making sure I learn one more time that there is nothing I can do except for facing all of it to give myself the chance of growing through it.

Right now, I’m stuck in one of the positions I hate the most : utter helplessness. I sprained my elbow when I fell a couple of days ago. My disability makes my balance unsteady and this used to happen quite a lot before I took better care of my body and physical health.

The last time I was stuck with a sprained elbow was 9 years ago, around the same time of the year. I never thought about it that much afterwards except for what it brought me, it was just that thing that happened to me once.

At the time, avoiding my shadow was kind of a sport for me, and one I was really committed to. Now that I am in a very similar situation, and specifically since I never really dealt with it then, I am dealing right now with feelings I had then but wouldn’t face. It’s one fucking mess, believe me.

I remember now vividly how much I was sad and lonely. How much I hated from my very core feeling helpless and needy.

Back then, my whole life was outside of my home. To feel alive, I needed to see people, to learn at school, to dance carelessly. I enjoyed some time alone watching movies or scrolling on the Internet curled up in my bed, reading and taking warm showers after long days of hustling and interacting with a lot of people. Sure.

But that was when time alone would happen only a few hours per day, and by choice, not when I was stuck at home, taking three times longer to do anything, feeling uncomfortable AF and in pain 90% of the time, unable to rest properly because of the pain and discomfort, with the few people I knew at the time away from Paris for the holidays.

Without my cat and the Internet, I wonder what would have come out of this personal mini hell.

These days, everything is very different. I moved on this tiny island a few months ago, with the cat (and my partner). I work from home, and I had a very quiet and low-key lifestyle for the past few years. So I’m not alone. Someone I really enjoy can help me and take care of me. I also have an inside life that is filled with daily moments of deliciousness, play and joy. I don’t need to go out to feel alive anymore.

But that’s not what is the most different. I am a completely different person. My Parisian life seems to have existed 3 lifetimes ago. Facing my shadow, that darkness we all have, has become my new favourite combat sport. A major part of my life has been dedicated to it. I learnt to work on my self-esteem, and my mindset. I learnt how I enjoy taking care of myself.

I also faced so much shit in the past few years that it really feel almost ridiculous that I was so bummed by these few weeks back then. But wouldn’t it be too easy to beat myself up for everything I didn’t know 10 years ago? How would that being helpful?

I was talking a few essays ago about how to face our vulnerability. That’s a major change to operate in our life, but it’s one that makes us so much braver and strong. The only path to living fully our humanity.

How dancing with our shadow can change our experiences

I still feel super uncomfortable and in pain, obviously. But now, I don’t have to stay super tense, grind my teeth and wait desperately for it to pass (it won’t pass) like I did back then. I can use my breath exercises and meditation to make the pain as minimal as possible. I can also listen to my body now that I spent years connecting to it in different ways. I could then feel from day 1 that my arm needs a lot of rest, but also a little bit of movement to not stay too rigid. So I made up short yoga flows to compensate for what I can’t do, alleviate the toll my body has taken by the fall, and by being so restricted.

I can also talk pretty freely about my pain since I’m letting myself feel it, and cry about it. I let myself having all the big emotions that come up. Feeling so helpless and not in control always bring up strong depressive emotions (discouragement, despair, body dysmorphia, negative self talk...) : we can’t deal with such force by ourselves in our head.

So I speak up about that pain around people who can support me and help me (even if imperfectly). I also push myself to journal about it. I’m writing this to make that pain even more useful (to me, and hopefully another soul or too).

I also slowed down tremendously. I can feel how my whole body is traumatised from that fall. So I made my body my priority. I rest a lot, I take naps, I don’t ask myself to be productive, I cut myself some needed slack. There’s only so much we can do, especially in a healthy enriching way. This physical recovery has to be a priority if I want my body to heal the best way it can.

That being said, I have to be careful. My brain will use this as a way to distract me from everything that matters to me, but still is scary. In those periods, my brain hates the fact that I meditate first thing in the morning when I wake up. If I do, right at the beginning of the day, I have to pay attention to what’s happening inside of me. So all the excuses and distractions are good to derail this and instead lie down in my bed, scrolling.

This happened after such a lovely week playing with my paints and finding creative projects to have fun with while progressing, preparing the new way I want to share my work with the world. Yes, my body is a priority right now, but giving up everything we love because it feels harder is self-abuse disguised in self-compassion. So I keep myself focused by choosing everyday one tiny thing that is important to me and my brain finds excuses to not do.

I need to be a loving mother to my inner child here. Tell them “Yes my Love, it sucks and hurts. We need to go slow, and still make sure we don’t forget what matters to us. It will be harder to do them this week, and probably longer, but each time we will do them, it’ll help us healing in all the ways. We’re hurt and in pain, not in a coma, paralysed or dead. We are lucky enough to still be able to do some of the things we love. Let’s take a bit of strength for that everyday, it will make us even stronger when it’s finished.”

When we are sick or hurt, and give up every aspects in our life that makes us happy instead of finding what we can still do, we learn over and over that being sick or weak means not deserving a life. We make those moments so much more dreadful that they need to be. We feed a phobia of weakness and vulnerability.

But if when we are feeling so weak, helpless and vulnerable, we allow ourselves to do little things that count, we show our inner child that there is nothing to be scared about being human and imperfect.

That no matter state we are, we can always choose to grow, make the best of it, and make our lives easier. I don’t know, but in our Western culture, I and a lot of others, especially those that aren’t able-bodied, who suffer from diverse chronic disabilities and illnesses, we are in great need of that kind of inner strength.

To help me do just that, and this is very important : I am also taking the time to remind myself how much I learned about myself all those years ago. That I was more self-sufficient than I thought. Another reminder that I wanted people I could count on in hard times, not just people to party and have fun with. That pain and loneliness gave me the courage to be bolder in my interactions. It helped me being grateful to be able-bodied, after years of despising my disability as well. That pain had meaning.

Once we look our monsters in the face, we can stop wasting our time and energy on the uncontrollable, and finally focus on healing and changing the very few things that are in our control.

Speak soon, Love, L.

#vulnerability #recovery #darkness #anxiety #depression #eating disorder #addiction #healing #counselling #therapist #psychologist #writer #the happy mess project #100 days project #100 days of writing

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