In my earlier blogs I talk about the impact of sexual abuse, see here and here. This childhood trauma had a huge impact on my relationship with my body and was the main underlying cause for my disordered and emotionally driven eating.
Healing my relationship with food and my body was the most important thing I did for healing my relationship with myself and recovering from this childhood trauma.
I don’t spend much time these days thinking about what happened or working specifically on deep healing around it. But that doesn’t mean triggers and stories don’t arise and it doesn’t mean I can say I am ‘fully healed’. These kinds of scars run deep.
While they don’t now impact my everyday life they are still part of the fabric of who I am and from time to time things get highlighted or called up to be seen and to be dealt with.
This is exactly what happened these last few days. Perhaps it was Valentine’s day and all the love being shared, I am not sure. But for some reason a conversation I had with some male friends triggered a massively disproportionate amount of rage. I got so infuriated and I knew it wasn’t about them personally or the exact things they were saying.
I know the feeling of being triggered well now. It’s something we learn as we develop our ability to listen to our intuition. As we learn how our body responds and reacts to different events, conversations, environments and people we learn what is ‘normal’ for us and what is out of character or disproportionate.
This skill is what allowed me to not take my anger out on my friends but instead go inwards and ask myself what was going on for me. Our bodies hold so much wisdom. Our bodies know what we need and how to handle themselves. It is so so crucial to develop our ability to truly listen to ourselves.
Not only was I able to recognise what was happening and feel my reaction rather than unleashing it unfairly on the world, I was also able to be kind and compassionate to myself in that moment, even though I was angry.
This is the key. To know that whatever we are feeling, even when triggered is OK. ALL of our feelings are valid. Every. Single. One. We are still lovable when we are mad, we are still lovable when we are hurting, we are still lovable when we are depressed. The way we are feeling is not a determinant of how lovable we are.
Healing is not linear. There will be days, weeks, months, years when triggers simply won’t come up for you. Where you will wake up everyday feeling energised, hopeful and excited for life, able to handle healthfully anything that comes into your sphere. Then a conversation or event might trigger something and we feel ourselves falling. We try to grasp on to the feeling of peace, of joy. But it slips through our fingers and we find ourselves deep in the anger.
Know that this doesn’t mean we have failed or that we have gone ‘backwards’ this is all part of the healing journey. In fact it’s an unavoidable part of the journey of life. The important thing is what we bring to the table to support ourselves through these times. We need to bring the awareness, kindness and compassion for ourselves that we have been developing. We need to recognise these feelings for what they are which are feelings. Feelings, no matter how intense move through.
Knowing how to handle ourselves with love in those moments is crucial however there is one even more important piece of wisdom for supporting ourselves through these times and that is CONNECTION.
The thing that helped me the most over these past few days is speaking out my feelings to trusted friends and those who triggered me. It sounds easy writing this now. But I know it can feel terrifying. However the energy of those feelings needs to move through and needs to move out of our bodies. Sharing with a trusted person in our lives is THE most healing thing we can do for ourselves.
There is something profoundly pure and beautiful in sharing our pain with someone who understands. This is something I was totally unaware of until I truly began my healing journey. Telling a friend you feel angry is one thing but being able to express your emotion into the world while someone sits and stays with you with no judgement through that is something very different and incredibly special.
If you are looking for someone to share your story , someone who is truly able to listen and hold space for you with no judgement then please know you can always reach out to me through the comment section below or email me directly sasha@sashafardell.com. Otherwise use the links below and join me over on instagram or facebook. Hope to hear from you.
This is exactly what I’m trying to teach myself. That all feelings are ok, that I can let them come and go, just feel them and let them pass. And that having feelings doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me, which is what I learned growing up and what I’ve always believed. It’s hard to re teach myself and takes so so much practice, especially in the hard moments. So often I fall back into: I shouldn’t feel this way, or this often, I’m too sensitive, and just as I said I feel sooo unlovable if I’m mad or sad……any negative emotion. I also tend to feel like a burden telling others, but it does help so much to talk and get it out of me. Reading something like this really helps to remind myself and reinforce what I want to instil for myself, and what I want to teach my baby as he grows up.
Thank u for taking the time to write this.
Thank you so much for sharing Cat. Sorry to hear that you were taught that having feelings is somehow wrong – it is so common and so damaging. You are doing so well to recognise this as old negative programming, and as you’re discovering, is something that we have the power to change. All of your feelings are valid, even if they feel disproportionate or intense! Even if you know you might be ‘overreacting’ they are still important emotions as they are signalling something to be healed.
You are safe to let you feelings come up and pass through.
In the past, I also really struggled with feeling like a burden expressing myself to others. I discovered that a lot of the times those who weren’t really able to listen or made me feel bad for sharing were those people who repressed their emotions themselves. It made them feel uncomfortable hearing me share as they didn’t want to be reminded of their own feelings that they were trying to forget. It’s not you – look for other people.
I want to remind you that you are worthy of being listened to, you are worthy of being heard. I hear you, your thoughts and feelings are completely valid, every single one of them.
Sending lots of love and encouragement on your journey through this
Sasha xx