Learning to Feel

     My daughter Ashton recently started a blog, to cronicle her recovery from heroin addiction. Last nights post was about how hard it is learning how to feel again. I think that eventually this is a lesson that most of us must learn. It doesn't matter if we hide our emotions with drugs, alcohol, food, cigarettes, other people, or just bury them deep down inside where we can't find them anymore, we all have a way of coping with all the things in life that we don't want to "feel".

    I never felt like I was one of those parents that actively told her children not to feel, but I know now that we learn so much more by watching than we do by what we are told. I have been one for many years to hide my feelings and if they did creep out of me it was usually when I was alone and no one else would see my vulnerability. One of the hardest things for me to learn has been that it's ok to feel. It's ok to cry, to get angry, to feel whatever emotion that we need to feel....it's ok. When I tell my clients to let go of the guilt and feel whatever it is that they are feeling, I see dramatic shifts happen. It's like it never occured to most people that they were allowed to feel their feelings. It's the most liberating idea in the world...it's ok to feel and I don't have to feel guilty about it. 

     Here is Ashton's blog for you all to read today, it's real, it's raw and it's part of her beautiful journey learning to feel: 

      Lately a real struggle for me has been the fact that I have to begin to feel emotions again. And I am definitely being tested lately. I have spent years perfecting that exact thing - NOT feeling. And now that I have done good for myself and I have begun to turn my life around and quit using heroin, I have to start feeling again too? I know I need to and I know I want to, but the road getting there is in no way being underestimated, its hard. And, inevitably that is what has led me back to the heroin every other time in the past when I have quit. 
     I am so grateful for my class that I took this weekend 5 Element Acupressure for Emotional Healing. This is definitely something that I am going to use not only for clients, but myself as well. In the class we worked with the Transverse Fascial Membranes, to help to release emotions being stored in certain places of the body. Also we worked with Aromatherapy, the 5 elements with Traditional Chinese Medicine, some reflexology, Cranial Sacral work, and Acupressure.
     Laying down in a dark room, on a massage table, smelling strong esential oils from all over - its hard to know what to expect when someone is about to open up the Fascial Membrane on my Diaphragm, Pelvic Bone, Clavicle, and Occipital Ridge. For me, my body reacts in a number of ways to therapeutic sessions. For one, I twitch... quit a bit, because my body wants that person working on me to get away because it is not use to all the feelings that are being stirred up inside. Another thing is that I got very tight like my body woudnt let anyone in, it was protecting me from all the times I have been hurt in the past.Lastly,  I was accompanied by mass amounts of heat and vibrations throughout my entire body which was pretty overwhelming some of the time.
     It took two sessions working with opening up the membranes for me to start to process just a sliver of some of my emotions. All day yesterday after class I found myself being extremely emotional. And the thing about it was, I didn't know why. I knew my body most likely released some emotions and was just working through them. But being sad and not knowing why has been familiar to me since the third grade and I've always wanted to do something to fix myself - as if I've always been broken. And although I know now that isn't true anymore, it is still extremely hard to get used to feeling anger, or extreme sadness. I can no longer turn to the drugs to hide my real feelings anymore. It's a really hard struggle for me. I have always been someone who wants to please others, play nice, and not get in the way. But it has made me this person who has so much pent up anger that I am afraid to let it out because of who might be in the way.. But I don't want to end up alone and bitter, which is what will likely happen if I don't.
     I didn't realize how void of emotion I really was until it started to come back to me and although some of it can be overwhelming, I have also been experiencing great joy as well. When addicted to drugs I had no energy, no happiness, I was constantly numb of anything happy or sad. I would look at people and envy them for their energy to be able to walk a half mile to the store, or get up and go to work everyday because I couldn't hold a routine with anything. I was just too sick all the time. But in the past four months I have started school again, my romantic relationship with Danny has been improving far more than I thought it could have in such a short amount of time, and I constantly soak up every second I can with my family and love it all. Being full of life is so worth the hard times, because it is those happy moments of pure bliss that make this life worth living. And I know I'm here for a reason, a big reason.

      Keep feeling, in the end life is better when we show up for it. The good, the bad, the ugly and all of our feelings. I have been blessed to have you as my daughter and I thank you for sending me on my own journey to learn how to feel. I love you. If anyone wants to keep up with Ashton's journey she can be found at her blog "Living Life in Pink" at  www.ashtonmuffin.blogspot.com  

     JJ Heller seems to be the girl who's singing my song lately......  

Comments

[Ashton]

Aww beautiful post. Great minds think alike ;)