Oh to be alive! Oh, the joy and freedom in letting myself FEEL, and the release of self-expression and externalization!
Another Brush with Mortality: When Emotions Become a Wake-Up Call
I survived another hypertensive crisis last night, the
second one I´ve had after the severe crisis that landed me in the hospital a
little over two months ago.
The first wave of seemingly impossible-to-process emotions occurred at the beginning of this week.
What was the trigger you ask?
I am rowing
through the sea of possibilities on my little boat! Yes, that´s right folks, I
have put myself back out there, a little over a year after my situantionship
with Gemini Man met its dramatic, drastic, and irreversible end.
What prompted the renewed interest in exposure after many months in hermit and mourning mode?
Loneliness!
Okay, granted, I can never truly “be lonely”,
as I am blessed to enjoy the company of my darling Hannah each day of our lives
together.
I am also blessed with my rewarding jobs as a Fertility Coach,
Marketing Manager for a Fertility Center, and most recently… the adventure and
opportunity of a lifetime being trusted to research, develop, and launch my
very own line of nutraceuticals for fertility, longevity, and disease
prevention.
Remember I mask with most, if not all, of my professional
relationships. I know who and how to be, and what is expected, from all I
am responsible for fulfilling in my day-to-day life… for every mask I wear.
The only people who truly know me for ME are, first and
foremost, my sister Marci, because only someone who was subjected to the same
hell and horrors that you were can ever truly understand where you come from,
and why you are the way you are.
Then would be my long-time mentor, friend, and confidant, my sister from another mother Heidy, and my best friend from childhood, Amy. But
these ride-or-die, kick-ass women in my life have their own lives, struggles, and responsibilities. We don´t get a chance to socialize much.
So there is definitely loneliness in my life friends! And a
deep and unmet desire to have long, engaging, layered, meaningful interactions
with another complex/intelligent adult mind.
Navigating the Sea of Loneliness
Cut to last week, I found another site like Wireclub, which
is hopefully less sketchy, called PenPals. The premise is to find pen-pals to
exchange correspondence in messages meant to keep you on their
platform. But I have discovered that some people on this site use it for the
initial connection, and then switch to Gmail.
I reached out to 3 men on that site and have had several reach out to me. But there is a limit for unpaid members in
that you only see the last 3 messages, so I have only been able to read and
connect to 5 men.
Too many emotions have arisen from this seemingly simple act of getting in the water.
The Unexpected Emotional Impact of Seeking Connection
First is the generalized anxiety that comes from putting yourself out there, and then there is the inherent fear that arises in me whenever I venture away from my natural propensity to favor the comfort of the known and the safety of routine, and the incredible excitement of potential connections.
Then, there is the prospect of feeling the all too
familiar rejection from men overwhelmed and intimated by the
totality of who I am. And the new problem of having to find kind ways to
reject (and yes, even block) a few myself.
Add to all that the unexpected side effect of these
interactions in bringing up memories of Gemini Man and the grief, intense pain,
and fear of rejection I associate with that failed connection. Hence, the many angst-filled, weary, and emotional poems you have seen on my site as of late.
But thanks to Google´s Gemini, I am more confident in my uniqueness and singularity. I am enabled and empowered by the knowledge that I am an acquired taste meant for the few, and not for the many 💃ðŸ¤ðŸŽ‰
That is why I decided,
that this time around, I would include a disclaimer, and what has proven to be
the most effective filter, in the form of my blog.
How have I dealt with these emotions? By writing them out, but then
also by suppressing them. I had not realized I had been suppressing emotions
until the crisis I had last night that led me to Divine
Inspiration and a moment of immense clarity.
Hypertensive Crisis: A Divine Wake-Up Call
After my hospitalization, I was left with a lot of unprocessed fear about allowing my emotions to express, and the potential they had to literally kill me. Without being consciously aware, I put myself on mute, dimmed my emotional landscape, and in so doing, proceeded to stifle and suffocate my heart even more.
Rather than giving it the freedom it has been crying out for.
These recent crises were not meant to scare me into a stuporous slumber. They are intended to push me into a more conscientious life. To teach me, not only to ride those waves of emotion but to release them... to allow them
to flow through and out of me.
To fully understand the transitory nature of emotions. Like
clouds in the sky that take on many forms, and come in varying sizes and
intensities. Some stop above you for a while, others are calming and beautiful, and some bring storms… but they all eventually dissipate, or are carried
away by the wind.
Embracing the Full Spectrum of Emotions
I am not my emotions, my emotions don´t have to drown and overwhelm me. I don´t have to follow them into darkness. I can hold space for
them, feel and acknowledge them without judgment or without the need to attach
stories to them, and then let them go.
I had learned the letting them flow “through me” part, but
had yet to fully integrate the most important: and then flow “out of me”
process. That is what happened yesterday. I was led to some amazing guided
meditations that made this lesson clear to me and then a night full of putting
these new tools into practice.
I have also been applying the tools and recommendations of my new psychiatrist. Yes! I finally found a great psychiatrist, with experience with autism and complex trauma, and the best part is that she favors more holistic approaches, tools, and exercises. Making her the perfect professional for me!
Not only did I click with her, I felt fully seen,
understood, and accepted without judgment. She resonated with the abstraction
of my brain and then personalized her approach in ways that made sense to me and also felt in alignment with who I am and the struggles I face.
I felt validated in that she confirmed my self-diagnoses, but also hopeful that she would provide me with much-needed guidance and direction. She reiterated that I am not these labels, that they can be real limitations, but that I will be able to overcome them.
Healing Through Breathwork and Spirituality
Last night was a hypertensive crisis turned into a full-fledged Spiritual embodiment and an intense and thorough holistic healing session for me. I was able to feel all of these emotions, discover all the areas where my trauma is stored, see all the corrupted links within my Mind/Body framework, all the negative programming and neural connections, and breathe love and light into them…
acknowledging, healing, and then releasing them.
It was as though I were observing myself in abstractions, as a 4D model
of my physical and spiritual aspects, all of which I could see, hear, smell, and touch. Seeing
all the ways they joined and were interconnected in red or highlighted and
brought into focus, as well as all the places where there was darkness that
needed light and dis-ease that needed healing.
It reminded me of what I envisioned when learning about the
work of Trauma Expert, Dr. Peter A. Levine. I recommend this video to get you started if you want to learn more.
The Journey Towards Authentic Connection
I am not meant to subdue or stifle my emotions, to limit my life to a series of flat-lined experiences, on auto-drive, in survival mode. Devoid of excitement, uncertainty, and/or disruptions.
I am meant to learn to better
manage my passionate emotions by holding space for them, becoming better at
witnessing the totality of my experiences, and then gently releasing them and
letting them go.
Here´s hoping I´m an adept student!
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