Opening up To The Pain

             Tears have a place in helping a person integrate their feelings and restore homeostasis in their brain functioning. When people are not allowed to cry, it puts them in a place of holding back emotions and can later cause them to use emotional distancing as a defense mechanism. This is when a person had to leave from feeling their emotions because they were too overwhelming at an earlier time, and in the end they use it later in life when encountered with emotional intimacy because are scared of the outcome.

              This is precisely what happened to me, and I find it hard to trust anyone in emotionally intimate situations. My heart constricts and I involuntarily turn away from affection. It makes me seem crazy to some people, and to my own husband when he pays me attention and I do not know what to do. I saw it in my daughter when I was ignoring her and talking to my husband for an hour while holding her, that when I went back to her she was just looking all around and pushing me away. My heart breaks when that happens, and I realize what I did to her and I cannot face it. It seems too overwhelming to me, because I feel that way as well and I have a hard time breaking out of it too. So I get triggered and try to distract myself. I find myself being annoyed at her, too. But then today, I took her face in my hands and stroked her, singing to her that I was there, and I thought about how innocent she was and how much I loved her. When she started crying, I felt so much better and was able to feel her pain more and feel love that she was mine that I started crying too. 

             When we accept the pain and let ourselves feel it, we can overcome it eventually. This is what I work on doing with encounters with sadness. Facing reality, and that it is out of my control, helps me deal with it. The more you let yourself feel the hurt and accept that it is not connected to the current situation, the more you can create new pathways for good and learn to love.