There are so many ways we distract ourselves from seeing and accepting our truth.
Not only do we generate ever-evolving coping mechanisms to tune out the heart’s voice while external elements high-jack our attention, we create tons of reasons to lock in habits and a way of life to maintain a level of “normal”. It’s not conscious or intentional much of the time; we just mimic what we’ve learned and build well-worn routines to stay protected from experiencing personal trauma. It’s a common human behavior and certainly understandable. Why change what works or dig into feelings that are unsettling, uncomfortable and messy, and possibly invite in more chaos?
Well folks, “normal” has now left the building for all of us at the same time. Things are messy and chaotic. The pandemic has transformed the way we work, create, socialize, network, find joy, relax, connect with our center of clarity and calm – just about everything related to our daily life, habits and thoughts. There is no longer a way to escape what we don’t want to know or see about ourselves, especially as lock-downs continue. It’s time to open to understanding the ways we avoid seeing and accepting our truth and step onto a more sustainable, self-loving, centered path forward in an increasingly chaotic world.
This means you need to ask yourself one very important question – are you continuing to fight your true self, or are you ready to open up to the enormity of what your heart and soul contains on every level? It’s the invitation before you. There’s only so many TV shows, movies, hobbies, games and books to keep you distracted from what’s asking to be seen and heard. The voice in your heart, not the demands in your head or the rules you’ve created, keep you safe and insulated. It’s time to feel and get real with all the emotions, baby.
How Emotions Easily Get Glossed Over, Especially By the Self
What does the phrase seeing and accepting our truth bring up for you? What does it actually mean to you? It’s a generic set of words that can easily be written off as psycho babble, new age speech or a whole lot of nonsense. Which is why I want to dive into them a little bit deeper.
For a long time I intellectually understood what those words mean. As a writer I would say – yes, those words make sense and bring home a clear point of how important it is to connect with our inner truth. It’s our essence after all! Emotionally I was running in the complete opposite direction – not intentionally, but out of habit, fear and learned behaviors.
Throughout my life as an empath I’ve had a very interesting relationship with emotions. They are part of what makes me highly sensitive, intuitive and able to “read the room” so to speak. They are a true gift for me and serve at the core of my passion for working with fellow creatives. However, I also learned to use my emotions as an alert system to keep myself “safe”. Feeling them at a deep level felt reckless and dangerous, so I would use them as a way to keep myself informed about the needs and habits of others. Add in two parents with a very low emotional IQ, and I learned pretty quickly that my emotions were not understood, appreciated or useful in my world. So instead, I turned them into my radar system.
If my emotional body was triggered that meant I should avoid, deflect or use my emotional intelligence to help others and keep focus off of my own emotions, needs and desires. After all, these aspects of myself weren’t heard or completely misunderstood anyway. And who needs EXTRA reasons to feel vulnerable?
These choices also created a habitual path for me to express a soft and gentle empathic touch for everyone else other than myself, over and over again. I know I’m not alone in this experience, even if your personal path has its own nuances and circumstances. We all avoid feeling to a degree because it can hurt and make us look at the reality of where we are not heard, receiving what we need, or to turn on ourselves by feeling we are not enough. However, this habitual path also means we cut off feeling and appreciating the good, joyful and powerful emotional experiences we encounter, too, or begin to practice self sabotage because we feel undeserving of the good and joyful parts of life.
Crack Open the Door to More of Your Truth As You Evolve By Actually Owning All of You
This is just a very small part of my personal story that has generated some very potent personal realizations.
The moments of chaos in the world right now, and the need to stay socially distanced, have offered me a chance to go A LOT deeper. I can really feel into the parts of myself that have been misunderstood and neglected because I was afraid to see, hear or feel them fully. I also notice and accept patterns I was perpetuating out of sheer habit and fear because I finally have the space and time to observe them without a way to side step their presence.
Some examples: my tendency for excessive “doing” to avoid feeling my own feelings bubble up, and all the ways I used my empathic gifts to deflect attention from myself out of fear of being misunderstood, rejected or hurt. And let’s not forget the multiple ways I gave “my all” to everyone else saving so little for myself, without ever fully understanding the depth of what I need to stay healthy, balanced and connected to my intuitive center – including “hearing out” my own feelings.
There are so many ways we avoid seeing and accepting our truth, and have no clue we are doing it habitually. At the same time, our avoidant behavior can easily coincide with healthy personal practices like a balanced diet, exercise, plenty of sleep, community involvement, loving relationships, etc. The practices we build can just make it easier for the deeper, more emotional parts of us to hide. If we consistently follow healthy practices to manage the diversity and stress of life we keep focus on completing or following “the steps”, rather than feeling the feelings that bubble up THROUGH the practices themselves. And that is exactly what happened to me, without a conscious understanding of the gravity of my avoidant choices.
These behaviors have led to some personal health challenges and a huge backlog of emotions that I’m finally setting free, but each emotion requires me to acknowledge and/or FEEL through it to actually let it go properly. I’m still developing my new emotional process pathways. Some parts are easier and “stick”, making it simpler to notice and release outdated emotional reactions. Others have been trickier, and keep showing back up for a deeper level of understanding and acknowledgement to get to the root of their message.
What’s Next For You to Work Towards True Inner Alignment?
At this moment we have much to contend with globally in the outside world. We are waiting out a transfer of power in the US and navigating how to stay safe in the pandemic – all while finding ways to survive financially, stay social, maintain relationships and set foot outside our homes now and again. We also have one very precious thing – time to go deep.
Are you going to use the new found time on your hands to worry, get angry, give up, distract yourself or binge on food, booze or entertainment? Or are you willing to make a little space each day to build new self loving practices? Can you commit to a personal review in a deep, intimate, meaningful way, without the regular distractions that have kept you from understanding your own powerful, personal, essence and true heart desires buried behind feelings that have not been allowed to flow? Is there a version of you that can slowly evolve during this unique period to collect and share more truthful aspects and expressions of the diverse aspects of your soul?
Isn’t it time to deeply, clearly, know what we really want and need? To finally understand the ways we avoid seeing and accepting our truth to align ourselves with the path that lets our desires and needs have space to breathe and grow and flourish, without self judgment? I’m finally ready to open to this experience – I hope you are, too.
Want to read more? Check out these other blog posts including Explore and Define What Keeps you Rooted in the Present and Yourself and Are You Pushing a Specific Creative Agenda and Ignoring the Insight of the Moment? Enjoy podcasts, check out mine called Flirting With Enlightenment.