Why does growth hurt so much sometimes? I can think back to the physical growing pains of stretching upward as a child. Looking back, that seems like NOTHING compared to the pain of heartbreak or feeling tough feelings. We’ve been taught that we should avoid feeling certain feelings, but avoiding them really keeps us trapped. I was listening to a talk yesterday by Melinda Gates and she encouraged us that we must allow our hearts to break. We have to allow pain to pass through us.
Here are some suggestions on how you can allow pain to pass through you:
1) Notice there is pain- have you ever been so frozen over you couldn’t actually feel or acknowledge the pain? My hand is in the air. Been there, done that. I don’t know about you, but when I did that I really thought I was fine. I continued on in life for a few years until I just started noticing things were not going well...at all. Once I started realizing I was successful in certain areas of my life, but could not really achieve deep connection with others I started digging around. What I found was that there was a reservoir of pain hidden deep under the rocks. If I didn’t start tending to it, the pain was going to erupt. So, the first step is to really notice that you have pain.
2) Acknowledge that feeling it is going to be pretty darn awful, but it’s good for you. I don’t want to sound like a parent telling you to take your gross medicine or chalk-like multivitamins, but the truth is feeling all the feels (even if they are painful) is really necessary. Proceed with mindfulness and say “this might be pretty awful now, but it won’t last forever. These clouds will pass.”
3) Set aside time to feel. You might be afraid to unlock the beast. Emotions can be really scary if you’ve never been taught to feel sadness, heartbreak, anger- all the “bad” emotions. So do yourself a favor and schedule the time to feel them. Get out in nature, wake up early with your journal and write about them, talk them through with a therapist, or sit under a warm fuzzy blanket and just cry. You’ll be surprised how over time you feel much more free.
Doing this will help you feel more connected to yourself. By feeling connected to yourself you will also find that it brings you into deeper connection with others. If you’d like help in this area of forming deeper connection, check out my course!