Facing My Dark Side

Facing My Dark side
After many years of trying to figure out why I have felt so sad much of the time, I have finally realized over the past several years that the only way to move out of my sadness is to feel the sadness. It has been very hard for me to do that. I have been involved in the spiritual, personal development movement for 20 years and at times there has been very little support for embracing all of ones feelings whether good or bad. During the last 20-30 years there has been a very large movement towards positive thinking and denial of unhappiness. This has been very confusing to me at times. I have felt very alone many times and I have felt very misunderstood by my closest family members. I have felt angry about my inability to just let deep level feelings go. Why would I want to let deep feelings go? When they are feelings of anger, sadness, fear and helplessness I have wanted to run away as fast as I can. Feelings of this nature are very uncomfortable to live in. Not only does it feel bad to be there, but it is twice as bad when you don’t feel supported by the society you live in. It has been frustrating to see people in my life parading around like they are happy. The belief has been if you think you are happy then you are happy. I was fooled by this for years because of my own insecurities about owning my real feelings. Some of my closet friends tried to help me by suggesting I use positive affirmations, or I do something to get my mind off of it, another words get busy, or they tried to help me justify why I might be feeling this way. At that time many years ago everyone I knew who was a part of this movement was having a hard time accepting that there could be as much grief for all of us as there appeared to be. When would it go away, why was I experiencing it, what had I done wrong, was this my destiny in life to be one big emotional mess? All of this questioning of self and my situation did not help me one bit. Looking back on my very long journey I can now see how much easier it would have been to just go with it. The problem was I didn’t want to appear insane or mentally ill and I knew that people like my husband could not begin to understand what was going on with me. In fact a lot of people around me appeared to by just “fine”. Were these people happy, no they were not, would they admit they were not happy or fulfilled, no they would not. Thankfully as the years went by my girlfriends and I began to embrace the emotions and feelings more wholeheartedly but it didn’t ease the pain I felt around me family of origin, my husband or my in laws. All the grief and sadness did serve a purpose and I have a much better picture of what reality is. I see why I was so lonely and felt so sick. Outside of my close circle of friends who were in the same place of trying to allow themselves to be who they were and a few authors and teachers who professed the idea of embracing your whole self good and bad, these concepts were not acceptable by society at large. It was like the blind leading the blind and it was painful feeling blind and not being able to see if there was a light at the end of the tunnel. As I went through my process I began to see that there was no other way out for me, positive thinking would not take away the pain. I had to go through the pain instead of around it. I had to learn to trust myself and trust that I wasn’t insane, and I had to allow myself patience and kindness. And I had to give up my wanting for a different life. This was my life and I could either accept it and me or I’d probably end of dead. Not to be over dramatic, but that’s how miserable I felt inside. Facing my feelings meant, feeling my feelings, crying if I felt like it, screaming into a pillow if I felt mad, writing letters to people that had hurt me and not sending them, and loving myself even though I felt completely unlovable. I had to learn to love myself as no one else could and I had to stop expecting people to understand even those closest to me. I had to stop trying to convert my husband to my way of thinking. I now see more clearly than ever why someone like my husband whose life was quite high functioning would want to delve into all of his inner pain. Unfortunately though, because he chose not to we are not longer compatible in any way. I have changed so dramatically that we can’t find anything to connect on. This is another piece of allowing yourself to go through your process, this is a scary part of it. If you decide to allow your feelings and allow the new world that will become your world by doing this, you will most likely lose friends and possibly family members or spouses. This creates more pain and more loss and more confusion. So you say why would I do what you are proposing, why wouldn’t I run away from my pain? Well most of us do and most of us live very shallow lives. Most of us limp through life because we carry a bag full of unresolved feelings. And one thing I can guarantee is if you don’t choose to embrace your feelings and grieve your losses from childhood, etc. your limp will become more pronounced as you get older. Your bag will get heavier and heavier as you continue to hold unexpressed emotions. I know you don’t want to hear this I didn’t either. But take my husband, he is a very decent good man by societies standards, hes a good provider and has integrity in business, lots of friends and interests. He is also losing his family right now as we speak. He hangs on to old beliefs and ways of being that are in huge contrast to how I see life and live life. He hangs onto fear around money and our children being spoiled and he tries to control their destiny because he is afraid they will be as “successful” as he wants them to be. He is a workaholic who spends the best of himself at work and comes home with only leftovers for his family. He has a hard time understanding why our girls don’t rush home to see him when he is off of work. Why don’t they answer the phone when he calls? He tells himself they are busy and distracted, and yet they answer the phone almost immediately when I call, every time I call. Its not because I am so perfect, its because I accept them for who they are, I trust them to make good decisions based on their internal knowing and I allow them to make mistakes because I know this is how you learn. My relationship with them is not forced but easier going and relaxed. Even if I yell at times which I do, they know they can stand up to me and say I don’t want to talk to you right now you are being rude and disrespectful and I listen.