This morning I was speaking with my sister on the phone and she mentioned she remembers almost nothing of her youth. This is because our childhood was rough from the start and we largely suppressed it. Beginning when we were little tiny beings (inutereo in my case) we experienced big, heavy energies, and we had no tools or support to process those experiences, so we buried them, like stuffing feather pillows into a basket and putting the lid on it. This is what happens when we humans are faced with experiences/emotions that are too big for us to hold; we stuff it down into the depths of ourselves so we don't have to be with it. Problem is, those unexperienced emotions don't go anywhere; they remain with us, designing our reality and essentially making us sick, either physically, emotionally or both. When we stuff our emotions into a basket, we prevent them from moving, so they fester like an infected wound. You know how when your cat gets an abscess and you have to keep the wound constantly open so that it can heal from the inside out? Exactly the same. We must heal ourselves from the inside out.
As an adult who has done a lot of practices to build up my nervous system so that I can hold heavy energies, I have learned that the only way to allow this miasma of unexpressed emotion to leave my body is to take the lid off that basket. The experiences I've stuffed down don't necessarily need to be processed or understood as I have already integrated the knowing of how my childhood formed me. Now the suppressed emotions simply need me to be present with them, so that they can be expressed, so that they can move through, like a storm. E-motions. They move, which is simply what they are - energies that moves. We make emotions so much more than that by believing them as true and then reacting and/or building up huge belief systems around them. If we could be cleanly present in the moment, we would see it is just energy moving; if we can allow ourselves to feel them and then let them move through, we would be much freer and happier.
So how do we take the lid off? First, we must get our nervous system in good shape by any number of practices - yoga, breath, meditation, presence, gratitude, fill-in-the-blank-with-whatever-works-for-you. For me, this has been all of the former, along with time in Nature, mantra and studying ancient wisdom practices and writings. These bring a sense of calm clarity to all of my bodies as well as my mind. We must tonify our nervous systems first because our bodies will not allow us to be with what we cannot hold. As my subtle body became more and more adept at bearing the weight of heavier and heavier energies, I began tuning in with my inner child. I know, this is the part where you roll your eyes and check out. So trite, inner child. And trite for a reason because it's real and true. When wee ones experience trauma and simply stuff it and never somatically revisit it, a part of them becomes stuck right there. So I tuned in with my inner child by first bringing myself into a meditative state, and then I began feeling/visualizing myself as a young girl - as a 'separate' entity - and eventually she was present with me. I found her curled up in a fetal position, unable to even look at me. I had to coax her to come sit with me, where ultimately she felt safe enough (I finally trust myself) to climb into my arms - and we broke open together. That was the beginning. Over many months, I revisited her again and again, and before my eyes she grew older, and my memories returned and I let the pain of my childhood go. I still revisit her as a practice and she brings a lot of information and energy to my emotional body. She's also really good friends with my puppy :)
My sister has asthma and is fully aware that it is her childhood pain, held in her body. She has done a lot of work intellectually understanding and releasing her childhood. As she begins this deep dive into somatic work, I can hardly wait to applaud her freedom.
Blessings to you all upon your journey <3
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