The tendency to avoid feelings that surface from within us when we give up our distractions and busy-ness is compelling and usually unconscious. Tending to our blocks lies in identifying our avoidant behaviors. At the same time, avoiding these existent feelings leaves us exhausted by the many tasks and labor it takes to keep up pretending.
Time with ourselves, alone and undistracted, is not a place to necessarily dwell in bad memories and depressing emotions. Nor is it a punishment to look squarely at our “flaws.” The weekend hours, perhaps, are dedicated to acknowledging and holding space for what simply burns.
“Burns” can be long held desires, hurt, wishes, losses, unprocessed trauma and its effects, worries, joys, excitement, hopes, and dreams. These instinctual burns are inside all of us, whether our motives are power and control or beneficial and evolutionary for our healing and potential. Your burns can feel like heat, chills, tightness, tension, or arousal throughout your body. Many times, they are repressed, suppressed, or ignored. These suppressed spiritual impulses are what blocks are. Blocks are always lurking; at the same time, they do not exist. They’re usually sitting right in the forefront of a dream being realized. In the sweeping of the house that we ultimately can’t avoid we approach the goldmine and stay perched on the cusp of realizing a long-held wish.
How to handle blocks so they do not block you first comes when you dig deep on that vacation to identify the following elements of your own personality. Remember that whatever is guiding you to do this is the soul and this soul is guiding you to transcend them if they are unhealthy and no longer serve you.
A woman who was my client, noticed that her Behavior was to quickly respond to whoever entered the room she was in. Being empathic and attuned to others’ needs, she operated by getting up from her work, being open to interruption, not eating or taking breaks because of her job’s demands. Her Behavior was finally known to be ways and strategies to keep her safe. If she could handle it all, it gave her a temporary sense of accomplishment and filled her need for harmony and order so she could find a little bit of peace. However, unconscious was the need for safety, so her impulses to control the environment constantly ended up exhausting her.
Just the same, her Theme from this behavior was Sacrifice. As we know, sacrifice was a way to keep her busy and honor her mother’s memory because she ultimately grieved the only person who took care of her needs. The Wound was Loss and the emotion was Grief. Grief is so deep and challenging and sometimes so uncomfortable to bear, especially when it hasn’t been processed fully. Many of us put the lock on the door of our grief and still try to get the door open at the same time. Knowing that her mother would ultimately wish the best life for her daughter would change her life, lead to a happier sorrow, and fulfill her mother’s desire for her daughter to live a better life. That was always what her sacrifice was for.
This example is not the same as ego, it is a defense mechanism. Character armoring, in my idea of it, is the place we do not let people see our vulnerabilities. Armor, so to say, would be the protection we wear so that others may not be able to hurt us again.
Masking is our appearance to the outside world. You may have heard the term “toxic positivity.” That is an example of the outward personality we present to the world that is in conflict with the way our wound inside actually feels.
In sum, what we need to identify and unpack is simply Fear. All of these aspects within our personalities have roots in our fears. Could you imagine the worst thing happening? Of course, and it may already has. We are pushing and fighting, lifting up our heads but searching around inside. What we need to do is the purging and undoing, loving ourselves, and in the forefront of our minds, simply turning our doubts about ourselves and our future into perspective.
The process of gaining perspective can really free us up from isolating in our fears. After all, with all of this masking and armoring in our personalities, how could we not feel not disconnected and alone from one another? The truth you will find is that others have been through it, too. The most important thing you can do sometimes is compare your suffering with someone else’s. If they did it, and you’re still here, what is there to fear?
Empathy is Poetry 