As I’ve discussed before, we have to feel in order to heal. So that explains why “the more we try, the worse it hurts”. We have to allow ourselves to feel the grief or loss or whatever has kept us repeatedly falling to the bottom, so that we can come through it.
Most of us, and this included me the first few times I tried, give up before we have a chance to start healing because we think therapy isn’t helping us because we’re still sad or we’re more sad or we’re not coming home happy. When it comes to truly healing, nothing is ‘just below the surface’. It’s a deep dive.
It is scary when someone starts prompting you to talk about and feel what you’ve worked so hard to bury. But I assure you, those feelings are at the very least, a sub-conscious factor in all your actions.
For me, it was so empowering to finally do the deep dive. Sure the process hurt, and I cried and felt things I didn’t want to feel but it also freed me. The pain of my past was like shackles around my ankles that didn’t prevent me from walking through life, but it definitely affected how I walked.
Hi GG,
For years I was so afraid of being alone, so I stayed in an unhappy marriage. Then I realized, I’m already alone..in this marriage. It clicked. I’d been so alone for so long and finally realized I lived through it already. Like, been there, done that, I didn’t need to be afraid anymore.