3 days. This is taking 3 days to recover from…myself. I feel heavy still, but not as sad as I was at the start.

3 days ago, I was met with a situation that dug up a pattern of behavior based on a belief that I no longer want to have. I have highs and lows during the process of clearing myself of trauma and acquired traits that don’t serve my highest good; everyone does. Just like everyone else, I have a lot to clear, but thank fully only 32 years worth. There was one point where I had absorbed so many qualities from other people that I had no idea where I was anymore. I was buried under a pile so thick that I could feel its weight hanging over my physical body.

So, as is usual, I was in a high a few days ago, was met with this situation, and have descended into a low. I know I will come up, I always do, so my focus is to be grateful for this opportunity to let go of something unwanted (as I think about this my throat is tightening, no surprise).

The process of going through a low is always the same, whether the pattern I find is big or small. The more pervasive patterns take longer to go through and the low feels lower. It feels as if I have what would be like a small identity crisis or mid-life crisis, but every three weeks or so. Like finding out my best friend stole my email password and has been deleting my emails, but knowing it is my fault because I said my password out loud in her presence. Tearing down and rebuilding this model of me, over and over again. The fruit of this process comes when I find myself confronted with a similar situation and nothing happens; no reaction, no issues. Such peace and beauty in nothing!

The process:

1. The event: this time, I was too direct with a question. I said it from a place lacking compassion and warmth, but intended innocent curiosity. Of course, the subject was a sensitive one. It started far before the question though, when I put up a wall earlier in the day between myself and my friends accidentally. It is so habitual to be open and then protect myself from connection and the potential of an emotional bond, especially when confronted with someone who feels unsafe. So I met someone unsafe and made a universal wall instead of a selective one. I’m finding the moment I feel the wall rise from the earth so I can work with it and stay open emotionally. So, I wasn’t very sensitive about a sensitive topic.

2. Confusion: I see it happening. I watch as things go completely south, but have no idea how to fix it in the moment. The train is running off of the tracks where the bridge collapsed and I am watching from the cliffs nearby. Maybe if I escape into the woods, the crash “won’t have happened”? No, it happened. But now what? The dust has to settle before I can see the damage. I can see other people’s patterns well, but the compassion is still lagging, so in these situations where there is a misunderstanding, I don’t have the skill to avoid the crash.

3. Waiting: I wait for…information…clarity. Sometimes it comes from me, sometimes others. I float in a space without responsibility until I know what to take. There is no point in feeling bad about something I don’t understand yet, and even then, feeling bad doesn’t help anyone. Compassion is much more helpful in these situations. I wait, because everyone needs to process their own emotions and patterns. Trying to resolve something immediately often continues the spiral.

4. What have I done?: either I realize what I did to cause my own issue, or someone tells me how they are feeling. The conversation in this instance was surprising to me. I’ve never had someone tell me they were afraid of me when I asked them a benign question. What I have realized, is that when I am open, showing emotion and therefore being honest, that things resolve much more quickly. I tried this two weeks ago and it was amazing. Seems obvious, but I’m learning. The issue is that, at present, when I’m receiving information, I don’t do it with a lot of emotion. I don’t feel anything. It feels like an issue of logic to me, but I know that it is usually an issue of emotion. Life flows when people feel heard and safe. These conversations would have been an opportune moment to drop the wall, but I wasn’t successful this time. As I walked away, I felt so sad that things had gone to the point they did.

5. What have I really done?: this part is always the hardest on me. I have the information, and now I need to find what I actually did and where my responsibility lies. Then…oh no…it is much bigger than I thought…and there are multiple parts…and I can see how it has affected everything in my life…so much weight descends upon my heart. I have to work hard not to freeze in this moment. This time, a friend helped me see that I was using a pattern of protecting myself. Cutting myself off from others. Hiding myself for fear that they will leave if I am open and honest. This was an expression of the fear of having an opinion or thinking differently from others because they may leave. Then, maybe some bleeding into the self-worth category. I found this belief to be under most of my actions in relationships, so it feels like a crushing blow to see it clearly in action.

6. Feelings: this stage is difficult for me. I typically stay in a positive state of emotion by taking action. In order to move through a pattern and release it, I just have to feel beaten up by it, to feel the sadness that accompanies it or whatever emotion rises. There is not usually anger, but it is better than being sad, so I would welcome it if it came. I’m still sitting in it. Fluctuating between feeling some relief and dipping back down into the thick mud I’ve cultivated through years of doing the same thing over and over again without awareness. I feel small and unimportant. Lesser than others. At this point, the situation in the physical world has been resolved. I showed the emotion the situation brought up for me and had a good conversation with the person who this pattern affected.

6. Where is it?: now I find all of the places that I have hidden this fear in my life and how I allow it to guide my choices. Once I’m “doing” again, I start to feel better. Maybe one day I won’t need “action” as much as I do now.

7. Ok, let’s work: I found where it is, and I’ve chosen a few places that I can work on it without being sent back into a feeling of trauma or pain. I’m not here yet with this one. But in the past, this system has worked very…efficiently…maybe soon I’ll be able to feel through it instead.

It isn’t that I’ve learned nothing; I know that just being present and feeling would resolve 90% of this issue; maybe 100%. Accepting that things will move on their own will help. However, when it is so easy to be kicked back into a traumatic response, such as freezing or assuming that everything I say will result in people leaving me, having structure helps me. Maybe I only peel away a thin layer at a time, sometimes a thick layer, but I’m ok with that.

Learning to feel again is taking time. I’ve cried more in the last three weeks than I have in the past 5 years, maybe more. I feel very alone and lost as I remove the protection I used to keep, combined with the fact that I am out here backpacking on my own, and only one month into my 8 month journey. It leaves me searching for security; a plan, someone familiar, a place that is exciting to me, family.

Everything will be ok. It always is, but today, I’m moving on from Rennes-Les-Bain, and that feels good. Someone said to me that they do things just because they feel good. So simple, but so logical. I think I’ll try that today, as I attempt to show myself that it is safe to be open, to feel pain, and to express my feelings, and in the process, to break an old pattern that no longer serves me. I’m probably going to eat some gelato today too.