"You are not a mess. You are a sentient person in a chaotic world. "~ Glennon Doyle Milton
I've suffered from some kind of fear for as long as I can remember.
The stomach hurts at the age of five. Travel to the specialist, always for no known reason.
Feelings in elementary school to be different, to stand out or to be ashamed to give a wrong answer.
As I got older, I tried to be perfect in every way, to avoid criticism and the feeling of inferiority. I was a people-fallen error because it would make me too uncomfortable to say NO. It was easier to take care of other people to escape what I felt in myself.
I did not know it at the time, but other people's feelings caused me fear, especially anger or conflict. Imagine you want to escape the emotional life of the world or calm it down! No wonder there was always a feeling of inadequacy or lack of control … it was a task that went far beyond my mere mortal self.
My teenage years were even more turbulent when I maintained an exterior facade with straight aces, a smile, and a person who was always so nice. But inside I was a nerve-wracking mess.
I remember the moment I stepped out of my house with friends at the age of sixteen and had a drink, probably Southern Comfort, and felt the warm, soothing flow of the strong liquid that enveloped my inside and released all tension under.
How I found my way in a serious party life and kept up with school is now completely incomprehensible to me.
Alcohol was a very effective escape from a body that absorbed and absorbed all feelings. It worked well, but only to a point. The facade started to crumble as I felt more and more out of control and less and less connected to myself and my uncomfortable body.
I thought it was my insecurity about my direction of life.
I thought it was the fact that I couldn't keep my perfect grades.
I thought it was because I wasn't pretty enough, smart enough, popular enough, thin enough.
Ahhhh … the last one I could control. I slipped seamlessly into an eating disorder that allowed me to finally and completely escape a body that was now becoming uninhabitable with fear.
As humans, we are incredibly capable of surviving at all costs. So our ancestors survived as a species and we are the product of it. Our sense of any perceived threat is blocked and stressed, and if our nervous system is overwhelmed by trauma, we can clear it.
And I have vacated. The relief of having my weight as something I could control was exciting. Anorexia was my best friend and my way of surviving. Bulimia was an effective way of consuming all my emotions and never increasing them.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to take my seventeen-year-old self and say, “Break, darling, just take a break. Be in your body for a moment. You can. It won't hurt you. It's just incredibly uncomfortable … and it will pass. "
The more I avoided it, the worse the fear got. My body, that is, my fear, was my enemy.
This was a trap I didn't even know I was in. Like Plato's allegory of the cave, I didn't know where the door or windows were, or that I was really trapped.
I thought the trap would be outside of me if it were always inside.
My inner world was a nightmare.
Until one day I showed up for a doctor's appointment and my friendly doctor said something that pulled me out of the denial den I had created so carefully around me. She said: "You have lost a lot of muscles. Your heart is a muscle." Boom.
Something about this statement shook me deeply and I shot awake. No more hiding. No longer ignore the fact that I was 86 pounds at 5'4 ". Reality set in and at that moment the long journey home began. The long, beautiful and sometimes rocky journey back to me, my real self, in mine Body where I live.
When I started to re-enter my body, it was like a crash landing on the moon. They bounce around a bit and finally settle down.
This took years.
I had no language of feelings, so I could not describe what I felt. To be honest, I don't think I knew what a feeling was. I was literally cut off my neck.
The return to my body began when I stepped on a yoga mat. I could start to feel my toes, the soles of my feet, my heartbeat and the breathing of my lungs. I was here. Exactly here. Exactly where I had always been.
With the help of a therapist, a lot of yoga and a lot of travel to get out of my head into the world, healing was possible in my twenties.
It is not a big surprise that I then became a therapist, yoga teacher and a great believer in embodiment as an essential remedy for anxiety. We have to be present in our bodies so that they can heal.
We need to be in touch with the action to relax, exercise or let go and give it up.
Overcoming fear became my life, my contribution, and I felt most comfortable.
Until one day it was turned upside down and everything changed.
That was the day I had some time and a chance test called "Are you an empath?
filed.
One hundred percent. And since then with every empathy test. One hundred percent.
How could I not know? How could I have missed the fact that because of my hypersensitive nervous system, I wholeheartedly absorbed emotions that I have ever encountered?
When my mother told us that she had cancer, I had to leave the house.
When there was tension in the house, it was unbearable for me, although I didn't know what it was.
When one of my three siblings got into trouble, I was worried to death.
I was unable to control what was happening in my body and was not aware of it at all. No wonder that I had to flee by all means that I could reliably get my hands on. Now everything made sense.
My work has changed completely. I was less focused on helping people alleviate and alleviate their anxiety than on helping sensitive people to listen carefully to their bodies and to respect what they can comfortably do and where and when they can set limits.
I no longer felt that we should be able to build our nervous system to endure a world of stimulation, watch uncomfortable films or conversations, or sit in a classroom that felt unhealthy.
I no longer had the feeling that something was wrong with me. I was very right I was an empath.
I was a sentient person in a very chaotic world.
It was not my job to adapt or change a deeply stressful society. It was my job to listen carefully to a fine-tuned nervous system that alerted me when it had enough, and it was time for rest, peace, and loneliness. I no longer had to please others to keep the peace, I just had to please myself.
I just had to save the only person I could ever save, namely myself.
And in this simple act, this simple shift, I was able to save the world. I was free.
If I could now return to my seventeen-year-old self, there would be two important pieces of information that I would give her. We are not taught two steps that are essential for a life in freedom. They are simple, but not always easy.
1. Feel your feelings.
They don't harm you, they can only feel very uncomfortable in your body. If we can let them in slowly, they have a beginning, a middle, and an end. To feel it is to heal it. Fear often leads us to what feels right and where we have to draw the line.
2. Thoughts are not facts.
Thoughts are powerful if we let them be. You can lift us up or destroy us. Notice your little self's fearful thoughts that cause fear. Choose the thoughts that feel helpful to make you feel more powerful and calm, and lead you to your true self.
You don't have to be anyone other than yourself. Knowing who you are starts with knowing your inner world, including your fear.
About Madeleine Eames
Madeleine Eames is a psychotherapist, coach and yoga, and mindfulness teacher for chronic pain. Your mission is to feel deeply those who are not giving enough, to find their fire and to serve from a full cup. Join their Wise Women Empaths Waking Up Facebook group. Join the April Burnout to Balance: Restore Your True Self program waiting list, which is aimed at women suffering from burnout. Or sign up for their weekly blog at mindfullivingnow.com.
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