You Are Not Alone

You are not alone. Some days, I feel like nobody understands me, the loneliness overwhelms me. My reaction to these feelings is usually to disconnect even further and just dwell in the hopelessness. I try to isolate myself and ignore messages from friends. I impose a social media break also, because I’m exhausted from comparing myself to others. I feel like I might also be doing that subconsciously, because I want other people to wonder why I’m not online. This all sounds extremely childish.

I suppose this is one of those inner-child outbursts. There is so much control that the inner-child has over me, and it is hard to stop catering to those impulses. I judge myself that at my age I should not be acting out these patterns anymore. I have to keep stepping back and trying to see the bigger picture of the situation. I have to keep becoming aware that the loneliness I am feeling is caused by me abandoning myself.

Yesterday, the heaviness set in again. I had a choice to sulk in it, or to let it go. Sometimes, it just overtakes me, and I don’t even get a chance to make the choice. Yesterday, I surrendered to the body instead of what the mind was asking for. I left my office and lay down on the stone bench in front of the building. Its warmth hugged my body, and after a few moments, I started feeling relaxed. The sun and the wind kept me distracted just enough to prevent me from falling asleep completely.

I suddenly felt a loving presence hovering over me. I opened my eyes, and the tree to my right glistened with compassion. We connected, and I felt myself being held. I was grateful. I felt reset, energized and was able to finish off the work day smoothly. At least for now – the inner-child seemed pacified.

Feeling Unseen

It felt like stinging in my heart when I came across a quote this morning, “If he misses you, he’ll call. If he wants you, he’ll say it. And if he cares he’ll show it…”. There was a little more to it, but you get the idea. I often don’t see the bigger picture, especially when it comes to relationships. I focus on the short moments that I find magical. I have been wrapping myself around these little moments, like a wrapper around hard candy. Hard candy moments to be savored past their expiration dates.

I also like to analyze those brief time flashes of happiness and get lost in them. It’s like a daydream that I keep coming back to, instead of looking at the situation logically. For example, let’s say I would get close with a guy, and we end up kissing, and I am pleasantly surprised with how well we are connecting. The kisses are soft and slow, and his hands caress my cheeks like no one else every did. I feel the tips of our noses touch briefly and then he kisses my forehead, the perfect way that I used to love in my childhood days.

That was indeed a beautiful moment I described there, but after what seemed like a wonderful evening, the guy did not reach out to me the next day. I was feeling insecure and wondering if I did anything that was frowned upon. The feelings of inadequacy kept coming up throughout the day, and I did not care for them. I wanted to block them out, and so I focused on that moment of bliss, diving deeper into it, building it up, and this way allowing myself to tolerate being unseen.

The feeling of being unseen is scary; to know that you don’t matter to someone in the way you would like to. Facing reality is a difficult task for me, because when I really work things out for what they are, I feel like there is no turning back. My heart is even beating faster now as I type this. Maybe I have read too many fairytales as a child, in which the princess is always saved by the interference of magic, but sometimes the reality is quite clear.

Beneath the Sadness

Boyfriends have always told me there was a certain sadness in my eyes, even in the midst of creating happy memories. As a teenager it was something that I felt sort of proud of, because I enjoyed being the eccentric girl – standing apart from the crowd. A classmate even referred to me as the nick name of the character, Laura, from The Glass Menagerie – “Blue Roses”. I found hearing this dark and endearing, and I looked forward to those spontaneous moments.

As I moved through life, the sadness was noticed by many from time to time. It would always peak out its head just to make sure someone noticed it was there. I have lived with it all my life so it was just a part of me; a part I often joked about with a bright smile. I smile a lot, and wonder if it is subconsciously to compensate for the rest of the sadness.

The other day, I was spending time with a friend, and he mentioned it again – my sadness. It was actually in a moment when I was really feeling sad, so I probably looked even sadder. He said there is a deep sadness inside me that I am trying to work out. I never thought about it like that before; I just assumed the sadness was part of who I am. I don’t know how the world would feel without it there.

I don’t know if the sadness is totally my own or is it a reflection of the things I experience in my daily life. When I spend time with people, I can also really tap into their own sadness. I feel the cold tingling in various parts of my body; usually around my upper thighs and my buttocks. The people’s sadness and discomfort envelopes me.

I spent a couple hours in the park today as a self-love exercise. It’s a beautiful spring day, and the park was smiling in flowers. I practiced some Tai Chi on the grass and then roamed around the little alleys and ways and snapped a few photos. I redirected the camera to capture my face, and all of the pictures looked so full of sadness. Looking into my eyes, I felt sorry for myself. I felt that I have made myself suffer; that I must have been too harsh with myself lately.

Today’s sadness feels like it’s a little closer to the surface than the usual dose. I wonder if it’s tired of hiding inside and trying to show me something. I often wonder what else is there beneath the sadness.

Allowing

It’s a Friday night, and I was looking forward to going dancing so I could shake out the discomfort that I have been carrying around for the last few days. Dancing does that for me, it literally shakes it all out like a pepper shaker. The vibrations of music travel through my skin and delve into all my organs releasing unwelcome tension. The euphoria of getting lost on the dance floor full of bodies kicks in, and I relax into the unexpected songs being offered every 3 to 4 minutes. After a while, we all become one, friends and strangers and we support each other, following each other’s beat, staying in the flow, admiring each other’s light.

Anyway, tonight I decided to stay home and give myself the attention I was craving from others. My body has been complaining of aches all day, and I wanted to just lay there and feel into each and every one layer by layer until the blockages would start popping open. It has been mostly my left side that has been suffering, the area around my heart, the part that holds the spleen, and part of my back near my left shoulder blade.

I lay on the bed, stretching out my legs and relaxing into myself, “relax, relax, relax,” I repeated slowly inside my mind. My legs relaxed, and I felt the spirit inside them dive deeper into the mattress. I relaxed my hips and my lower belly, and then I felt the bulge of clumped up energy pooling around in my solar plexus. I placed my hands on the small mountain of discomfort and tried settling it down. It felt fixed and immovable. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe slower and deeper into myself, slow and steady, and it felt like forever. With each long breath a little layer of pain was peeled off, and I felt like I was again falling deeper into my mattress. Layers of me were being pushed into its fabric.

The solar plexus holds your personal power. When it is weak or clogged up, it makes it hard for your light to shine. For years I have been afraid of knowing what powers are contained inside. I felt intimidated by the amount of work I might have to put in so I can feel the confidence of these powers. I felt satisfaction of hiding behind various kinds of pain that I created in order to block access to that door. I would give birth to this pain and then wallow in it as long as possible, in order to have an excuse for staying small.

Tonight, I approached the feelings with a different intention. Instead of portraying myself as a victim, I observed myself as a woman. With compassion I held myself there, and listened to each energetic complaint the body parts held onto. Each layer that was released felt lighter and lighter as my shoulders released deeper into my pillow. I observed my body falling more open, allowing itself to fall, allowing itself to fall even if it would be at risk of falling apart.

I was afraid, I felt raw and exposed letting myself see me like that; to see myself as an injured body that just needed my attention. The knots started loosening up even more, with each deep breath, and I drifted further and further into emptiness. My body, after several days of insomnia, finally allowed itself to take a healing nap. I woke up feeling refreshed, and with a little more space there in my power center; a little more space waiting to be explored.