When ever I have feelings I don’t know what to do with, I write about them. It’s the only way I know how to process the depth of my emotions and make sense of them.
When ever I can’t sleep, I write about the thoughts swimming in my head until I feel complete or fall asleep, whichever comes first.
Whenever I write, the world around me seems to disappear as I search for the right words to describe the cocktail of emotions that has me low-key spiraling…
For a while, I felt almost nothing. Now, I feel like I’m waking up to a whole new dimension of reality, like a fog has suddenly been lifted. I thought I got out of it a long time ago. Perhaps I fell back in or walked right into a new one without even noticing.
What I am becoming more and more present to is the feeling that all roads lead me right back to my writing roots.
What started as real, and raw, and authentic self-expression eventually turned into something I grew ashamed of and I began to hide that part of myself, along with a writing persona that dared to be bold. My sole purpose was to ignite conversations around taboo topics.
In the world of Internal Family Systems, I guess you could say I “exiled” that part of myself whom I refer to as the “sexually liberated” self. It wasn’t safe for her to express herself anymore lest she be slut-shamed into submissive domesticity.
Yet remnants of my past self lurk in the shadows of my life ever since. She protects me from judgement and ridicule. She spares me the pain of unrequited love, abandonment, and humiliation.
She has my voice; and I want it back now.
Ahh. I’m beginning to understand this unsettling feeling I haven’t been able to shake while the Moon was in Gemini waiting for my next cycle to begin. The tripwires of my heart had been hit. Through deep introspection in community with my body, I discovered the truth of my heart and the role that writing has long played in that.
For a moment in time, I allowed myself to feel the emptiness and loneliness I felt on a day when my heart should have been so full. I didn’t understand it at first, but now I do. I needed to feel this. I needed to remember. It all began with a dark night of the soul.
So begins my shadow work to integrate the darkest parts of my soul with the light of my heart so that I may shine ever so brightly as a beacon of light to those who need it the most.
