I spent this past week writing what seems to be a massive chapter after I had an amazing expressive experience with #icantkeepquiet. But the thing is, as much as in that I was busy telling my story and coming out and stepping out, I have realised that I wrote it from a victim point of view, an ag shame, poor me and my rainbow life, and not the celebration it is supposed to be, expressing the freedom that comes with it.
While processing the why’s and how’s I realised I had an “emotional relapse”. Whether that is a thing or not, I’ll add it to my “still need to research”-list, but that best describes what happened. I did not have a breakdown, I did not have an awakening, it was a relapse, and an exceptionally big emotional one. And why? Because I am in recovery and deep within my healing process, and I went back, I allowed some pretty damn horrible emotions to overthrow me, to take my control, to knock me right in the gut! I allowed it to affect my life again, my mind and thoughts, my relationships, my interactions with others, my being. It became messy again…
BUT, since I have BEEN healing and working on my recovery every single day and moment of my life since embracing it, I could see this happening, I could acknowledge and take a step back. You see, I don’t belief I am ever going to be “perfect”, “recovered”, “healed”. But I do belief this process, this journey, this is what keeps me going, focused, and guided towards living my best and purposeful life.
So, after licking my newly scratched open wounds and taking MY control back, I could apologise to those I’ve knocked in this process and look at my tools to get through this stupid pothole in which I fell and go forward. I can celebrate the fact that this IS my truth, I am human. Messy. But as an old friend got me to see a few years ago, messy is beautiful. Especially if you use those blood, tears, and just plain crappy parts of you and build yourself back up. I am back up. I acknowledge that certain things and people still have an affect on me that I cannot control, and by setting my boundaries and trying to guard myself from this which my control fails, I need to take care of me… And boom, there we got to the root of probably just about everything. Self-love, self-care, self-actualisation if we want to go all Maslow academical here. It’s the part where I had to realise, I need to practice what I preach to others and tune down on that self-criticism and stop being my own worst enemy. But you know, it’s just so much nicer loving and caring for everyone else!?
But let me tell you, there is some truth in the whole “you can’t love others if you don’t love yourself” thing, I just want to tweak it a bit and say you can’t FULLY love, commit and/or care for others if there’s not a bit of that inside you for you too. We’ve been overwhelmed with object relations theory and transference and countertransference in my coursework section of my master’s degree, and yea, we get that with our clients, but damn, I do it with others too. Those I allow close and hold dear. Keep a little distance, ‘cause what if you see this messy inside me. Expecting everyone to leave, because well, everyone leaves!? Probably can take it so far that I expect everyone to leave, because I just can’t seem to walk out on myself! Okay, that got intense quickly!
Back to the celebration of this messiness. I have reached a point where I am grateful for my messiness, for my emotional relapse, for being able to actually FEEL these things and feel how I move through them, especially since I numbed it all for way too long.
I want to jump in a rainbow outfit, barefoot and shout from the mountains, “I am messy. I am healing. This is recovery. And I choose this.”
So, my message, corny, mooshy and sprinkled with glitter and rainbows, your messy is beautiful. Take it on, feel it, work the process. And as always, break the stigma and ask for help if you need it!
