Difficult therapy session today where I cried nearly the entire time. You may assume all sessions are like this for me but typically I never cry. I don't cry in front of other people. I feel like crying makes me appear weak (I know this isn't the truth - feelings aren't facts). If I've cried in front of you then know there was nothing left in me to hold it in a moment longer. I cried yesterday too. It feels like I'm breaking.
My therapist explained that I was grieving a lot of loss. The loss of a relationship to someone I loved, the loss of my stepmother and her abandonment of me, the loss of community as I'm living alone in a pandemic and the loss of my core yoga studio which was my sanctuary for 3 years. She asked me if I knew how to grieve and I said probably not. To grieve would mean to let myself feel the pain, to acknowledge how it affected me, to fully experience it all.
I have a lifetime of avoidance of pain. Allowing yourself to lean into your suffering certainly wasn't encouraged for me. Though I will say after some terribly traumatic events, where I didn't shed a tear, my mother said, "If you keep holding the tears back one day you'll start crying and won't be able to stop." I'm crying now. I feel like this is happening.
Life frequently feels like there is nothing to hold onto. I'm skilled at locking my jaw, digging deep and holding my own. I've prided myself on not needing anyone. Yet at those moments where I feel I'm in an emotional free fall it can be overwhelming. Back in my church days I would have been praying my precious heart out. Unfortunately that deity's silence was much worse than my personal agony.
So I've been encouraged to schedule grieving time. Suggestions were made to write, paint (I suck at it but I like to do it), meditate or whatever is calling to me. Basically not distract and feel it. This sounds like being cut a fresh slice of hell but I'll do it.
Doing it with nothing to hold onto.
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