Stuffed - How I learned to erupt and let go..

Stuffed…

For the longest time, I held it all in. I felt like I had my stomach pulled in all the time, trying to make it look flatter than it actually is, afraid to exhale and relax. What was I holding in? Tons and tons of stuff. Conversations I should have had, emotions I should have felt, expressed and released, tears I should have shed.  It got to the point where I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I was just way too full.  

There were times when I leaked and little bit of this stuff would seep out, which manifested in me feeling emotions that I didn’t know how to deal with, I would get into a funk, I would feel so very down, couldn’t access my joy, the glowing light that lived within me. I would retreat into myself, shutting off ,whilst trying to pretend to everyone that everything was ok, that I was the same old super reliable Patricia. I fooled no one!

When I couldn’t hold anymore in, the ‘stuff’ came out like a raging avalanche, which I dumped on the head of my beloved. He was shocked, surprised, hurt but held a beautiful space for me to access and express a deep truth that I was not willing to look at before. He wouldn’t let me off the hook, made me talk, really talk.

 What I wanted to do was just get me back to that familiar place, where I could put a lid on the stuff again, where I could keep it firmly in place and then access  the light within me. But here’s the thing,  flicker from the light was diminishing, which meant to me that my inner reserves of joy was low and I couldn’t protect my self from my funk and the eruption was going to happen again, taking me to a place that I was scared of going to. 

But I couldn’t do that and my beloved wouldn’t let me do that again. I had to go deep, because the fear of spewing all over my loved ones, was greater than looking at and dealing with the stuff.  So I talked and he listened. I voiced the deepest secrets, I expressed the sadness that had been an ignored occupant within me. I cried the tears  that should have flowed years ago.

What I realised that once something is observed, looked at it changes a little or a lot, so that whatever is there, is still there but the grip of it is loosened.  It’s like being scared to look under the bed at night because you don’t know what lurks there, but once you do the fear changes, it’s observed, there’s more information to make a decision from. 

This process was hard, I had to admit a lot. Admit that I was pretending to not know what I had to do. I had to admit that I wasn’t that scared little girl, I was a grown woman and it was absolute time that I put her in charge. I had to admit that I had access to a lot of internal resources, so had to let go of the victim which kept me stuck and scared. 

Has the process ended? Have I dealt with all the stuff? The answer is no. I feel like I’m on a destination-less  journey of letting go and letting in as I create more space within and increase my capacity to experience more joy, feel more love and thereby build up my reserves so I can give more joy and love.  

Right now, I am still chunking that muscle. There have been and will be situations where I have to express what I truly feel without being afraid of hurting others and at times it easy and other times not so easy, but I’m scared of becoming so full of stuff again, losing my joy that I continue on the journey of self love and expression.

If this has resonated with you in anyway, please share below.

Someday Island

I had my fair share of ideas, hopes, goals and dreams, the majority of them ended up on Someday Island.  I had two large storage containers worth of stuff on the island.  Ideas waiting to be born, to be given the light of day. 

When these flashes of inspiration popped into my heart, I would be excited, get swept along with the possibility; spend a few moments in a day dream… It felt like I was watching a movie of me doing something wonderful..  Then my brain the party pooper and what I thought was the big voice of reason would pipe up, reminding me that as a mother, spouse, employee, daughter, aunt, niece,  that whatever I was dreaming about was just that a dream, like a fairy tale.  It would say, "you haven’t got time for that. How could you possibly fit it in… The children, the children, what about the children…"

So that heartfelt idea joined the rest of the unexplored dreams and ideas on Someday Island… Someday island became more and more cluttered, I was struggling to find room for more stuff. It wasn’t organised, it was a big mess.  I wasn’t ready to let anything go, just in case someone managed to find extra hours in the day, where I could have a rummage through the stuff on Someday Island, select an idea and live it.  Who was I kidding, if I had any extra time, I would fill it up with stuff to make other people’s lives easier or better. My children could take on another activity or I could visit Aunty Doris more or fill it with a any task that kept me from focussing on me.  The truth was that I was scared, scared to sort through the ideas, organise and evaluate them. I thought that doing so would commit me to something that I wasn’t quite prepared for, spending time on me....

The persistent one

Some of the ideas just wouldn’t stop popping up over and over… I would go over the Island, find it amongst all the clutter, take it out and look at it like a trinket, blow ff the dust and place it back amongst the rest. But one day I decided to not just look at  a particular one, but look at them all, I was sorting through them, feeling them, trying them on like you would a pair of shoes. Did the flash of brilliance still resonate. Was it more than just an idea. Could I breathe life into it, create time in my life to achieve this thing.

The exercise of going through them was quite freeing. I was taking out the stuff that I had no connection to, creating space for the ‘things’ I wanted to explore further. Of course, the party pooper was still hanging around, but I felt okay because I was still in the evaluation stage and I felt that no one was missing out on me because I was doing this. 

 The creation of space was the declutter I needed. I felt relief when I discarded the ideas that I knew I would never act on, never develop. The few that remained were the right ones. These could become something that could make my heart sing.  

Now being able to see the wood for the trees, I was able to do a little research, and again this felt safe, no commitment, no signing on the dotted line. At that time, I didn’t feel like I should be doing something else. I began to really consider if I could pursue this thing that was becoming a goal. What was this thing, at the time it was actually a home study, I was interested in learning about Neuro Linguistic Programming… I started to see how much I could realistically dedicate to studying, whilst making sure that i could still take care of my family. This meant having discussions with my partner, really considering who was in my support network, and how they could support me. By having these conversations, it soon became apparent how much I could actually take on and when. 

From this position, I could really consider the who, where, how, what and when of achieving my goal.  In amongst all of this was the realisation that I already had far more support than I knew. Friends and family ready all to willing to help out, especially with my children. It was a win-win, my family got to spend some quality time with the kids without out me and my children got to know the family and create their own relationships with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  

Did I start my course? No i didn’t not right away, I put that off for about a year, but I did join a gym and discovered that I loved spinning classes and soca aerobics…