For a lot of the 40-plus years I’ve been on this pale blue dot, I’ve felt like I don’t deserve love. Or pleasure. Or hope. Or actually a lot of something, come to think about it.
Possibly disgrace. And hate. Oh, and fingernails, sharpened to miniature knives, in opposition to my pores and skin.
Previously decade, I’ve been making an attempt to work on that. Like actually, with all my power, making an attempt to be extra accepting, tender, curious, loving, and empathetic to myself.
But it surely’s arduous, you realize?
You get used to a sure method of being, a sure method of referring to the world and your self, and it’s troublesome to maneuver past that when your physique and coronary heart nonetheless really feel like they’re in The Scary Place.
My sure method of being and relating was to protect my coronary heart, as a result of that was how I protected myself. Guarding and compartmentalizing and denying myself of wholeness was my consolation and my protector, my armor and my companion, my every little thing.
This guarding of my coronary heart stored my coronary heart secure. Till it didn’t. Till it stopped defending my coronary heart, and began limiting my coronary heart. What I notice now’s that our hearts aren’t meant to be restricted.
Our hearts, all tender and mushy and massive and delicate—are precisely what the world wants.
The world wants feely people, in all of their empathy and activism and craving to make the world a greater place; in all of their vulnerability and emotional consciousness and psychological well being advocacy.
So, as one option to discover my coronary heart in a deeper method, in the summertime of 2020 I began writing little notes to that candy, delicate, and guarded child I was.
Some folks name that their “internal little one.” I name him my childhood me.