By Allowing Myself To Feel I Find My Strength
Our nature allows us to feel, and yet we insist on building walls to hide our innermost selves. We do not allow ourselves to feel the emotions, the sensations and each experience as it is. When we feel fragile and unprotected, we turn to reason and we distance ourselves from our being.
Since we were children we have been building this fortress, on many occasions not feeling deserving of affection. Faced with fears and emotional pain, we have learned to seclude ourselves, adapting to a world that terrifies us, considering that it is full of dangers.
We have learned that when we have shown ourselves with our weaknesses and difficulties, sometimes we have been damaged. Faced with love failures, disappointments, disappointments; we have felt the pain and the deep discomfort of opening up to experiences. However, closing down to feel is not the solution.
What it means to close ourselves to what we feel
Before the walls that we build we learn a whole repertoire to hide who we are. We learn automatisms, adapting to prevailing prejudices and stereotypes, seeking adaptation to our environment.
We believe that there is a way of being and acting that is normality, and we have to get as close to it as possible. The belief that there is an – appropriate – way of behaving is the one that does not let us be who we really are.
Thus we constantly fight towards what we feel, what we want, what motivates us and what excites us. We spend a lot of energy not recognizing what we feel.
We shut ourselves down to the point of becoming numb to injustice and to the people we love and care about. We act under automatisms and duty, totally losing the essence of our person, affection and kindness.
Letting us feel
Not being felt, as we have seen, has a reason, you have tried it in many situations, right? You have struggled with yourself to become numb to something you don’t want to experience. Avoiding pain is precisely what leads us to the permanence of suffering.
The greatest strength that resides in us is, without a doubt, that of letting ourselves be felt and allowing ourselves to experience. We fear that this will happen and we will get hooked or lost in that state, that is what makes us leave quickly and not want to enter what we feel.
Living what is unpleasant for us is also necessary, since it represents our growth. Maturity and happiness feed on states of pain, sorrow and sadness. By feeling these states we learn from experience and this is how we value everything that is pleasant and beneficial to us.
Strength lies in vulnerability
Vulnerability is commonly confused with weakness. Vulnerability is part of letting ourselves feel what we need, of being honest and accepting that there are many things that affect us and that does not mean that we have a weak character.
By accepting our vulnerability, we leave room to experience the feelings and emotions that our interactions evoke. It is a natural state, why camouflage ourselves under a mask that does not represent us and makes us unhappy? Getting out of this masking is our decision, breaking with that avoidance and repression we can begin to be.
The only way of self-knowledge and personal growth is by showing ourselves with our vulnerabilities. This means great value, authenticity, maturity and a lot of strength. By showing ourselves in this natural way, we give the possibility of obtaining the same from our environment: sincere bonds based on love, not on appearances.
