So this is how it happened.

And WHAT happened.

First and out of nowhere, I realized that I had truly taken on many of my parent’s traits (stuff I actually hated about them like nothing else).

A lot of specialists had told me this but I couldn’t accept it.

Not for decades.

But now I could, and now I did, and I wasn’t even looking for it.

And it finally made SO MUCH sense that the whole intricate system of victim-and-scarcity-induced habits and ideas got totally rocked.

I felt lighter within minutes.

Old habits fell away.

Old beliefs came up to the light.

And a thousand things that had happened in my life made sense now.

This happened in an hour or so.

The next day it was still there, so it wasn’t a fling, a mere spark of inspiration, a cool idea.

I felt encouraged to go deeper, to be more curious, to try stuff and look beyond my normal looking.

The idea popped up to start breathing slower and much deeper, and by doing so I began to feel my body again.

It occurred to me that many situations I encounter in daily life, where I feel threatened physically or personally or dogmatically, where the individual automatically reverts to lashing out or running away or otherwise keeps itself within its own boundaries, are amazing opportunities for growth.

Almost literally.

Simply being with your initial response to defend your self-image (because that’s what it is, most of the time), makes it possible to not just act on it.

Being with it, and nothing else, relaxes everything, almost makes it transparent.

Instead of doing whatever it is you are used to do to defend or consolidate the personality, you can start being with whatever is going on, and simply notice the sensation in the body instead of the confusion in the mind.

A bit of loving curiosity is enough.

It became so incredibly clear that I had a deep, deep urge to stay away from feeling, and a bucket full of convincing excuses to do so, and that was very much exposed.

It turned out that I was ready to change it instead of covering it up with whatever activity or clever trick.

Sure, I already could feel and of course I loved and of course I cared, but it was very limited and quite conditional.

I didn’t know what I was and what I am really capable of, and I didn’t know that I didn’t know.

The reason we stop feeling is because somewhere along the line feeling turns out to be dangerous, or SEEMS dangerous.

The reason we stop doing fun and crazy and intuitive stuff and start behaving in ways that are societally accepted, is because we feel the need to belong and not stand out, and nobody tells us there are different ways to go about life.

And the more we hide what was once free-flowing, and the more we suppress what makes us beautifully complete, the more we become a unique caricature that needs to be defended and caged and solidified.

While writing this, I literally feel the habit of pulling back, of shutting down, of masking up the place, of telling myself ‘you did a great job, it’s enough’, but my longing for freedom is way bigger than that.

I’ve tasted the freedom of acknowledging emotions, of being with the sensation of fear and envy and anger, of REALLY having no clue what to do next and just sit with that, without wanting to change or ignore it.

And even while I realize this is just the beginning and my well-trained sense of comfort and forced positivity will kick in many times, I just know that this time it’s different.

I feel different.

I feel.

What a fucking miracle.

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(Photo by @jccards, for Unsplash)