I’m BACK!
I know it has been awhile since I have written, not that I have not felt inspired since my last blog, but that I hadn’t intentionally created space for myself to create on my blog. So that being said,…..ropes and onions is my topic of discussion today so enjoy! 🙂
Have you ever grabbed a perfectly beautiful onion, all wrapped up in its delicate paper like wrapper, with the very intent of peeling apart that outside shell to make a delicious dish, and found that the inside isn’t exactly what you expected? Like you peel, and then the next layer isn’t quite perfect and uniform, so you peel another layer, and then you notice a dark spot, so you try to cut it out, only to find that it was dark all the way to the center? So you throw the center out and you keep the good that was left and make the best of it. But you realize that the outside wrapper was really quite deceiving……
What about a rope. You have a piece of rope, with all of the intentions of making or doing great things with it and you notice that it is starting to unravel on one of the ends. You try to work with it, you twist it together, tie it in a knot, try to avoid the fact that it is unraveling and it seems like no matter what you do, if the rope starts to unravel, it just never works the same. It won’t work anymore for its designed purpose. Its broken. That is unless you fix it, or you let it be unraveled and decide that it will work as it is.
And then you wonder, why is this crazy lady talking about ropes and onions.
But deep down, you probably already know.
Part of my lack in writing this summer came at time when the world just felt like it was moving too fast, when I felt like I couldn’t keep up, nothing was ever done and I didn’t feel like I could add one more thing. I know we’ve all been there. When nothing in particular is too large in itself, but all the little things as a whole, regardless of how, or how not monumental they are….just add up to be overwhelming.
Back track to my birthday on March 1. It was the day after we finished out basement remodel. YAY for us! We were done with a grueling process. We had a beautiful house ready for parties and children and joy!
Yet that’s not how I felt. Not. At. All.
I felt like we had made it. But then again I didn’t. We had pushed through a grueling 9 months of remodeling, pushing, pushing, just keep going, one more thing, push, push, push……
And well. I was pushed out. On my birthday, which should have been a day of relief and joy and celebration, I felt the wheels coming off, the adrenaline leaving my body, I felt like I was coming off a huge emotional high and I was exhausted. Mentally, I was fried. Emotionally I was spent and as I felt all of this coming on, I knew that it wasn’t going to be pretty. And boy was I right.
What ensued was a vicious flu, tears, lots of them, pain that shot thru both of my hips that rivaled labor with my children that even a painkiller wouldn’t touch and exhaustion. I was coming unraveled. Just like the rope I speak of, I was coming apart.
The interesting thing is that anyone around me probably didn’t notice. They probably didn’t pick up on it, they probably didn’t see me, because I had this pretty delicate wrapper around me, but I had emotion bubbling out from inside of me that wasn’t going to wait for me to add one more thing on my plate or for me to take time to process what was going on at my center.
I was sick for a week. Like, couldn’t hardly move, sleep, felt like total hell for a week. But my saving grace came from a friend who I had been working with for years. Call her my massage therapist (heavy on the therapist)/life coach/confidant/yoga teacher/cheerleader. She was the one who walked me thru my experience. And my experience was none less than this.
We are onions. And its okay to unravel. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to have unprocessed shit. Raw emotions, baggage, skeletons, ugly life experiences, damage, trauma. It’s okay to be broken. Okay to peel off the delicate wrapper and dig into our wounds so that we can let go of stuff that we don’t even know that we are holding on to and let it go. It’s all okay. That is normal. This is life.
It’s on my 36th birthday, that physical pain was actually emerging as deep emotional baggage. And on that day, I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t know where it came from. But what I did know is that I wanted it to go away. I wanted to get rid of it. I needed it to be gone. And whatever I had to do, I decided it was time to let it go. Enough that I actually prayed for it to be gone. I prayed for it so hard for the pain the leave my body, thru tears and anguish. And then it got worse. I went from labor level pains in my hips like someone was splitting them with a dull spike to the sensation that I was going to vomit. And that I did, for two days. I threw up like someone was hitting the eject button, and that eject button started at my toes and radiated through my whole entire body. It was horrible. I’ve seriously never in my whole life thrown up like that.
Yet….oddly enough, each time the eject button was hit, the pain started to release in my hips and I felt a little bit better. I told myself that it was pure craziness. Can’t be correlated. Then again, another trip to the bathroom, pain lessened again, and again, and again. Each time a violent ejection that released the pain.
You see, my friend told me that when I was ready to let it go, it would leave and not come back. And it hasn’t to this day. But the funny thing about it was that, there was emotions trapped inside of me that I didn’t even know were there. I didn’t know that I had buried them. I didn’t know that I had not processed them. I didn’t know until I was sicker than a dog with excruciating pain having flashbacks to a time period that I didn’t know had unfinished business. But my body did and it was telling me enough is a enough. You see, I wasn’t listening. I was just pushing forward, moving on, yet never really moving forward, because somewhere inside me I was still holding on. Never letting go of things I didn’t know I had been carrying with me all that time. And that’s when I started to really learn the following.
Resonate with anyone?
It’s crazy what the subconscious mind can do and know if we take the time to pay attention and to listen. Busy-ness and pushing forward, never really creates space for one to really sit down and have to feel or hear what is present. We are able to mask, cover and bury that which exists by simply placing it on the back burner. We all do it. It seems like the easy route. The “I don’t have time for this right now” mentality. Interestingly enough, all that which goes undone or unprocessed will present itself in the most untimely fashions and will often force ourselves to deal with it. It can go unnoticed much like the teapot on the back burner, until the coils are hot and the teapot is screaming at us to pay attention. It is something that I am just learning is one of my biggest downfalls. The not right now mentality hasn’t served me well. It has left my oozing with wounds I never took the time to heal. But it is teaching me powerful lessons.
With experience comes learning and with all fingers and toes crossed….change. I’m still unraveling. With each experience I find another little piece of me that was put on the back burner, some experience I didn’t know was locked away, and a time to heal and to let go of things that no longer serve me. There is no easy button. It’s hard work. Its painful, its time consuming, grueling, emotional, exhausting and something that always requires effort. Personal growth is hard. Its hard to unravel, to open up wounds and dig into them so that you can process all the shit you have hung on to for whatever reason known to man. All the reasons are ok. Quite honestly, its hard to create space to let the pieces fall as they may, to let emotions come in whatever form they need to, as ugly as that may look or feel. I mean, who really wants to come unraveled and embrace ugly?
Well I am learning that I do. Because much more powerful and better yet, is the deep internal healing that comes from all of that. The power from releasing something that is eating at your core, the strength you gain from allowing yourself to come unraveled and to see your “dark” in your center, and then to embrace it, process it and then let it go, while knowing that you are safe, your emotions are real and that feeling and being broken is okay. That being broken means that we have raw emotion and unsettled business we must tend to and that broken doesn’t mean that you aren’t happy or normal.
I see way too many posts about how everyone is trying to hold on and show the world that they are okay but inside they are unraveling at the seams. And I think to myself. Why in the world are we doing that to ourselves? Why are we so afraid to be authentic, to experience what we are feeling, to talk to someone when things just don’t feel that great. Why don’t we speak in truths? Why are we so fucking afraid to peel back our delicate wrappers and let people see what we really are? And to know that there are people who will catch you and be there for you so you can be exactly what you need to be, regardless of how ugly you may look or feel. And that you will cope, rally and not move on, but move forward.
I’m obviously a slow learner and have spent a huge portion of my life moving on and putting on a pretty wrapper instead of processing and moving forward. But I am learning. I am honoring myself in a more truthful fashion. I constantly work at creating space for myself to process whatever big or small thing that comes my way, and I’m still working through my baggage as it comes to the surface and demands attention. It’s getting easier to feel unraveled. To know that as I peel away one layer of the onion that there are things in the next layer to deal with. But that I will let them come as they may, be what they are and deal with what exists before I can let them go. There seems to be no “get out of jail free card” in this department. No bypassing of the emotion that plagues us. No different than the delicate wrapper covering the dark center. Just because you cannot see it, does not mean it does not exist.
We’re afraid to be broken. We’re afraid to show our scars. Afraid to feel it, process it, live it or talk about it. Yet the one thing in common with all of us is that we all have emotions and experiences with how we see, feel and live this journey called life. And although all of us are innately different, we each have our own distinct personal story that each of us gets to own and live and embrace that offers something unique in this world.
I did not know how I would feel about sharing all of this, but as my hands flew across the keys, turning into words and thoughts on this page, I know that it was the right thing to do.
Was it comfortable? Nope.
Do I know that people will probably have something to say about it including passing judgment? Absolutely.
Do I care?…….At the end of the day, not really.
What I care about is the whole reason I felt the urge to start this blog. It lives and breathes in the name of which I gave it. It’s my hope that what I share will inspire you to live in the raw, to embrace your authenticity and to know that regardless of our scars, baggage or story, that we are all broken to one degree or another. But that’s okay. You are okay. It’s okay to be broken, cracked and damaged, imperfect and unraveled. And that ultimately, each day brings new light, new choices and an opportunity to embrace your true authentic self. Beautifully unrefined.
Beautifully Unrefined 