Pause And Sit With It

There are many things that I either immediately react to in anger or I close up so I don't let any kind of feelings get in.  This way I don't have to feel any pain, emotional pain.  My therapist and I have been working on this for the past few weeks.  And she's on a roll with something that after my most recent session I'm really going to try.

This is something that many of us may do on a daily basis, a weekly basis, but it's something many of us do.  We try to avoid some kind of emotional pain, avoid it at all costs so we don't have to feel the heartbreak that will result in feeling the emotions, in feeling the pain.  But heartbreak in life is inevitable.  We usually experience our first heartbreak at a very, very, and I mean super young age.  Like 4 or 5 years of age.  They of course are simpler forms of heartbreak at younger ages but as we grow older they become more complicated and we usually do all that we can to avoid it because it hurts like hell.  But if we do experience it we usually put some sort of blame onto ourselves like "if only I had (fill in the blank)" and we analyze the shit out of it to try and solve what went wrong or what we did wrong.  And we do all this to block out feeling the pain of the heartbreak because we don't want to go through the horrible feelings that accompany heartbreak.  I do this.  I've gone through many heartbreaks and the pain of them in my 30 years, the worst of course is the heartbreak of the fire.  But I have done a lot of "if only I had (fill in the blank)" and analyzing my life before and after the fire, where I went wrong, what things I did right.  And I do all of that to block out actually feeling the heartbreak of the fire, of the accident.  Even though there are many times when the pain slips through the cracks in the walls I have put up but for the most part, I don't sit with my heartbreak.  I don't sit and feel the feelings that come with the heartbreak.

There's another heartbreak I endure but because the person it involves would suffer from me speaking about it, I'm not willing to make that public right now.  But this other heartbreak involves breaking out into anger and frustration and putting up the wall to prevent feeling any emotions instead of pausing and sitting with what feelings come up, and most specifically sitting with the heartbreak that the situation with this person has brought about.  Just pausing and sitting with my heartbreak and let the feelings come in and see what comes of it.  See how I feel after the feelings and the pain has passed through for the time being.

I know the pain of any heartbreak is wickedly painful.  But what would happen if when I get my heart broken again and again through the process of the recovery from the fire or from the fights I get into with this person, if I just paused and sat with the feelings of that heartbreak for a minute and let come what comes of it.  Feel the pain, let the tears fall and sit with it.  Pause and sit with it.  I've never really tried this method before.  I've either forced the wall up or the pain has been so overwhelming that I couldn't help but feel it.  But even when I couldn't help but feel the overwhelming pain, I never really just sat with it.  I tried to battle it and stop it cause it hurt so bad.  But on the advice of my therapist, the next time my heart breaks (and your heart can break over and over again for the same reason or different reasons), I'm going to pause and just sit with the emotions and pain that comes with it.  See how that fairs with me.  And if you're like me and many other people who try to avoid heartbreak or put up a wall when it does break, try to kick down that wall and pause and sit with what you're feeling.  We can't avoid heartbreak.  It's inevitable.  But we can decide how we deal with it when it happens.  And though pausing and sitting with it may seem like the more painful way, it may turn out to be less painful over time.