It was Thursday.
A gloomy, grey and rainy day.
I woke up with a feeling of heaviness, emptiness and, at the same time, an uncomfortable nervousness.
For the first half of the day, I tried to avoid it by being creative and losing myself in the wonderful feeling of drawing a Soul Sketch. There are no repetitive thoughts there, no searching for inner discomfort, no feeling trapped. For a while, I had absolutely no desire to put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and unravel the emotional mysteries of my inner Cirque du Soleil. Somewhere, an acrobat was probably hanging upside down waiting for me to come rescue them.
But every beautiful song comes to an end, and there was no escaping the pressure in my chest.
So I put on my heart-pattern pajamas, made myself a cup of tea, grabbed a bar of chocolate and settled into the couch under a blanket. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and gave myself permission to simply feel.
My body knows what it wants.
And chocolate is like a candle in the darkness; the solution to almost every crisis.
Almost instantly, a wave of sadness came to the surface. The pain of not being seen. Not being accepted for who I am. The fear of being punished for being wrong. Feeling small, unworthy and insignificant.
The tears started rolling down my face and I began sobbing loudly. Actually, it was more than crying.
It was a full-on ugly cry.
The kind where your face forgets how to be attractive.
My stomach tightened, my belly joined in, and my entire nervous system responded to the intensity of the emotion. Whatever had been trapped inside wanted to be released.
There I was, crying in my heart-pattern pajamas under a blanket, my glasses blurred by tears, a runny nose and a growing collection of tissues around me.
The emotions kept coming in waves while the tears followed the rhythm of my body. Letting go of pain sometimes feels like giving birth.
With extra snot.
I sipped my tea, enjoyed the warmth and ate some chocolate until the next wave arrived. More tears. More stomach cramps. More letting go.
Then there was a little pause.
More chocolate.
A bit of scrolling on Instagram.
And suddenly I came across a hilarious reel of a horse letting out a fart worthy of Thor, the God of Thunder.
I laughed so hard I watched it three times.
Three times.
Right through the tears and the runny nose.
That is the strange thing about being human.
People often think that sadness and joy happen separately.
In my experience, they don’t.
Sometimes you’re crying because an old wound is leaving your body, while simultaneously laughing at a horse that sounds like it just summoned lightning from another dimension.
Both can be true.
Because yes, laughing and crying sometimes happen at the same time for me.
Impossible?
No.
Just a skill I have developed as a human being.
And I’m quite proud of it.
Being human is messy. Healing cannot be controlled or managed by the mind. Healing is allowing yourself to be exactly as you need to be.
Does that mean rolling around dramatically on the floor while waving your arms?
Why not.
Can you laugh afterwards at your newly acquired eye bags and the look of someone who has just been run over by a truck on its way to Transylvania?
Absolutely.
Life is messy, beautiful, painful, funny and absurd.
Sometimes all within the same ten minutes.
You are a beautiful mess.
And that’s what being human means.
I love myself exactly as I am.
And I hope you can do the same.
With much love, tears and laughter,
Dana
Wisdom From The Heart 