One Tuesday afternoon, around the 1:00pm hour, I spoke with a colleague of mine whom I’ve known for a small while. I found our exchange a quite useful and a memorable one. When the conversation started I was preparing to leave work and when it ended we were sitting in an adjacent parking lot, of my neighborhoods deli. During our chat we discussed self-love, vulnerability, trust and how healing [can] derive(s) from all three. Without disclosing her identity or the exact tales shared with me in confidence, I will do my best to give you an idea of what I experienced.
Self-love: Our Take… In our many exchanges self-love had been a popular topic, a gateway of sorts into more challenging topics, such as vulnerability, so we started there. We spoke about minuscule efforts towards demonstrated self-love, beyond an occasional posting… We discussed moments where the lack became more evident; particularly in times of separation.
We dove into the anxiety and what that looked like for us, particularly during this time as we both tirelessly attempting to navigate from “college to career,” and how meaningful it felt to simply have someone to talk too. Of all the points made, this idea of even self-care, in its nature, forcing out of us an inescapable level of vulnerability, brought us to a noticeable pause.
Vulnerability: My take… There was time when I felt vulnerability served as more of a crutch than a resource for healing. The lack of compassion that I witnessed from my peers on a day-to-day basis, gave me social anxiety and ultimately, resulted in me closing myself off to eliminate what seemed to be “the inevitable ridicule that came with openness.” During our conversation, I shared with my friend that although the thought of vulnerability gave me anxiety, the inquietude that accompanied the suppression of these same thoughts felt more damaging.
So in discovering this, my task now consisted of orchestrating a balance. Roughly a year or so ago, I ran across an article that spoke to healing and how openness was a key component in moving forward. As a result of having made zero progress navigating “mental health” my way, I decided to be brave and give this ideology a go. In the beginning this was super challenging for me, because as I stated I feared emotional rejection but nevertheless I followed through. For me this process truly consisted of a balance of awareness and intentionality. Both, by far have being the most difficult shift I’ve ever [attempted] to make, but 100% well worth it.
I also spoke about how beneficial it was beginning to feel to simply throw myself into those difficult conversations, and move on. Doing so, in very noticeable ways, made it easier for me to forgive, and really just release hurt and tension within my body.
Trust: Her experiences … We both agreed that living under parental rule, at times, felt messy right? The transition from living with your parents as a child, leaving for school, adjusting to/settling into your independence, establishing yourself beyond your once parental attachment, and following graduation, returning to that home environment where your parents still see you as their child, feels really confusing. Dually attempting to practice autonomy, while trying to be mindful of the reestablished boundaries, also felt extremely difficult.
We discussed space and how necessary isolation can be for healing, and how thorough it all we had to believe in ourselves and trust that no matter what, that everything is and will forever continue to work itself out.
Forever grateful for her time, patience and willingness to share.
-Shar
With Admiration -Shar 