On letting go

Self-healing, a personal journey and some gentle encouragement for those on a similar path

Self-compassion is the way through.

I knew that. 

But despite my own research on self-compassion, fan-girling Kristin Neff, and encouraging my clients, friends and family to adopt it as an attitude… I fell short.

My anxiety was manifesting left, right and centre. Every area of my life seemed to be infected with the nervous energy I harboured in my bones.

Trauma does that. In my experience (I cannot speak for others) it lives deep and unnervingly still. Lurking in the shadows of tissue and skeleton.

Trauma feels like a delicate word. I use it tentatively, respecting those who have experienced serious and extreme trauma, to those who perhaps don’t feel like their experience was enough to warrant trauma at all.

I want to validate the latter and say - If you have been through something that caused you physical and/or emotional pain, harm and suffering, I see you. Your experience mattered. How you feel today, as a result of it, matters.

The worst thing we can do is minimise our experience, or compare it to others. This is hard, especially in light of the horrific events unfolding in the news, and the unimaginable suffering happening in war zones across the world.

I understand the desire to downplay personal suffering, in order to not sound ungrateful or tone deaf. Your compassion for what you see before you is real. And this is a gentle reminder that you deserve to feel your own kindness here too.

Contrary to limiting beliefs, pouring some of that loving kindness over yourself won’t diminish or detract from the empathy in your soul. You can both care deeply for others and for yourself.

I’ve been sitting with some of my own shadows recently, having been diagnosed with ptsd. My first response was feeling like a complete imposter, believing that diagnosis was only spared for people who’d experienced the most unthinkable. Looking back, my compass of self-compassion was non-existent.

It’s only through doing some deep, very intense therapy that it’s dawned on me, the only way I can move on from this is to validate my own experience. To give myself the love I needed in that situation, and, I realise now, to love myself enough to put it down.

This feels a bit uncomfortable and personal to share. But in truth, writing this is healing. And if it helps one other person going through it, then the vulnerability feels worth the discomfort.

Thanks to my therapy and subsequent meditations, I now have the vivid image of myself standing on a dusty track, laying my trauma into the earth. Letting it go, rather than holding it close. I am tenderly and lovingly holding myself and the memory, as I deposit it into the soil. I then turn around and move forward.

Previously this felt impossible to do. I kept it as a living part of my “story”, as it felt like the most respectful way to honour what I’d been through. The idea of letting it go felt like I’d be forgetting it, or discrediting it. And that felt cruel and reckless. 

The way I’m processing it now - the image of this path that’s imprinted onto the retina of my minds eye - has allowed me to understand that putting it down doesn’t mean forgetting it. It never could.

I’m now simply choosing, for myself, to let this memory go dormant. Rather than holding it so close and so dear. In order to live the life I really want, I can see it no longer serves me to carry it anymore. It belongs behind me, in the tracks of my past. There is something both heartbreaking and liberating about it.

Alongside the therapy (I did 3-step rewind, which is a neurolinguistic programming technique) I wanted to share some of the other practices which are helping me to process and heal. Forever a work-in-progress, I don’t see myself as fixed (we’re not made to be fixed). Just having taken a courageous step in the right direction.

Here’s a flavour of what’s healing right now:

Yoga

Specifically this sequence - warrior I: holding arms up to the sky, grounding feet to the earth, honouring yourself in this moment, as you deservingly call in through your hands the energy of love, life and the universe. Recognise in this present moment your place and belonging in this world.

Transition into warrior 2: arms out horizontally, take a breath and look behind you, turn your back palm to face the floor as you let go of your fears into the path behind you. Inhaling, face forward, turning your front palm up to the sky, do a little Morpheus from the matrix hand movement, and call in the future you desire. Hold for a few deep breaths.

Transition into triangle pose, and honour once again this present moment, between your past and future, kindly loving who you are today. Forgive yourself here for any past discrepancies, and willingly let go of anything that no longer serves you in this moment. If you have a sankalpa repeat it here. 

Journalling

I find journalling the most healing practice of all. It’s where you can register all of the self-doubt and negative talk that has become habitual in your mind, and break it down.

Here are some prompts that may help:

• What is weighing heavy on your heart today?

• If you could name the emotions in your body, what would they be?

• How do they feel?

• What’s one act of kindness you can afford to give yourself today?

• Honestly and tenderly write down your fears, no matter how silly or scary they sound written down. Then begin to introduce doubt, reason and heaps of self compassion as you address them.

• Talk to yourself as you would a good friend

Purge

If the pain feels like it’s living within you, a more woo-woo approach is to call it out, and put it somewhere else. Perhaps writing about it in a letter and then burning it, or symbolically projecting it onto an organic object, that can then be put back to the earth. I spoke with a pebble in Devon before throwing it into the ocean. It definitely helped.

Meditation

Silent, guided and/or repeating affirmations & mantras

Mindful practices

For play & creativity. I’ve been dabbling in illustration, dancing like no one is watching to my favourite bangers in the kitchen, and gardening. I’d love to try pottery too.

Most importantly - Don’t rush yourself. There is no quick fix. Take time to discover what works for you and nurture anything that feels good. You deserve to feel good.

Go with grace, and tread gently. I’m sure you’re doing better than you think.

Em x x

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