Sharing is So Important When You're Hurting

A couple of days before I posted the story of “How I lost the majority of my life savings”, I shared a glimpse of my story with some close friends who would be finding out about it for the first time. Telling them was one of the hardest parts of this journey.

I wrote and rewrote the email several times. I contemplated and tried talking myself out of pressing the send button several times.

Fears were forming into doubts and I could feel that energy building, building.

With each reread and adjustment to the email, I felt the inner struggle and the battle of whether I would send it at all.

What I also felt though is that while rewriting, I could feel myself tapping into my intuition and my heart. It felt clear that there were a few extra words I wanted to say, but once I found those, I also needed to put an end to the revising.

I recognized that finally pressing that send button was so much more important than getting every word “right”. Even if it comes with a whole lot of the unknown, the intensity of vulnerability and big scoops of “WTF am I doing?!”, it was the path I would be choosing.

Not because magically I thought I would be healed. In fact,

Even after sending it, I could feel a big mass of pain sitting in my chest.

Being comfortable in uncomfortability is what I call it.

What this experience is teaching me is that whether I realize it or not, there is a tremendous weight to all this that I continue to carry around.

It’s taking the act of sharing to realize just how heavy it still is and sharing the story, as hard as it is, helps to alleviate some of that..

Actions like this bring that discomfort to the surface, that pain that I might not otherwise know I am still carrying a couple of months after the initial shock of finding out what had happened.

And that is vitally important as “life returns to normal”. As I find the rhythm of my day, as I teach and give massages, as I focus on being a dad, as I feel a little better.

I think the body is designed -and we are designed- to heal to a point. The point where you can dust yourself off and carry on, even if you’re still a little (or a lot broken). I think this is the case whether you’re going through a physical injury or something on an emotional and spiritual level like this.

And while you carry on, in the subconscious, more healing may take place. Or perhaps it doesn’t, or perhaps it slows way the heck down.

If we put our pain in a box, if we build a wall, if we stop doing the work that needs to be done that will impact the healing process.

If we do our best to regularly exercise our mind, body and soul that also impacts the healing process.

I know about that choice and this process intimately.

For the first 25 or so years of my life, building those walls, keeping things locked in and not showing “weakness” was how I lived my life.

I’ve still made that choice many times in the last 22 years, but at the same time, I’ve been actively trying to unlearn those habits.

Because as I see it, healing is the work of love. Self-love.

Healing is the work of trusting that love is more than a feeling. It is the most potent creative force in the universe. And I so want to make room for it. To experience that guidance, that feeling, that lightness of being in my thoughts and actions as often as possible. In my heart, in my life, in my relationships, in my work and in my choices.   

So at this point, I am intimately aware of the direction I choose to take, because I have accumulated a lot of experience over my life. The experience of being in unimaginable, undesirable, surprising amounts of emotional pain and wondering how the heck to release it.

One thing all those years of experience has taught me that I bring to this current situation is that the more I can release the hold that the negative qualities of the story have on me, face my fears, feel that pain, take those uncomfortable breaths, the more I feel like I am doing the healing work that is so necessary.

I am doing what I can so that this pain doesn’t turn into something toxic or chronic. Instead, I am making room for love and the body to do what it is designed to do. And the pain has a channel for healthy movement and release at whatever pace my body, my nervous system and my mind can support.

When it comes to the pain I have been experiencing with this current situation, when I think of all the work that lost money represents and the effort involved in making it back. When I think of getting intimate with another woman and trying to date again, it has been feeling like a pain and a process that is bigger than I know what to do with on my own.

It’s often felt overwhelming, paralyzing, massive.

There is lots I aim to share about the journey of healing I am on to help reduce those feelings and turn something this painful into something positive, helpful and powerful that can also hopefully be of use to you and our community.

But one of the first things I realized, even when experiencing the initial shock is that I can’t do this alone.

Sharing brings healing. Healing brings self-love

So I need to resist those forces at play in my mind that would have me bottle this up and keep it to myself.

And then, I saw it. The first comment from a long-time friend who posted on my blog:

In that moment, the release of shame and pain was instant and powerful.

And so was the awareness. The need to hold space, to feel the tenderness, the knowledge that this is going to be a process. There is no rushing it, but there is mobilizing the healing process and working with the tools at my disposal. The love in my heart, the power of words, the ability to share. To let go, to surrender. To know that I have fallen and I can indeed get up.

In the days that have passed since I shared my story, I have received countless words and gestures of support, care and love. I feel myself being held. I am immensely grateful and I can’t thank you enough for all who have taken the time to reach out and to share.

It means more than you know. At this point, I think it means more than I know.

If you would like to help on this rebuilding journey…

Support can come in many ways and I am grateful, honored and humbled by it all. Some of those ways include:

• Like this article and drop a line in the comments. If you have questions, I will do my best to answer them

• Subscribe to this newsletter and consider becoming a paid subscriber

• Sharing this story

• Offering love and support to yourself and people in your life whenever possible. Let the love flow!