Grieve and Let Go
My heart feels heavy as I let go of and grieve past versions of myself. When will the grieving process end? I think I’m through it and then another wave hits me. And I’m trying to let myself sit with it all. I am trying to allow whatever comes up move through me despite the desire to push it away and be done with it. I know that healing only truly happens by acknowledging and working through all of my feelings.
These past versions of myself taunt me, attempt to pull me back, and I can be tempted to cling to them.
It’s easy to fall into old patterns without realizing I’ve fallen - old ways of being and believing ingrained in my mind and etched into my body. They feel safe, comfortable. They feel like me. I pause and remind myself that is not who I am anymore. It can be frustrating to catch ourselves missing what we used to have and craving it so deeply, even when we know better. Recovery takes almost constant self-awareness and presence. Maybe that is one reason it is so exhausting. In the blink of an eye, you can go into autopilot and retreat back into old patterns. It is a constant act of catching yourself slipping, not always in action but in thought, and reminding yourself of who you want to be. You must stay present and choose in each moment to be someone new, someone more true to you that has been buried and forgotten. It’s a combination of coming back home to yourself, reinventing yourself and discovering yourself, perhaps for the first time.
Sometimes I get so caught up in my head I forget I’m here; my anxiety manifesting itself mentally, not always physically. So I clench my toes into the ground, feel my feet rooted to the earth, put my hand on my heart and close my eyes. I am here, I am alive.
I’m feeling so many feelings and I think that’s called being alive… I don’t realize how much I have been unconsciously numbing until it all floods in.
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And after hours and days and years of trying and pushing and efforting yourself to the bone you look back and ask, “was it enough? was I enough” and the answer will always be no.
You are not enough until you let go of the need to be. You are not enough until you decide you are enough.
You are always enough.
