After experiencing a difficult time, my therapist said something that made a very big impact on my life. It such an obvious truth, and yet I was completely oblivious to it. After living a childhood full of painful experiences, my therapist says that I had “Fort Knox” around my heart. It’s not really something you think about when it’s something you have lived with your whole life. But it really got me thinking. I had let a few people through the high security, but each time someone “hurt me” I put up another wall.
Sounds safe, doesn’t it?
But what he said to me that day really got me thinking. Sure, I wasn’t letting in pain. I also wasn’t letting my hurt escape. I wasn’t letting in joy. I wasn’t letting in love. I wasn’t letting in joy. I protected myself from negative experiences, but was robbing myself of positive experiences. I was protecting myself from the possibility of pain from relationships (of any kind), and simultaneously keeping myself from experiencing the possibility of the AMAZING joy that life has to offer!
I wish I could say the path was easy, but it really wasn’t. Opening our hearts means moving out of our comfort zone… to the extreme! It means examining the areas that things make us feel uncomfortable, figuring out why and making different choices for ourselves.
I bet your first step will be just as simple, but not necessarily easy. It might even be obvious. My path to an open heart started with a hug. I’ve worked with my coworkers for 4 years, 60 hours a day… they are truly a second family to me. They often teased me because I wouldn’t let anyone hug me. I was the anti-hugger. After examining where the discomfort came from, I realized that it stemmed from my childhood. My mother had… issues. Without going into detail, she often forced me to hug her, or tell her that I loved her… after she’d verbally or physically abused me… to soothe her feelings.
That really stuck with me. But it was outdated. I was carrying around a situation that no longer existed, a pain that was in the past, and I was letting it negatively impact my NOW. I hugged someone at work. I won’t lie, I had a full blown panic attack. I almost threw up on her. But she needed it at that moment, and she almost cried. It was a really beautiful and tender moment. I won’t say that I suddenly knocked down Fort Knox, but it removed one brick. It was the beginning of a long journey.
What I didn’t expect, though… removing that brick allowed a little of the pain of my childhood abuse to escape, and it let in a little healing too.
It took me a while to be able to hug people on a regular basis, and I will still crumple to a mass of anxiety if someone I don’t want to hug tries to hug me. It was a start. J
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