I believe we are all searching for bliss. We all want to more consistently feel happiness. Happiness being the desire to feel joy in the small things, to feel free from suffering and challenges, and to feel a lightness in our hearts on a more consistent basis. To me, that is defined by being free from the triggers of random (unpredictable) situations, work, friends, lovers and family. Feeling bliss, happiness or joy can only occur when we’ve been able to create space from our judgements, anxieties, pains, hurts and traumas. Finding space does not mean that we have healed ourselves, but rather that we have the ability to find reprieve from the thoughts and emotions that torment us.
When we are able to heal our pains, we find a level of freedom that brings ease and, subsequently, peace into our lives. However, we don’t need to ‘completely’ heal ourselves to feel a more consistent freedom within. But working on healing is key to evolving as humans.
We sabotage our peace by avoiding uncomfortable emotions, or by attempting to control ourselves by pushing away anything we don’t like. We can’t feel at peace if we don’t allow ourselves to feel shitty or to struggle. Often, we don’t think we are strong enough to carry those feelings. We can feel like we are the only ones who ever experience intense pain or emotions. When we believe we are the only ones who feel a certain way, it makes us feel undeniably lonely.
How can we remedy our inner dilemmas and serve that constant desire to feel more positive?
By allowing ourselves to sit in our discomfort and pain.
But how do we do that when the very action of sitting makes us want to run and avoid feeling anything? Here is where our strength can shine through: when we teach ourselves to be in the discomfort, when we remember to tell ourselves that the discomfort will not hurt us, it will actually help us evolve. When we practice not running from our feelings and allow ourselves to stop and simply feel.
Believing in our pains and subscribing to our suffering is what holds us back from our ability to feel joy. This literally locks us like prisoners in our own bodies. It makes us feel like the truth of our minds is what is happening in the outer world, when in fact it is not. We become coated in shame and we feel unable to change. We may even feel stuck in our realities, feeling like what we have in our lives is all we can ever hope to.
I am happier and more graceful in my life today because I’ve spent endless hours in my dark feelings; I’ve allowed them the space to exist by owning them and feeling them. I have worked on unraveling my need to control and be bound by the dark feelings. This is a practice of mine. When dark times have come up, some quite recently, I ‘ve been able to move through them within a few weeks when historically it would have taken me years. I am capable of that because I choose to look it in the eye; I allow myself to feel uncomfortable and I am honest with those closest to me. I no longer try to appear like I have it all together. I am bold in my honesty with myself and those that I am close to.
If I am here on this Earth, for who knows how long, I am going to make the most of it. I am going to make certain that my days are the ones I choose for me, and even in the pain I welcome all that comes my way.
What are you avoiding looking at in your life? How is that story keeping you from feeling joy? What is hard to face?
When you make space to feel, you will heal. However, sometimes (often) just to make the space to feel you will need the support of a trained professional to bear witness to your story. I have, and I do, so please don’t shy away from being witnessed and supported.
with love,
Noelle
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