Day 19 - Emotional Healing

I had a feeling that there might be some emotional break downs and/or breakthroughs during these 30 days. It’s hard not to separate detoxing the body from detoxing the emotions as well. So as predicted, some “stuff” came up today that challenged me emotionally.

You see when I got into Ayurvedic Medicine and I began “working” on myself and actively choosing who I always wanted to be, I discovered I was a “yes” person. I grew up thinking that in order to fit in and to receive love I had to please people. For years I would be, do or say what I thought others wanted me to in order to keep the peace, make sure others were happy or simply to ensure that I was well liked. This plan of action only worked for so long until I began to feel depleted and depressed because I wasn’t being who I wanted to be, I was trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be.

Obviously I was angry at myself for not speaking my truth and I even felt angry at others because I felt as if they were making me do things I really didn’t want to do. Of course, no one can make you do anything. I’m the one who chose to put others needs in front of my own. I “taught” them that I was OK with inconveniencing myself for their sake. I was the one that kept saying “yes” when I really wanted to say “no”.

It’s taken years of self discovery and reprogramming for me to be able to speak up and stand up for myself. There are times that I begin to get fearful that if I say what I really mean it might hurt the other person or they might get offended. But, I learned that doing the opposite was hurting and offending me.

Yes, there are times that speaking honestly about how I feel and what I want or don’t want causes the other to react unfavorably. But, there are also times that speaking my truth causes the other to react with a higher level of respect for me. Of course it’s not my intention to offend others and I’m learning how to speak my truth in a soft way rather than harshly throwing it out there.

Today, I had an experience where someone was offended by something I did. It was a situation where the person did not know or understand me or my work. It was a simple case of misunderstanding and lack of education and rather than trying to understand where I was coming from, this person chose to react in fear and anger. The old me would have felt so badly that I offended someone, I would have wanted to crawl under a rock in fear and loathing of myself for inadvertently causing someone emotional pain.

But today is a new day, and I am a new person. I opted to react with compassion on this individual who did not understand me. I chose not to beat myself up for not being who this person thought I should be. I held my head high. I left the situation knowing who I am and being proud of who I am, even in the face of adversity. On some level I knew that I invited the experience to give myself an opportunity to make a new choice.

I’m not going to pretend it didn’t affect me at all. It brought up some old emotions. But in the end I realized that I don’t have to apologize for being me and I don’t have to be ashamed. It was a liberating experience and I felt like I had leaped over a huge hurdle that had been facing me for years. I’m not the frightened little mouse I used to be, I’m a confident tiger.

I’m reminded of the famous quote by Rita Mae Brown, “The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” It’s OK if you can’t please everybody and it’s not worth the price you pay when you try to.

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