How we disconnect from ourselves and how to reconnect

Josh felt so relieved.

“I am able to stay more easily with my emotions when they come up.” 

Josh noticed that he didn’t have to shut down his emotions straightaway, like he used to.

“I can make more space for them.” This was such a relief for him.

“I feel more curiosity towards what I feel inside me, rather than the fear or shame I usually feel.

 The shift from fear to curiosity is the beginning of transformation.

 

What gets in our way of reconnecting

When people begin to reconnect to themselves, several thing may get in their way. 

Our thoughts often stop us. “I should have sorted it out already.” Or “I should be able to cope on my own.”  This can bring up shame, as it feels that there is something wrong with you.

The fear of emotional overwhelm can also hold us back. It is like Pandora’s box, we don’t know what may happen when we open it.

We fear we will be swallowed up or drown in our emotions if they were to surface. It may seem that it will be endless and will go on forever.

Many of us have emotions that we have not been able to digest as they felt too big and overwhelming at the time. Maybe they were not welcomed in our early environment. We learned ways to move away from them.

Although those ways of coping now get in our way, they were once intelligent adaptations that helped us cope and move on.

As adults they get in our way of connecting to ourselves.  But we can build our capacity to be with them.

What is needed to reconnect

Reconnecting to ourselves doesn’t happen by forcing the lid off the box.

It starts by gently noticing how we disconnect from ourselves in the first place.

We can become aware of the ways we move away from our feelings and the habits we use that help us avoid certain inner experiences. We can begin to notice the patterns that show up in our lives again and again.

It helps to look at all this with some kindness and to see the role these patterns once played. They helped you survive situations where you didn’t have many choices, 

From there it becomes possible to notice which behaviours keep us stuck in old loops – repeating the past without realising it.

We then begin to reconnect with the qualities that were always there: curiosity, vitality, creativity, tenderness and strength.

 

Image by Artem Kovalev.