You've been telling me how heavy it all feels.
I hear you. I see you. And I'm here to tell you why and how to make it light again. Or maybe light for the first time in your life.
No, it's not just you. It's all of us.
We’ve learned to keep it all inside. That’s why we feel so heavy, so weighed down. We’ve always had to keep it all inside.
They taught us we couldn’t trust our feelings. We felt so much that it wasn’t a stretch to believe that we couldn't trust ourselves.
Unless we were pleasing.
Unless we were being the way they wanted us to be.
We think so much. We think so deep. Because we feel so deep.
We have to have a place to go to feel safe. We have to be able to shake off all the heaviness we know isn't ours – that was never ours. We learned so well to take it on ourselves because that was the only way we felt safe.
It was the only way we felt loved.
We carry. We carry. We carry. All of it.
We excuse, we understand, we acquiesce.
We’re just starting to see this, to change it, to stop it, and it’s one of the most uncomfortable things most of us have ever done.
But we have to because not doing this, is so much worse.
It keeps the heaviness. It keeps the pain, the fear, the tiredness. The feeling like we can’t go on like this anymore. The feeling like we don’t fit into this world anymore. The feeling like we were made for a different place and time, but where that is seems just as elusive as the love we’re still looking for.
Let it out, Beautiful.
Own how you feel. Admit it to yourself first. Own everything you've ever felt that you thought you had to hide. That's the problem!
Find your safe places. Find the ones you can let it all out with. No, not some guy you've just met even with all his potential to see you like you've never been seen before. Real people who actually care about you, not just the image of you.
You’ve been waiting long enough to exhale. Now’s your turn to breathe.
Love,
Jane
What feels heavy for you today? What are you carrying that isn't yours? Let's release it right now by sharing it in the comments below!
I've been seeing a guy for about 5 months now, and I can tell he likes me and cares about me, but he isn't ready to commit. In the beginning it was a whirlwind, then he got scared and pulled away for awhile, then we came back together with the intention of moving slowly and getting to know each other. I let him know I was seeing other people while we were apart, and he didnt mind that but he said he wasn't seeing anyone else. He does spend a lot of time with another woman though, she's married and I'm fairly sure they're just good friends, but I sometimes feel like I'm not a priority to him, and in my worst moments I think he might be in love with her and just using me cause I'm available. I know she has helped him to heal from his divorce in ways that I couldn't, by including him in a Christian community, which he has let me know I can be more a part of, but I am uncomfortable with their lack of concern over covid. So I guess, at the moment, I feel left out of something that is important to him, and he has so little free time to split among me, his church, and his kids. He's a wonderful guy, he's kind and sexy and fun to be with, but I want a life partner and I'm feeling so uncertain about waiting for something that might not happen with him, while my feelings for him grow and my heart becomes more vulnerable to being deeply hurt again.
Recently my sister pass from coronavirus we was very close like always I read everything that you put out there for me you are doing a great job that could change whatever I was doing wrong to find Mr. right thank you so much.
Oh Olive, I'm so very sorry. The loss of a sibling you're close to is such a hard loss. My heart goes out to you. I'm so glad I've been able to help you!
What feels heavy for me today...is realizing that the man who broke up with me last week, had no intention of getting serious. Another one I believed was perfect in the beginning, then I ignored warnings signs and cues he hinted at, and i did it again!!! So my heavy feeling is me feeling worn out. I've worn myself out. My heart and head are tired. I surrender!! I thought my radar was healed...but it isn't. I'm tired of this. My heavy heavy heart is weary.
Thank you for listening
Stacey
I'm always listening, Stacey. How my heart goes out to you! But I will say there is something about surrendering that opens us up to new things we wouldn't otherwise be open to seeing. I'm with you here, girl. Don't fight this. He revealed the falsehood of a perfect beginning that belied the reality of what he was incapable of being and that isn't about you; only about what you trusted him to be. Sending you love!
Very true, Thank you!! 🥰❤
Every day,I feel SO alone,not seen,dismissed by people. My guy,doesn't have the time,LOVE to give whole heartedly to me either. Just going through alot alone.
Hearing you, Mary. Sending you so much love!
My divorce feels heavy right now. Should be finalized soon. Dealing with rejection from my husband has been heavy. I am trying to be honest with myself about how I was treated and let go of my dream of how things could have been.
Oh that dream dies hard, Becca! Could things have really been that way with him who he is - even now - and the combination of the two of you together? Things can always be different if two people are willing and open to making it different but even if you could do it all over again, so much would depend on him being different too!
I feel suffocated by the many ppl in my life that talk all day that make any conversation about themselves and most of all don't notice when I'm in a bad mood. Stop playing down other ppls situations that doesn't help just makes the other person feel less significant! I definitely think that all my friends and fam except maybe my lil sis don't think much of me and I feel like a failure right now.
Own the parts that are yours, Jessica. But don't take on any of the rest just because someone attributes these other things to some kind of failure in you. Failure in itself is such a loaded word as even calling ourselves or our things "failures" can be so much a part of our programming. I have a feeling you're so much more than what you think you are here!
Oh this is so timely Jane, once again. Thank you. I am on day two of working on not feeling so horrible for finally having spoke up and told somebody how something made me feel. Turns out that because I hadn’t been speaking up all along, my suspicions over something were overblown and I overreacted. At least the recipient was a good sport about it but I’m still trying to recover from having blown it into something it wasn’t at all. Something wasn’t as I thought it may have been. So for the next half a day I felt miserably embarrassed and went through that whole scenario that we go through when we finally speak up but we’re wrong and then feel embarrassed by it and the cycle starts all over again. Not this time!
I’d decided that I’m not going to rehearse it and I’ve already apologized for overreacting but am just going to act as if it never happened and stop bringing it up and most importantly for me, change the channel in my brain when it tries to get me to feel guilty again. Find and think a better feeling thought.
It sure is a vicious cycle just as what you mentioned. How we live to please and do all of those things that in the end just makes us unhappy and we know we’re not being our true self.
Thank you for your words and I will re-read them and make any more adjustments that I need to so I can have total peace about it. I’m just tired of being miserable overreacting at times simply because of being taught to hold everything inside and people please.
This! This is precisely the problem with not having boundaries, with always being so nice and so pleasing and so perfectly what you've been told you "should" be! Even the best of us can't keep it going when inside we're seething, resentful, angry that we have to behave like this when no one is making us do this except the voice inside our heads that says disappointing someone is so much worse than anything else we could do. It's not. Losing ourselves trying to follow the rules that someone else programmed us with until we don't even know who we are anymore is so much worse. Feeling the great injustice because we're trying to be above reproach is so much worse. You're seeing this so clearly, Diana. When it's harder to keep doing the same thing - no more how comfortable it's become - than it is to do something new and foreign to us, we do the new uncomfortable thing and it sounds like this is right where you are. Hang in there, girl. It gets clearer from here, little by little, one new step at a time!
Thank you! Yes, it sure is step by step. I’ll be working on it, because this pattern just has to change. I know it wont be easy since old patterns aren’t easy to break, but thankful that it’s doable and I need real peace in my life.
My relationship with my spouse or lack thereof and the lack of a Mr relationship with my sister and my mother's passing.