Day 371: Dissolving an emotion: remnants of a panic disorder

26122013

Yesterday I watched a movie which was really shocking and heavy for me to experience. After the movie I had to cry and speak to express some of the emotion that had gathered onto my chest, but for some reason this was not enough. I felt as if I wanted to curl up, be held, be comforted, block out my surroundings. For a while I played along with this desire, seeking for the closeness of another person. But then I started to realize the emotion was still there and blocking me. I started to describe out loud how I felt and I realized that my entire body was collapsing around the weight in my chest. I tried to physically straighten myself up, stand up, open my chest, and I couldn't do it, it was too heavy: as soon as I stood up I wanted go back into hiding, and as I forced myself to stand I could do nothing but moan and breathe.

What helped here was that I allowed myself to curl up into a comfortable spot, which is where I started to go through the reactions I had had towards what was shown in the movie. I used self-forgiveness to face the reasons for my reactions, many so intimate that I can rarely talk about them to anyone. As I went through the reactions I would go through the emotions again, the wave of energy crashing over me, but this time as I went through the specific trigger points the emotions actually dissolved. I focused on my breathing and little by little straightened myself up when opening my chest no longer felt unbearable.

What I realized here is that when I feel heavy emotions (which happens quite rarely) I have a tendency to allow myself to seek for comfort and brush the emotions aside instead of dealing with them directly. For example, when emotions accumulate into my chest, I just want to curl up and be comfortable.

I now see and realize that I have a habit of ignoring heavy emotions for the sake of comfort and that to continue with the habit is to suppress myself and not utilize emotions as indicators of who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I feel negative emotions in my chest area, to follow that energy and curl up my body around my chest area as if to protect, crystallize and lock in the emotions that I feel.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the fact that I respond to heaviness in my chest by curling up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape the emotions by curling up instead of facing and embracing them by straightening up and opening my chest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear facing my emotions because I have feared that they would be “too much” for me; that I would not be able to handle the pain.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to magnify and worsen emotions through my thoughts when and as they are experienced – thinking “oh no, this is so horrible” etc. - thus “fueling the fire” and making an emotion last longer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that an emotion is but energy within my body which can be released once seen and understood.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to deal with emotions, not realizing that the process of walking through an emotion is something I already know: to recognize, pinpoint and identify the emotion, to find the appropriate ways of physically expressing and venting out the emotion and to release the emotion by embracing it through self-forgiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not be able to dissolve an emotion and accumulate this fear into a panic, thus losing control of my breath (hyperventilation) and locking myself into an emotional clusterfuck (a panic attack that wears out as I run out of stamina).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that as long as I keep myself to the basics (breathing, movement, speech/writing) I will be able to walk my way through anything.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that the reason I developed a panic disorder around the age of 16 (which continued for years to come) was most likely because of pent up emotions that I did not know how to express or did not want to face.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to learn to hide and suppress my emotions as a child because within my family dynamics I felt as if there was no room for my emotions as it already seemed chaotic enough to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to harm myself by suppressing myself and collapsing inwards for the sake of a sense of balance and harmony within my family.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a habit of curling up to hide my emotions from myself as well as from others.

When and as I see myself physically curling up, I stop, I breathe and I check myself for emotions and energies, both in the body and the mind. If there is emotion/energy within me, I focus on my breath and try to open up my physique. I investigate the trigger/reaction points that have started the emotion/energy and I use self-forgiveness if necessary to release the emotion/energy. I slow down in breath and I continue with this for as long as it takes for the emotion/energy to dissipate.

I commit myself to investigate how I suppress myself emotionally in my current living.