I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how my heart seems a little … disengaged.
Oh, it hangs in there, it does the needful, cares for people, listens deeply, and once in a while sends me a message about some Coming Attractions, and yet … I have been feeling numb for … a while. Like over a decade at least. Something got shut down and I haven’t been able to find the power button to get it turned back on.
It may have started as early as when I was around 4; at least a slow, inexorable drip began then: “Don’t be so sensitive.”
Okay, how’d ya like me to be instead? Any pro tips for me on how to be anything else? Cuz I’m 4 and I don’t know hardly any answers at all.
Nope? Well okay, then. I guess I’ll try to figure something out.
And it was functional, for a while. It worked to keep me from getting yelled at so much. Just don’t react. Go to your room and distract yourself until you can ignore what you’re feeling. You have stuff, toys, books, things to make, things to create on or with. For years that was the pattern; get hurt, go make something. Get hurt, go read until your heart settles down. Just ignore it and it will, in fact, very reliably go away. Oh won’t it just. But … not really. Not gone, just … hidden.
Later, much later, there was that big, bad time, and in the hospital “family room” somebody pulled me aside and said, “Pull yourself together, your mom needs you,” and so I did. And those were the last tears I shed for my dad. And there were other times that I ignored my own pain to take care of other people. Or because other people couldn’t bear to see it.
And eventually … motions.
And then, well … 2016 and 2017, 2018, 2019, and oh god 2020, and oh god 2021 with it’s horrifying beginning. (And then crickets, but hey, these things take time.) And now it’s nearly 2023 and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in waiting for the next shoe to drop. (How many shoes can there possibly be?)
So what pro tips do I have to offer? Get help with it, a counselor or therapist, a good tour guide to the unconscious is necessary. Write copiously. Write down everything and mine it, for dirt and shit and sometimes a gold nugget or the occasional ugly diamond. Don’t be afraid to dip your pen in venom that has been warmed up in Hell. Catharsis is good. Get rid of stuff. Let things go. Drop into your heart, and let it do the thinking for you as often as you can.
However, and this is a big however, remember that those who hurt you were at least as wounded as you are now. At least and probably more. Remember that everybody (or so nearly everybody that exceptions can probably be counted on one hand) has triggers that cause them to react without thinking, to run old programming that is no longer relevant. We all do it, until we figure out it’s not working and try something else. And that can take years. You’d be amazed what people will put up with rather than go through a process of change. Wowzers. It’s not our fault that our parents didn’t know shit about raising kids that could do more than barely function. Mine sure didn’t. They were utterly unequipped to be parents. You just … do the thing and 9 months later, bingo, here’s your baby. Good luck.
Probably nobody told them that is gets harder as kids grow up and get smarter.
My numbness is getting all prickly now, and sometimes I hurt like blood is trying to flow into places it hasn’t been in a while. I’m learning, voraciously, about the heart and the brain and how humans have basically forgotten how to nurture their children because we’re all just too busy living the high life in the capitalist capital of the world. And now most of the kids have anxiety/depression disorder if not worse, and we’re all falling apart. But … but … we can heal ourselves and each other. Together. It’s not going to be easy, but we can rebuild those bridges that reconnect our hearts to our brains. I’m learning how. I’ll keep you posted.
Need some help navigating the rocky terrain of your own heart? Sound healing can bring your heart back into coherence with the natural world.
