By Jayita Bhattacharjee
How do we live as authentic beings? Is it by running away or facing, leaving, or taking the courage to walk down memory lanes and feel that burning truth once again? Only this time, we go back in time as we allow ourselves to face the pain eye to eye with a long stare. From it, we arise as authentic beings.
Someone crushed us very badly. It’s one of those heartaches we don’t see coming, but it comes anyway. It’s one of those losses we don’t see happening, but it happens anyway. It’s one of those moments we never thought could strike, but it strikes anyway. By staring at it right in the face, looking at it eye to eye, can you find the joy, beauty, and richness that comes with true freedom? Which one would be more desirable? To be in a forever run or to feel it through and eventually emerge out of it. So, it helps to process the pain, release it, and transmute it into love.
To feel the emotions means to allow them to arise in the body and to let the sensations occur. Suppose we allow ourselves to be present in those emotions and do not try to control them. Pain triggers many ancient wounds that we had faced years and years back. Instead of being ashamed of any feelings that come up, allow yourself to just be in them as they do come. In the end, the love you have for yourself is bigger than the pain that you face.
And though this self-love, a day will come when the pain will wash away on its own. No rush, no compulsion, it will happen effortlessly with the tidal wave of self-love.
Repressing anger or surfacing emotions can cause deep-seated suffering, and it won’t help propel stuck energy out of our bodies. Deep breathing helps as you gradually inhale and exhale, letting out the bitterness and welcoming life back into your body. While doing that, we move through the stuck state and become unstuck.
Listening to music, seeing healing arts, engaging our hands in healing creativity, writing our emotions out, hiking in nature, wandering in the wilderness beneath the sky and gazing around, listening to the birds coo, and filling the heart with it—all these our body takes in slowly and breathes into your heart, and one day, subconsciously, we are healed as the weight of the pain is lifted. Life begins to flow through a thousand sounds, a thousand other sights. And its range is broadened, not narrowed when we let ourselves feel them. Through them, we begin to feel life again. And a day comes when we authentically heal, in the sense that even if we do look back, the ancient wounds do not bite us so much.
Through every receptive movement, a primal beauty makes its way into your body, so you no longer get petrified by agony. We human beings have a tendency towards denial, withdrawal, and self-isolation, and it pushes us towards silence. And such silence speaks volumes. We risk not hurting more as we think by being silent; we are skipping the pain as we are skipping the dialogues.
We shut ourselves in silence. We are hoping that the world does not see us as weak and powerless. We believe if we are frank and honest out in the open about what we feel, then the world may perceive us as weak, and from such a fear of losing our high held image, we push ourselves to a devouring silence that ultimately pushed us towards more and more silent suffering. As ultimately, what we are headed to is a major downfall that takes us deeper and deeper into the tunnel. The fear consumes us inside, leading us to think that if we exhibit our emotional weakness, then we might lose our personal power, or we are voluntarily handing it over to the world, and in doing so, we are at their mercy.
We are concerned that revealing hurt feelings might make us look so fragile that we prefer not to exhibit any vulnerability to others. But what we keep inside ultimately kills us emotionally; what we fail to realize that being unassailable is materialized when we give a chance to heal the wounded self, to voice the repressed emotions. The storm that once bent us down, we fight back to it, not through masking, but unmasking in the light sent from heaven above, having Almighty as the witness. So we no longer have to exhibit superficial courage, rather we rise in our authentic beauty. From authenticity, we reveal what is at our core, not from a beguiling charm.
The uncensored speech, those uncut expressions are now allowed the freedom to flow, and healing begins to bit by bit. They no longer live within the narrow parameters of their lives; rather have the freedom to extend themselves as they stretch their hearts through the uncondensed versions of their sufferings. For the sake of an afflicted heart to heal, it’s an essentiality for a suffering soul to have unparalleled freedom of expression, the one that can afford a restoration. To have a license to share our hearts without fear or denial, judged or dismissed, guilt or shame is a relieving feeling. This uncensored expression can bring out an enriching revelation. In the end, we watch our sorrows burn as the past reduces to ashes, and the smoke rises from the story we let open in the air. Nothing has been created or destroyed; rather, the soul has gone through a transfiguration.
After all, for healing to be in motion, the afflicted hearts need to feel richly sympathized with and understood. Rejuvenation can come when they are related to, their sufferings imagined and felt, as from there comes a genuine feeling of sharing. In the process of expression, the expression may not be right, adequate, or justified, but a struggling soul has to fully open up and divulge their deepest anxieties, their darkest secrets, as that is the way light will eventually come in. That uncensored expression fully lets out the uncondensed emotions that now have a protected space of its own, and the afflicted person now knows he/she had the unabridged emotions out in the open. The unabbreviated story comes out laid bare as the suffering soul faces with the courage to thoroughly explore the unexplored darkness in the unresolved mind.
Whatever shame, guilt, or humiliation someone has been harboring inside, however baffling, fearful his/her past experiences might have been, whatever struggles may have plagued them; they must feel the freedom to lay bare their struggling emotions, their plethora of concerns, as unabridged expression becomes the essentiality of healing. Through this uncensored revelation, he/she feels sufficiently secure.
It’s a singular way to feel secure again in an insecure mental state as the heavenly healing begins to flow. Such uncensored freedom to let it all hang out in the open becomes essentiality so the suffering soul can have a chance and space where he/she can significantly grow by defeating the self-defeating behaviors. Therein comes the needed transformation through which an afflicted individual emerges again. Confronting those past experiences with the unrestricted freedom of speech provides them the nourishing space, the well- ventilated room so they can rise above what is killing their spirits. They muster the courage to confidently meet the challenges of life again. They become emotionally capable of addressing the previously unaddressed issues, like the problematic anger, anxiety, and depression that were suppressing them down. They now gush forth the things they kept under wraps as they have the uncensored speech rising from a deeper compelling. And as they loosen up about their beliefs and emotions, they develop a singularly beautiful, extraordinary relationship with their own selves as they reveal their biggest vulnerabilities. They stand up fearlessly as dawn breaks upon their hearts. It develops a personal and intimate relationship with one’s own soul. What otherwise was unshareable now gets shared as the unabridged version of their emotions now fly in the air through the uncensored speech. The unabridged expression finally lets out the most perplexing and agonizing problems of their lives, and the afflicted souls begin to find themselves. Their personal disclosures are now heard, felt, and understood. This way, they become more of a human and emotionally accessible to the awareness of the present moment.
Suppression makes humans cautious and deliberative. They have the free reign, appropriate or inappropriate in the eyes of the society, and outright healing begins to flow. It helps normalize the suppressed emotions and lifts a person from a repressed state of mind. As from repression, self-oppression begins at some point. To rescue oneself is to indulge in uninhibited expression as censorship gets in the way of rescue. There is no fear of condescending evaluation of his/her as the person has the freedom to speak in an unedited fashion. There remains no need to be painstakingly careful, and the story comes out in a carefree, careless manner, which unconsciously becomes the essential step to healing. This therapeutic approach is benign and need not be made sadly misunderstood. If there is no fear of personal rejection, then an afflicted person gets the chance to have a free discourse with his/her own soul through the revelation of the most sensitive things deeply struggling inside. This uncensored speech becomes a prerequisite for mind-body alliance and should never be compromised. There is no suppression of self-expression, and an individual refrains from overextending himself/herself through the unbridled vent. It allows one to ley it out what was held for so long, and the process allays the fears and brings them out of their own intimidating shadows and rebuilds their fragile self-esteem. We remember we are humans with fears, insecurities, and stories of our own. The long exasperation ends through the most uncensored revelations. It finishes the unfinished discourses and assists one to become self -compassionate at the very end. The very self-expression builds self-compassion, granting forgiveness to one’s own self, asked, or unasked. The uncensored revelation allows an exchange of thoughts and beliefs, feelings, and emotions with our own hearts. A defining characteristic of uncensored expression becomes a shift in the perspective as the thought process experiences a transition. That unabridged speech becomes a compassionate story as we learn from our authentic revelations. We grow above all that happened to us. It becomes a benefit to the crisis we once had in the past and are still holding on to it real tight. We take our leave of the past and move again. It gives us something, teaches us something, and uplifts us to be a better version of ourselves.
