Do you feel like you have a choice?

The other day, I was listening to a song with my friend that felt very familiar from my adolescence. As I listened, deep feelings rose up in me. Unexpectedly, a wave of sadness, grief, and strangely, deep relief, washed through my body. Those emotions helped me understand that what happened in the past truly belongs to the past—and it’s over. I felt at peace with that visceral knowing. It’s always a “hurrah moment” with complex trauma. :)

I’ve always struggled to express vulnerable emotions to this friend, knowing it feels unsafe for him—he was controlled a lot as a child (what a perfect reflection of my own repression, right?). But this time I broke through the repression barrier, I let myself feel, cry, and express to him:

“It was so difficult to reach this place, all that suffering I went through… and now I just feel this question viscerally: Is it really okay now? Has it really ended? And just by seeing the question, I feel that it has ended—and it’s such a relief.”

Expressing these deep emotions in the moment was a big step for me. And even though he genuinely wanted to meet me there, he couldn’t. He started talking about irrelevant things that blocked my emotions. But I was able to say: “Could you just sit with me in silence? I just need you to see me and be with me here, with this sadness and relief.”

And the moment I expressed that need, my emotions started to flow again.

That moment—when he couldn’t meet me and my emotions stopped and froze—was such a perfect opportunity to see my own repression mechanism. That moment when, from a deeper presence, I had a choice: to fall back into the pattern of swallowing my sadness and tears, or to choose myself—my emotions, my experience—and ask for the gentleness I needed to let them flow.

Before working on my emotional repression patterns, I used to get stuck in moments like this. I couldn’t feel or express what I needed in order to allow my emotions. (That inability came from repressed anger, power and voice because of the deep fear of being humiliated.) I’ve always been good at meeting myself and feeling my emotions when I’m alone. But it’s in close relationships where the rubber really meets the road—where we see our progress. Right?

Am I getting stuck in the old pattern, or am I meeting my emotional needs in order to express what I feel?

It’s been a journey. Don’t get me wrong—I couldn’t do this before reversing repression patterns to some degree, it was scary and it still is. And I couldn’t even see the root of my patterns. I was just stuck and frozen. But now, I feel I have a choice. And it all happens within me. Others are just reflections.

So, the question is: Can I express my needs and emotions when I’m with others—or not? That’s the main thing.

I wish everyone could experience what it’s like to truly feel freer in your expression—when you feel you have a choice, and you don’t need anyone else to give it to you. God, it feels so liberating and safe. I feel more connected to the people in my life. I don’t feel the need to disconnect every time when I feel unmet, because now I see:

It’s all about my ability and capacity to reverse repression and express myself and emotional needs—not about them.

Do you feel you have a choice?

You just need to see that there is a world outside your patterns—you just might not experientially see it yet.

If you’re curious about this journey of somatic work, feel free to book a free meet & greet call or check out my Personal Mentorship program.

Here is my private e-mail too:

serena@awarenessembodied.com

Read my weekly Journals here. Stuck and feeling unmet in relationships? Check out my new monthly Relationships Workshop for just $20!

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