I Can't Hear My Own Pain

I find it a difficult task to forgive others for their actions done purposely to cause harm. When offering forgiveness, I generate an uncomfortable feeling inside that forces me to turn away. I categorize my sadness, anger, guilt, or fear as clinging to the memory of its importance. Then ignore my emotions around the experience allowing it to cement inside my psyche.

I refuse to listen to my emotions.

I have become an architect of ambivalence. Childhood experiences based on fear are hidden away by my need to be loved. It has become easier to disregard the painful past expressed buried in teenage angst. Then embrace any changes adult observations may create from these embedded emotions. I would much rather ignore them and live inside a sophomoric persona of a world where I am accepted into a role shaped by my family.

Each uncomfortable memory is now safely tucked away from my awareness. The act of forgiving those who caused suffering is also ignored due to my refusal to relive the event again. I reject any acknowledgment of these past moments along with their emotions by telling myself, “I am better, or it doesn't matter.”

The thought of releasing painful emotions is no longer a choice. These emotions have become a part of my identity. If I were to dare and examine the hidden wisdom of their message, it would force me to relive the past. I find it uncomfortable and sometimes explosive to touch back on these emotions. I much rather would forget and build up a resistance through distraction. Feeding these emotions with yummy food or diverting my awareness through constant action in some project.

When I am unable to ignore my emotions anymore I become enraged. "I was a bad! I shouldn't act that way." When I revisit the experiance repeatedly I become the child in need of acceptance. I unearth these feelings that want to be set free only to push them away.

I have sentenced myself to a silent prison. The duration of my stay diminishes over time, but without a moment's notice, thrust me again back into the cage.

I could have been gone for months or even years living life unaware of my buried emotions. Then a situation anchored to my unacknowledged feeling screams at me from behind its bars. Fear pleads with me to listen. I refuse to pay attention. Then anger takes over my body, needing to be heard.

The wisdom being offered from emotions is a gift—something I will no longer toss aside through an action to listen. I must regain the strength to feel into the place inside of me where I wish never to go. If I want to become more present in my life, I need to approach the uncomfortable fear with kindness. To develop a healthy relationship with myself, I need to find the courage to stop rejecting the presence of my captured emotions. To even contemplate offering forgiveness to others, I must engage with a part of me, who has been waiting patiently in the cage for me to listen.

I might become a forgiving person once I've engaged with my emotions. Listened to the truth behind the fear. Then allow my body to process their energy to be released with an awareness that has been denied throughout a lifetime of displacement. Finally, I may start the process of letting go of the childhood pain with each visit.

I spent so much of my energy trying to repair change that I ignored the need to nurture relationships. My first ghost is an inability to forgive how I continued to act from a place of repair rather than notice how my actions reflect an unhealthy need for acceptance. I disregard how I confused love to maintain an illusion of pleasantries. I have struggled with forgiving myself for curating an existence of second-rate standards for a new partner.

The inability to maintain healthy boundaries for years in a broken relationship allowed me to displace my unhappiness onto others. Allowing me to refuse action and take responsibility for my own emotions.

A second ghost resides in my inability to forgive myself in advocating for my own needs. After my divorce, the transformation from a man-child gave an awareness coupled with a healthy masculine identity as a continual process I wish to achieve.

The most simple solutions are never the easiest to perform. My awareness of these ghosts of past complex emotional burial may have been key in my growth towards happiness. The act of embracing these energies I created is to face a night of the soul. The process of releasing such long-held emotion is akin to multiple deaths of me.

It feels like I am dying releasing a lifetime of pain back to the universe.

I began facing the hidden emotions by describing what I wanted to change inside of me. Only I could forgive myself for ignoring the wisdom my emotions offered. Only I could put into words my current actions from this place constructed out of a lifetime of emotional ignorance.

I wrote down the messages revealed to me;

Then I took responsibility for all my reasoning behind the actions I took;

• I acted out of fear that took root in my need to be selfish by controlling change.
• I acted out of fear of abandonment.
• I allowed events to happen because of my insecurity.

Finally, I made amends to myself to continue with an awareness of the lessons being taught to me from my powerful emotions;

The acknowledgment of my emotions allowed me to listen to what depression was trying to tell me. Forgiving myself for what I had done helped ease the fog of loss. I was able to see that the change through embracing my emotions generated positive growth in my character. A transformation that allowed me to forgive myself for who I had once been and had become.

Copyright Christopher Madsen 2021