At The End Of The Rainbow ...
A Cathartic Cleansing
“Today’s teardrops are tomorrow’s rainbows.”
Ricky Nelson
An Ocean of Shame
I breathe heavily
something is dragging down
my body
my muscles tense
the thick black slime
is clinging on to my feathers
I try to open my wings
take a few steps
ready to take off
only to harshly land
in the cold, wet sand
my hands
bleeding
cut open
by the sharp edges
of the shells
that I turned around for ages
trying to find the shiny pearl
I watch my reflection in the water
distorted
by the rough sea
a dark shadow
hovering over me
the freezing blade
of judgement
cutting my cheeks
I struggle
trying to shake off
the heavy pitch
as I desperately seek
for a relief
the grim face
of shame
encircling me
knowing
I am an easy prey
immovable
with fear
stuck
in the mud
Every attempt to fly
in vain
even the rain
can’t wash me clear
I give up
and cry
breaking
soaking
in my very own tears
numbed
by the unbearable pain
I disappear
into the shadows of the night
embracing the darkness
waiting
for the light
holding my own body
wrapping me tight
a little bundle of despair
I surrender to the sorrow
feeling every twitch and ache
praying for a better tomorrow
Sadhbh Adamea“I hope you find what you are looking for.”, a sentence I often heard before I moved to Ireland. I never had the feeling I am was search of something. I moved because my soul urged me to, because I felt home in this incredible landscape. And yet, lately, I have the feeling that I am finding something. Getting lost in my exploration, I discover. I un-cover. Myself.
I had a wonderful childhood. I don’t have any big trauma. My parents always treated me with respect, I never lacked anything and I swam in the “idyllic world” bubble for a very long time. Still, I felt a sadness inside myself that later would lead me to look for love in all the wrong places.
“I hope you find what you are looking for.”
Moving here was the easy part. I love the country, the people are incredibly kind and helpful and, like the many times I have visited before, I feel safe being here. It’s self-employment that is dragging me by the collar, pushing my nose into my deepest childhood wounds and those of my ancestors.
I have a tendency to push my feelings away. Especially since I am on this spiritual journey and know how my thoughts create my feelings, I am eager to find that blissful state most of the time. This sometimes leads to a denial of the not-so pleasant feelings. Growth is uncomfortable. There would be no birth without birth pains. I’ve always been good at bearing physical pain. A chiropractor once said to me during a treatment: “Doesn’t that hurt?” and I said “Yes, but it also feels good.” as I felt how my muscles were slowly giving into the pain, releasing. He mocked me, saying to his assistant “Okay, please write down: patient loves pain.”
I always knew that my physical pain was teaching me something. It helped me to look closer, to take more care of myself, to slow down, to feel. My parents were seldom sick and I remember they related most illnesses to an internal emotional state. They read books by Louise Hay and Dale Carnegie and I guess this is why I seldom have issues with my health. However, they weren’t as trained at dealing with feelings. Thus, I learned early that some feelings are more welcome than others. I learned that feelings like sadness, anger and jealousy are supposed to be suppressed and not to be shown if possible. Joy, happiness and peace on the other hand were welcomed, but only to a certain extent. If they were causing a state of “Übermut” (a German word for high spirits, which literally translates to “overly courageous”) I was told to tone it down because it was feared that I could get hurt. Too much happiness leads to being hurt - that’s what I learned. I was a very sensitive, emotional child and, naturally, like every child, would let out my feelings unfiltered. I didn’t learn how to welcome each feeling, I learned how to suppress most of them. Every time I felt that feeling of anger, sadness or despair, I felt like it was wrong to feel it. Every time I felt blissful and truly joyous, I felt like it was wrong to feel it. I felt like there was something wrong with me. I am wrong. Unworthy. Shame.
Today we often talk about emotional regulation, and just as I write this I realise that I really don’t like that term. The word regulating in my perception bears traces of control, which then could lead to suppressing the feelings. I think the practice is to find emotional balance. In order to balance something, we need to allow both sides. Every feeling is teaching us something. In our culture, we are trained from an early age on, to not feel pain. Whether we numb our bodies with medication or our feelings with distraction, drugs and sugar, we are always trying to escape the pain.
Last weekend I hit rock bottom.
I felt almost burned out from the attempts to fill my courses, introduce myself to the community, contact schools and hold my first courses in front of a handful of people. After a day in the woods, I thought I’d be refreshed. The bluebells touched my heart, there were signs everywhere from rainbows to hearts, and I was eager to start the next day getting things done. What I didn’t realise was that I was taking care of my body and soul, but not of my feelings. Well, if you let something simmer, it eventually will boil over, so suddenly, without an announcement, all my feelings emerged, and I spent a whole day crying. I have learned about myself that crying usually releases something, so I let myself bathe in the ocean of tears. Despair, sadness and a huge amount of shame came over me. I wished I could just throw an invisibility cloak around me and disappear from this human experience. The emotional pain was almost unbearable.
At the end of the day, I went to bed, realising that I was not only weeping about my own experience, but I also carried the shame and fear of my parents on my shoulders. And suddenly it dawned on me that this was an opportunity to heal - both their wounds and mine. Thus, I surrendered to the pain. I closed my eyes and imagined talking to them and sitting with them in their pain, fear and shame. I felt it in my body. As I welcomed the feelings into my very own arms, they started to disappear. Like a cleansing rain, my tears washed away the heavy feeling on my chest. My muscles started to relax. A word sprung into my mind: Catharsis.
I looked up the etymology and was stunned: “purging, cleansing”, “clear of shame or guilt; purified” I read. How fitting. With the same amazement that I stand in awe watching how nature draws rainbows across a sky of clouds and sun, I look back at this experience. As much as it felt like I was being shaken, pummeled and beaten up from the inside out, I emerged as a different person. Stronger, more confident and with a deep knowledge that I am just right.
"A catharsis is needed because your heart is so suppressed, due to your brain. Your brain has taken over so much of your being that it dominates you. There is no place for the heart, so the longings of the heart are suppressed. You have never laughed heartily, never lived heartily, never done anything heartily. The brain always comes in to systematize, to make things mathematical, and the heart is suppressed. So firstly, a chaotic method is needed to push the center of consciousness from the brain toward the heart.”
Osho
I think there is a reason why the word “art” is inherent in the word “cathartic”. Dorothy Parker said “Art is a form of catharsis, emotional release, purging, cleansing, purifying.” An artist balances their emotions by creating. In the past weeks I haven’t been creating art. I have been reacting. I have been trying to put out fires, to control and get in order. I tried writing, yet it wasn’t enough. I think as writers we often channel our emotions onto paper. While this is a form of catharsis, it still keeps us in our heads.
The feeling needs to be felt in the body.
Pain can be truly cathartic.
It takes us from the head to the heart.
From the head to the heART.
From now on, I will welcome emotional pain in the same way I welcome physical pain in my life.
Knowing, it is there to teach me Love.
Lots of Love,
Sadhbh (Nicole)
There is so much in the experience you describe here that resonates with mine... giving me a strange feeling of reading my own words, written by my younger self... Yes. The emotions are the ones so easily left behind. Because our parents didn't know what to do with them, how to handle them, trying to bypass them altogether (bless them! ~ didn't work, did it?)
I can feel you feeling the unwelcome feelings of your ancestors. I feel your resilience to pain too. Does that mean 'patient loves pain?' What a bizarre suggestion coming from a therapist... Resilience to pain doesn't mean 'we love pain' ~ it means we are able to handle it. We are resourceful, strong, capable to finally face the pain which our ancestors have passed down the line because they could not ~ for whatever reason.
Thank you for sharing your journey and being on this path 💖🙏 It's not easy, but it leads to higher ground.
Your story sounds a very 'human' one to me; a true reflection. The part about catharsis reminded me of Tom Hiron's poem "Sometimes a Wild God". If you're not familiar with it, here is a link:
https://tomhirons.com/poetry/sometimes-a-wild-god
Certainly we carry stuff from our family trees, our ancestors, that we seem to have signed up to 'clear' - on our behalf and theirs. It's the only way I can explain and process a lot of (repeated) feelings and experiences.