Tag: permission to feel

By Jelelle Awen

By Jelelle Awen

I am sitting in the back seat of my parent’s car. I am looking out the window, my head turned away from the chaos in the front seat. I am looking out the window but I am not seeing any of the landscape. The tears that slide down my cheeks are silent. I have learned to cry without sound from many years of practice. I cannot completely numb my reactions to the tension, the negativity, and the hate that fills this car, that staggers from him and crawls from her. It has sharp teeth, harsh words, energy that cuts to the bone.

Part of me tries to protect me. Put up a shield. Put up a barrier. Create a bubble of light space around the growing girl. Tries to turn off the tap on the tears that flow from the pain of feeling like I do not belong. The craziness of feeling like this is not my family, cannot be my real family, not my soul family, not my family of heart. So eventually the tears go deep in, get buried, and my other feelings as well. And the part of me that protects my heart breathes a sigh of relief as a possible crisis of self revelation is avoided.

It starts so early, our conditioning to suppress our feelings, our emotional reality, and what our actual reactions to situations are in the moment. Through this conditioning and the pain of not being able to be real, we have to develop aspects of us that can fit in with the non-feeling environment around us. It is a necessary self defense mechanism. It just seems to happen so naturally and organically.

The message of, ‘It’s NOT ok to NOT be ok” is so strong in our culture. The conditioning around not expressing our feelings starts so young when children are first told not to have tantrums or to cry. Tantrums feel to me like releasing the unfelt emotional energy of the parents and the surroundings. We tantrum and then we reach a stage where, to get and keep love in the form of approval, we develop parts of us who become very good at suppressing what we are feeling. And parts of us who become very good too at form fitting our environment to not draw attention to ourselves and our vulnerability.

I described a scene above that encapsulates so much about why my defenses developed the way that they did. In my process through SoulFullHeart and previous subpersonality process work that I have done, I have ‘gone back’ to these moments of extreme hurt and pain through the aspects of me who became stuck there.

I sat in the car with the part of me that holds hurt and I felt her tears with her. I became the loving adult, heart filled with support and permission to feel, that she didn’t have at the time. And this version of me, no longer needing to be quiet or suppress her tears, could lean into this adult version of me. She could be felt and the pain from this moments and other moments like this could heal. And, I could become more current to myself.

To be able to go into places like this painful scene with parts of me has needed to be negotiated with the loyal and protective part of me. This has happened through a growing sense of trust that I will be able to ‘handle it and hold it’ and that it is safe to release it and feel it. Over time and development of our authentic self (or what we call the ‘SoulFullHeart Self’) protective parts of us begin to feel that they can relax their strong protection of us which can come in many different forms and energies. Through conscious negotiation with them, we can open our heart up more and let others in more deeply, also sharing ourselves more vulnerably and authentically. This leads to more experience of love transaction inside of ourselves and with others.

Through the SoulFullHeart work, you reach a place where you no longer really want to be around people who or in many environments where you can’t BE authentically with your feelings or express them in the moment. Or, you choose to stay home or go to a secluded spot in the woods…..somewhere you can feel yourself. It becomes the ultimate priority over ‘fitting in’. We have created a place and space inside and then as expressed in our community where it is truly OK to NOT be OK.

Sessions with us are just a practice ground for this dedication to yourself, to feeling, to being not OK if that is what is real, to be with the parts of you that resist feeling and why, and to be supported by someone else for it. And, eventually, this regular practice moves into and influences your choices in every day life in a natural and organic way where you are desiring to be authentic with those you are in relationship with and in whatever soul purpose-based vocation you are serving love through.

Jelelle Awen is co-creator, teacher, and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information.