At some point in your journey, you have sought solace from the pain or the burdens of your symptoms. You have longed for something to change, for a shift in the repetitive experience that has been your life for so long. The drudgery of trying, the incapacitative feeling of cycles, of repetition… of nothing changing. You have longed for a shift, a way out and a different way.
It is at this point that you are likely to dive into the internet, seeking and searching for answers. Maybe there is a new supplement that you could try? Perhaps there is some new treatment that you haven’t explored yet? Perhaps there is some way of easing what you are experiencing? Something to make it all shift, to make it all go away? Some way of finally living a different life.
Inevitably, you land up buying something or joining a program or jumping into something as your hope is that it will shift things. You took action and you did something and that in itself felt good. You feel some form of relief and some form of control over the situation.
However, there is an interesting and scary veil that has been covering you for so long that you have failed to see it. It is a dark cloth that sits over you. It is like a dark scarf of silk that lies just on the surface but it inflicts on how you see the world and how you see your journey. It is not about a need for a new diet or a new supplement or a new strategy. Those things are always available. They are never-ending and their suggestions provide some form of control and even relief but that is not ultimately what truly needs to shift.
What truly needs to shift is your unveiling. Your release of that dark cloud that hangs over you. That perpetual belief that there is more that needs to be done, that you need to push, to do more. To just keep trying, to keep doing. It is made of force, of high energy and strong resistance. That resistance is the resistance of letting go. Of acceptance but also of allowing yourself to breathe. To breathe the true depth of what you need to look at. Yourself? Your pain? Your physical burdens? Your emotional sludge?
Unveiling into yourself and finding acceptance is a scary place but we can find it within ourselves and our view of the world and ourselves. It is about coming to a calm space within ourselves. To feel at ease, grounded and content within ourselves. No more pushing, just being. No more fighting, just accepting and giving. No rush, no pressure. Just being. Just letting go and trusting.
It is about moving away from the “perfect” anything. Perfect diet, perfect self, perfect life. It is about accepting that we are worthy, loveable and okay just as we are. That sitting still and not doing anything is okay. That just letting ourselves be, letting time flow and to know that our worthiness is not dependent on doing anything or being anything. We are as we are and we are alive and breathing, just as we are. We are not more loveable or less loveable based on what we do or give to another. More worthy or less worthy based on what we achieve or how well we do something. We simply are and we can see and experience the world, simply as this. Taking in, breathing in. Being.
Sitting still in a park and watching the world as it rushes past us. Just being. No need to do anything. Reflecting. Experiencing. Breathing. We are here and the world around us is here for us to experience.
Unveil that perpetual need to do more. To have more. To have some unobtainable thing that you believe lies in pushing more. In being more of something to someone or to yourself. Let it go. You are. Your being is here. Take it in. Sip it in. Slow it down. There is no perfect. There is just now and this moment.
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Hi… I think the “how” is different for each person. My learning is that we have to find these mechanisms on our own – Find what works and doesn’t work for each one of us. This can be frustrating and it’s a process that takes time. Acceptance takes time. I spent all my life in pain and that drove my anxieties and extreme need for control and safety. Only last year I was diagnosed with Endo after getting emergency surgery for my ectopic pregnancy. It’s been a year now and I’m still struggling to accept all of this, however today I feel better with this reality and with my own self. At least I know I wasn’t crazy all my life and the pain was real. Now that I know I have endo I understand the reasons for my past anxieties and need for control, and that helped me to “let go” of these protector mechanisms because I dont need them anymore. What I need is to focus on understanding my condition and working on being healthy and listen to my body instead of worrying about being “normal” . I still have a lot to work on but now that I’m This journey I spend more time doings things That I like – and the way I like – rather than living in my own head worrying with my anxieties and traumas. I learned that sometimes things don’t go out way and maybe that’s a good thing. Being diagnosed with endo and having to deal with infertility was never in my plans but now that I’m in this journey I feel like I’ve learned so much about myself and my previous traumas. Sometimes I feel it’s even liberating.
Anyways, all this to say we all have a different solutions to let go of our traumas but acceptance and willingness to move forward are essential.
Unveiling/letting go of hypervigilance isn’t just a flip of a switch. We have built protective mechanisms for a reason, and in my experience, to shift away is slow titrated process that requires both a slow build of other tools/accessing “safe in me” states more regularly and finding out what those things are and still being with the protective self and not rejecting her. We live in a complex world and given the systems we swim in, finding “safe in me’ states that allow us to let go is quite the difficult task. To give advice about a need for us to unveil without sharing how to go about this unveiling and without the important socio-cultural context of our lives, feels a bit empty for me. The pathways of how to do this letting go of hypervigilance are complex with lots of nuance. Nervous system regulating and healing of trauma, particularly developmental trauma that can lead to this vigilance, is not a quick process for anyone. I’d love to read an article of the “how” or the pathways you suggest to let go of hypervigilance while swimming in systems that often don’t support this in any way.