It has been part of my being for as long as I can remember. I am still learning to meet its tendrils better.
Actually, only recently have I recognized a certain whole-body experience as shame.
Made out how it has lived in my family and how it was not wanted to be seen. How its side phenomena, denial, invalidation, have more often been met with closed eyes than with the courage to feel - to be open about what it feels like.
And now that I have been in contact with certain family members, the pattern activates in the body again. Oh - so this is not my trait after all, but something I have learned to experience.
That paralyzing tingling in the body.
And because it is learned, it can also be met. Breathing into it. Recognizing the scope of that experience in the body. Feeling the gaps in my experience and bringing strength into them. Giving space.
Recognizing that this is not really mine, that it rises from something transgenerational.
The decision that I no longer want to pass this on.
The clarity of wanting to own my power even in front of this, to become ever clearer with my voice. To let it echo darker when I feel that the arrangements in which we end up living unconsciously start to go awry. To step into clearer separateness, and through that into a more honest, more real, more intimately meeting connection. One that does not judge, but helps, in a safe way, to look at what is really happening.
To speak truth, joy of life, power, innocence, compassion, bubbling vitality. To let life be felt, and to maintain healthy boundaries so that it can be felt as much as there is really capacity for.
I went to see Ponniyin Selvan Part 2. I recommend it, a rich experience.