How long do you hold on to the hurt you feel when criticised, or judged, or when you don’t feel seen?
I know that I, first and most habitually, can interpret slights and hurts as a sign of the unravelling of a relationship, the beginning of the end. And so perhaps it’s little wonder that I have over time developed the kind of body and mind that easily holds onto them, feeling ‘the end’ again and again when I meet the people (usually those I love most) around whom I got hurt in the first place.
It was a revelation to discover that the world simply isn’t this way for everyone else. That there are people, close in, who care for me deeply and who have moved on within hours – and quite often within minutes – from the original intensity of encounter. For them, fierceness is just fierceness, disappointment just disappointment, anger just anger, gone when it’s gone and certainly not the end.
And so I’m learning, gradually, to pay better attention to what’s actually happening now and over time in a relationship rather than taking as true the story that my body and emotions – conditioned by years of practice and habit – hold on to.
