Well shit. I am mad at Glennon Doyle in an irrational way. I am reading “Untamed,” and it is already speaking to my soul. I spent an hour in session today as the client. I am proud that I have made it to my third therapy appointment because although I am a good student, I am not a good client. So I open the proverbial can of worms in session and then read about being wild. The Universe, God, big Jesus, and baby Jesus, all the Angels in Heaven, and all the Buddhas, decided today would be a good day for Danell’s reckoning. At this very moment, I am in hot, my heart is pounding, my chest aches, and I want to just crawl the fuck out of my skin. This moment feels like too much. Way too much. I cannot be still, I can not be chill, and I can not have these feelings. However, I am sure that this moment was created just from me to have this feeling- excitement.
I initially want to label this set of symptoms as fear, panic, or anxiety. Yet I want to chew my way out of this old skin and slide into my new skin with a tenacity that fear cannot invoke. This happens every single time I lose physical weight. I feel light and full of possibilities and then I eat. I eat every thought, regret, fear, and shame of my life. I mistook my lightness for emptiness and filled the void with junk. Somehow this time, I have found the fortitude to weather the fear of space; instead, I hold the potential of space, not emptiness but spaciousness. Now what’s left is to feel. Fucking feel my damn feelings.
Today while in session, I learned, or rather, admitted that I still think I should embody some form of perfection. Not that I should not make mistakes but that I should always come through with a solution. I should fix any problem. And I should have the perfect balance between rational thinking and emotional thinking. If I have all the elements met, then I should be happy, and so should all the people around me. Shit, it looks like my idea of a perfect self has not dissipated but only morphed from one form to another.
I, for so long, wanted emotional perfection. In my mind, this perfection was the absence of all emotions. At some point, I came to terms with the fact that this was not an actual thing. I mean, I could be numb, but I could not live a whole life and not have emotions, some of them anyway. So I tried to control all of the emotionally triggering things around me people, situations, relationships, and so forth. Nope, that did not work, so I managed me. Overcontrolled (overcontrol in the present if I am being honest) myself. I think about everything so deeply that by the time I have to deal with the actual event or emotion, there is nothing left to give it. My mind has created a controlled environment, thinking through every possible scenario, making a chore out of everyday living. I do not know what it is like to just do something on a whim. Thinking is my superpower, I am good at it. But, thoughts are the arch-nemesis to feelings.
As I write this, I am thinking, “Danell, do you really want to feel? Girl, this could get real messy”. I have legit doubts about feeling. Not feelings in general, but feelings without having drilled down the process to thought-form. The in the moment feelings. The place where bliss and excitement live. The moments where memories happen. The places solidified in visceral experiences and chance encounters. To have these unexamined emotional experiences, I would have to surrender to life, offer up control, and be willing to just be. The prerequisites for the life I’m looking for is stillness, unplanned, uncharted, and an uninhibited self.
In my mind’s eye, I can see this woman. Shit, I daydream about her. She is so full of life without hesitation. She takes risks, is lighter and fuller. This woman is wild, free from all of the jeweled cages she has been put. Her belly no longer aches for freedom, her heart no longer guarded against rejection, and her tongue no longer bloodied from teeth baring down to keep it still. Danell’s shoulders are light from the self-imposed weight of the world, and her shackles replaced by enormous, magnificent wings. She is fucking fly with her crown made from the jewels and iron that once held her captive in cages. Danell roams curiously allowed to want, allowed to take, allowed to feel, and allowed to fail in the most glorious of ways. This Danell is everything her heart has ever wanted to be without exceptions.
I think I am excited to meet her.