We who feel.

I was led to a meditation recording this morning and at first I resisted it. My cognitive, sensible self said “that’s not for you”. But the nudge was strong and I eventually convinced myself to try it- for someone else, so that I could recommend it, or not.

The moment I pressed play and the beautiful music filled my ears, my cognitive, sensible self rested back. Before a single word was spoken, the first thing that came through from another place was, “You don’t need to be sick to receive this kind of care, to focus some of your time on cultivating peace in your mind and body. You deserve and you can ask for and expect, more than CPR in this life.”

My whole body relaxed into the experience with that acknowledgment, that statement of truth. It relaxed into the process, the stages of guidance down into myself. Guidance into a space where guilt and shame could be transformed into gratitude. A space where I could start to see so clearly how my sensitive, deeply feeling, neurodivergent traits have been supporting me and keeping me safe. How my body and nervous systems tendency to bubble over and meltdown rather than shutting down, closing off and hardening around, has saved me.

My body showed me how I can ground myself in these traits, these expressions and behaviours rather than grounding and training myself to avoid them. How thanking them, accepting them and allowing them to be is the way to not need to battle them anymore.

Because I was able to really see, in that moment, in that space that I had been guided to, that it is truly incredible that I have not experienced significant, physical illness as a result of what my body and nervous system have endured over the past two decades.

The traits, the wiring, the patterns that I have so often felt guilty and ashamed about, weighed down by, are also the things that have ensured that I am not still carrying in my body, an accumulation of unmet need, unprocessed experiences or toxic emotional waste.

Maybe we are the lucky ones, we who feel deeply, we who cry loudly, we who cannot hold it all up or together or inside for long.

We cannot help but feel, we cannot help but cry, call, sing out. We show and tell those around us what is happening inside and why. If only we weren’t constantly taking on layers of guilt, shame and embarrassment for this way of being and processing the world around us, I wonder if we might be so light that we could fly.