https://youtu.be/1-4zdmd0TNU?si=zdlwFudx1Kc3P9bO
Meeting the Skeleton
Many of us have aches buried inside that we keep hidden, often times even from ourselves—or at least we try our best to conceal or escape them. These aches sink into the chest or pit of the gut— knotted, twisted emotional dread– that can drench down deep into the bone. The pain I’m referring to can be:
* an unmet need,
*trauma,
*a painful experience,
*rejection,
*a trait we don’t like about ourselves,
*the death of a loved one, loss of a relationship,
*a phobia,
*the fear of being unloved, abandoned, unheard,
*not being good enough,
*anything that makes us want to hide or disappear,
*shame,
*the agony of this list terrible never ending
*etc.
For those of us with enough self-hatred, it can be the dread of our very existence. A commonly used expression, “the skeleton in the closet” is an apt phrase here for it describes the vulnerabilities in us we’d rather ignore.
Some hold onto the pain, unable to relinquish it, feeling as though we were anchored to it like a boulder that prevents us from moving forward; Others or even those same folks who feel weighed down and attached to their ache, might perhaps attempt to run away from another painful memory, or another dimension of that same pain. Life itself can feel like a race where we try to beat the pain, assuming that if we keep running on a track littered with distractions in the form of addictions, ever-mounting goals –positive or otherwise–, the pursuit of money, validation, unhealthy eating habits, etc. we can avoid feeling that which has been shoved inside, otherwise, we risk being crippled by what we perceive we can’t face.
Yet, when an opponent or some life circumstance — a trigger or reminder of that pain catches up to us in the form of an actual person, group or event, it shoulders us off the track as we fall down, having the air knock out us while they whiz straight off; we remain on the ground gasping, our lungs struggling after having spent all our emotional energy “running”, and that ache tighten and pound in our rib cage–it’s just then we feel a cold, bony finger poking us on the shoulder.
We swerve our head around, horrified, at seeing our personal skeleton, the one we were sure we’d locked away and sealed shut in our dungeon having slipped out during the fall, or perhaps, having dug itself out from this dungeon–now wearing a referee cap, and blowing a shrieking whistle in our face.
“Time out, Boo! look here, Buddy, Hate to disturb you..” the skeleton would say–chattering teeth and all–, “but you have to face your pain, there’s no other way.”