“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.”
Brené Brown
Sharing and connection, sharing your story with someone is one of the most powerful ways to break free from your own bounds, to break free from the cage that you sometimes create around you. I am forever learning about how powerful this can be, from experience to experience. I find that the more I share where I am at, the more I am reminded that we are all in this together. I did an activity to explore the other night using sandtray therapy. For those of you who don’t know, sand tray therapy uses a tray with sand in it that becomes the landscape, the world that you create within. From this place you choose figurines and symbols to place in the tray, that you can move around, and interact with one another. If you have not tried this process, I recommend it, as a way to explore your innermost feelings, beliefs and themes in your life and gain clarity. In the process of exploring the tray that I created, I discovered that the theme was around moving from a journey of being hidden to being seen. When I came across the quote by Brene Brown above, it reminded me of the power of the process of sharing the journey you are on right now with one another. The interested part of the process was that there were similarities between my sand tray theme and that of my companion. The main point of shift, of awareness, of opening and expanding for me was remembering that even though it is scary and hard to be vulnerable when I am resisting it (in my self doubt), I have learnt time and time again of the rewards of sharing my authenticity with the world. There are endless rewards for me in sharing, and equally there are rewards for those I connect and share with. In this sharing, something changes, something happens. I am not sure exactly how to explain it, but I think it is that when someone is being authentic and real, it is like everything else falls away, there is no time, no judgement, no planning of tasks in my brain, and no distractions. There is just two (or more) souls connecting, fully present in the moment. It is like when something is so real and so connected, you can feel it in your whole being.
My learning in this moment is that no matter what is happening in my life, I am okay. And the way through the difficult times for my is to express. This might be through art, through movement, through talking, through music, whatever it is, I know that it moves me, it frees me, it allows me to be present and be real and not fight or hide or control. The pain comes in the resistance, in the fight. When you surrender to whatever it is you are feeling, and fully accept this, there is almost an audible sigh of relief. You don’t have to play any games or pretend. You can just be real, and the people that you are courageous enough to trust and invite into this sacred space are gifted with the permission to also be real, to drop away any pretences, any games or any pretending. It is a chance to be free, and be real, and be alive!