It’s Time To Admit Your Pain
I woke up this morning around 5:20 AM and decided to take my puppies for a walk. The time isn't to brag about my morning route, but it's just a starting point for what I want to talk about. Everyone needs to have a moment to themselves. It doesn't matter if it is in the morning or at night. This time allows you to process your thoughts and feelings and prepare for the day ahead of you.
I intended to write this post for a while now, but I never really dared to do so. So today, I took the opportunity to sit down and write it.
I'll be honest, I haven't been the best at walking my dogs, but I made the conscious decision to, at minimum, take my dogs out on a 30–40 minute walk once a day. My goal is to use this time early in the morning to reflect and pay attention inward to discover parts of myself that have caused much pain because, over the past year, I've been in therapy.
The boxing match of my life
There's a stigma behind therapy that now that I am in therapy, I don't understand why I allowed the stigma to consume me, especially for men.
I've learned that I have a lot of anger from experiences in my life that I took on the chin, and I kept taking them. I'm a relatively mellow individual, and I prefer to stay to myself or with close people around me. But, like most men, my processing of emotions wasn't catered to unpacking emotions.
My emotions felt designed to be a wall because I thought my feelings were considered a form of weakness my entire life. Now, those lessons aren't taught by family members alone. Society has emphasized the dangers of an emotional man—an emotional black man, to be specific. Friends have said it, and often other men who were father figures such as coaches and mentors.
I was meant to take blows and don't shell anything back. After a while, all things began to crack, and I did. Multiple times if I can be honest. I didn't have a bad upbringing coming up. I was pretty blessed with a solid childhood and foundation.
While things can appear great on the outside, inside, I was in a boxing match my entire life emotionally—a battle between myself vs. my ego that was created through the pain of my experiences. You know the saying, hurt people hurt people, and I've been a strong champion of hurting people because I've been hurt.
I was scared to admit my true feelings of anger in therapy. It was the only feeling I had. I felt like a robot, and it was hard to connect with anyone. I tried to keep this emotion hidden, but eventually, I couldn't anymore.
Once I admitted my genuine anger during my therapy session, everything changed. I felt every single emotion for the first time. It felt as if a fire was touching my soul, and ironically enough, after fifteen minutes of sitting in my feelings and cool feeling entered my body.
I believe the cool was a signal of my ego thanking my mind, and the ego gave in. Do I believe this will change everything right away no? I think this is just the beginning.
The takeaway is that as people we have to admit our pain before anything can change. We have to be able to talk about what is hurting us and why it's hurting us. We will continue to live in an emotional prison if we don't.
