Letters to Heal the Self #001 - Sunny D
Dear self,
You love to run. Sometimes slow; most of the time, it's a sprint. You’ve concluded that avoiding relationships and genuine connections give you control. Plus, being unavailable gives you a feeling of mystery.
When you were younger, you were not given a lot of chances to have control because “you’re doing it wrong.” If you got it right, then you were a good kid. But ‘right’ usually meant doing exactly what they expect of you. Keep coloring inside the lines ONLY or you get ignored. That hurt a lot before. It still hurts you now but only a little.
And so, to never feel hurt, you just relied on yourself, avoided commitments, and decided that if you keep to yourself, you won’t disappoint anyone else.
Now that you’re older, running away and avoiding closeness doesn’t seem to be all that exciting anymore. Sure, it’s comfortable and it’s what you’ve always known, but now you’re seeing that maybe the hype you built around being a ‘lone wolf’ is not panning out as you had hoped.
Right now, you just know that most days feel like your heart is out of sync and there's too much noise in your head. There’s a lot of sadness too.
Most of the time, the noise wants you to take some time off, but of course, you dismiss it because that’s easy to do.
You kind of feel numb when you're alone… numb in the sense that you don’t know exactly what you should be feeling. And so, you run away from being alone and occupy yourself with work, partying, being on your phone, and anything else that can drown out all that racket.
But ultimately, you keep running away from yourself.
All that noise inside...have you tried listening? Does it scare you to try to listen?
You’ve given it a try and you’re slowly making it a habit to check in with yourself. And yes, it’s not easy and it gets intense at times but I want you to remember how you feel after you’ve really sat down, put your arms around that hurt version of you and said, “That's okay. You’re okay. It wasn’t about you. You were only coping.”
I promise you that the noise, fear, and sadness will slowly quiet down when you face it with courage and you commit to being better mentally and emotionally.
Plus, you’re not alone. There are people who love you and will continue to do so if it turns out that YOU won't be the same you anymore. That only means those are the people who respect and accept the real you.
So, shall we take more breaks from running?
Love,
Sunny D
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