Time to Slay The Inner Demons
Each season teaches us patience and resilience as we learn to grow up through the mud of life and unlock our full potential
Most likely we have all experienced rejection in some way shape or form.
The first two things I think of when I hear that term are relationships and college entrance letters. I received many college rejection letters, but somehow those did not damage my ego or my soul nearly as badly as being personally rejected by someone I cared about. The stings of those wounds burn deep and deeply — those injuries do not heal easily and can lurk under my skin for years.
Emotion comes from the Latin root word emovere, or to move forward. So, when I can break down why I feel rejected, understand it, and come back to my present moment awareness, I can move into a better state of feeling knowing those thoughts were simply distorted from being in the state of fight or flight. I can then choose more positive thoughts and express my emotions more productively.
“Love is not the icing on the cake of life. It is a basic primary need, like oxygen or water,” Dr. Sue Johnson explains in her book, Hold Me Tight.
Fear is our built-in alarm signal telling us to protect ourselves. When the fight or flight mechanism is triggered my heart rate speeds up, I panic, and because of my PTSD, I typically isolate. When I feel rejected, I try to pause, breathe, and come back into the present moment where I can remind myself, I am safe. When I recently looked deeper into the feeling of rejection for myself, I discovered a close association with the secondary emotion I connect with my PTSD, which is not feeling lovable. These are the emotions I discovered buried deep in my subconscious that I finally uncovered. My ex-husband waterboarding me years ago inserted its venomous stingers into my soul, causing lasting anaphylactic shocks that lay dormant in my nervous system like a virulent case of herpes, waiting to bubble to the surface as stress caused blisters. From time to time now my PTSD infection resurfaces and continues to try to haunt me like little demons whispering lies in my head.
Rejection
In reality, rejection is very much like F.E.A.R. — false reality appearing real, or as my friend, Jules wrote in her story recently, “Face Everything And Rise or F**k Everything And Run. It becomes a battle of wits within our minds.” It is all our own perception of what is happening. Sure, a college may not allow us entrance, or a person may not choose to date us, or a job may not hire us, but maybe we were meant to go in a different direction after all. Maybe there was a school, a man, or a job offer better suited for us. It is all about how we perceive our reality and how we choose to think about ourselves.
We all have an inner critic, saboteur, or demon as I like to refer to mine. When mine starts to talk loudly, telling me distorted ugly thoughts and quite frankly lies, I know it is time to come back into present moment awareness by using deep inhales and deep exhales to slow my heart rate and trigger my parasympathetic nervous system which finally pulls me out of the fight or flight response. I am then able to think more clearly, choose more positive thoughts and regulate my emotions and responses.
My feeling of rejection most recently reared its ugly head when my youngest child got his driver's license and I falsely perceived and feared him no longer needing me. I had looked forward to the freedom from being his captive driver so my strange emotional reaction and subconscious feeling caught me by blindsided surprise. This was clearly not a matter of him not needing me because no matter how old children are they always need their moms — at least I know I still need mine!
Present Moment Awareness
So once I pulled out of my tailspin and returned back to reality I turned up the music, which provides me with great emotional validation, I lit candles which is wonderfully soothing aromatherapy, and I made a crystal grid big enough to sit within. Now, for some people, spiritual and non-spiritual alike, this may seem woo-woo and that's okay. The purpose of me sharing this is we need to have self-soothing techniques when we find our demons pulling us down a rabbit hole.
“Studies show that rejection and exclusion trigger the same circuits in the same part of the brain, the anterior cingulate, as physical pain” another quote from Hold Me Tight, by Dr. Sue Johnson.
Learning how to embrace our shadow side and live with the parts of ourselves that we are not most proud of is part of life. Pain is a part of love. We all have things to work on and improve. We have to accept that about ourselves. That is what keeps us humble and grounded. We cannot be good at everything. The magical part is understanding we hold the key. We can lock the demons up and let the angel within emerge. Change up the inner script. I now speak kindly and lovingly to myself, still with honesty and integrity.
Ultimately, I am light and love and I do not need external validation to know that. Doing my shadow work and coming back to the present moment makes me see that I am self-reliant. I still appreciate being loved by my significant other, but I no longer rely on that to feel like I belong in this world. I no longer give anyone else the power to upset me as I did in the days when I was abused. When those subconscious thoughts creep in I know I have my self-soothing tools and I will be okay, I am safe.
Grounding and Feeling the Earth’s Connection
I have learned so much from Mother Nature and find deep comfort in her silence as well as her roars. I can almost hear her thrashing in anger during big storms and I can feel her tears in gentle rains. Our bodies move with the rhythm of the earth. We have much to learn from the seasons of change. Each season creates movement, much like our emotions, and we must learn to stay fluid. The less resistant to change we are the easier it becomes. As I enter this autumn season, I am reminded by the falling leaves to shed what no longer serves me. This is the perfect time to turn inward and to perform some mental housekeeping as well as physical. I will evaluate the people who are draining my energy and let them go; I will let go of the physical objects I am no longer using and donate them to someone who may truly need them; I will exchange negative thoughts for more positive ones, and I will start to create better habits for myself this autumn and winter that will prepare for my reemergence this spring which will provide renewal. I become more resilient facing each obstacle, with each season, and with each demon I slay.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. There are many people struggling with mental well being so I do not speak of inner demons lightly. In fact, I recently learned a friend almost took his life to suicide. Thank goodness he pushed through those painful thoughts. If you feel suicidal please know you are not alone. The National Suicide Prevention Line is 800–273–8255.
We were all born with unique gifts and a story to share with the world. If anyone has dimmed the light of your soul through abuse, neglect, or shame it is not your fault. Please learn to love and accept yourself. You are worthy no matter what you may have been previously told.
A couple more stories that go along with this theme: one on the important topic of suicide prevention by Marcus and the other is a piece by me which relates the importance of connection and why it is so important to connect to our highest self to avoid and break free from addiction, abuse, and other mental health problems.
