Admission time. After years of researching, and learning how to help my own children understand and communicate their emotions, I very recently found myself staring up in complete bewilderment, at my own enormous mountain of BIG feelings.
It is a very surreal place to be, when life forcibly shifts you from being teacher, to student.
6 months ago, without any warning, a perfectly normal afternoon turned into a living nightmare as we haphazardly learned that my partner, soul mate of 20 years and father of our beautiful children, had advanced bowel cancer.
I struggle to find the words to explain what that moment felt like, however I can say that I literally felt the chemicals in my brain alter, and my body react in the most visceral way. It was the truest and rawest example of a mind and body shifting into pure fight, flight or freeze mode.
From that moment, and for the months of uncertainty that followed, I found myself forcibly thrust into needing to revisit, relearn and lean into the very resources I created to help others understand their vast rainbow of feelings.
Several sessions in with my psychologist, he encouraged me to "go home, get out your cards and read each of the emotions you've just told me you're feeling".
Why? because all the descriptions, antidotes and understanding lay within them, I just had to allow myself to recieve my own wisdom with grace, and remove the shame I felt for not coping the way I wanted to be - just as I had been teaching everyone else to.
To to say the least, it has been a very eye-opening and humbling experience.
Being able to give myself grace to understand, and sit with the seriously uncomfortable emotions that threatened to dump me on my arse daily, has been such a huge part of this journey, especially on the days I have struggled to show up as a mother, a wife, small business owner or friend.
Simply just knowing that I was operating from the ground floor of my brain cultivated much needed self-compassion, because I knew deep down that I wasn't failing (as so many feel they are), it was (put simply), a normal response to a life thrown into turmoil. I also knew deep down that at some point, when we had more direction and a clearer picture of what lay ahead for my husband, I would be able to climb my way back up to the top floor, and with guidance and support,
I did.
Going through this has made me realise wholeheartedly the importance of continuing to show up here and teach this awareness born from my lived-in expeirence, as at some point we will all inevitably find ourselves confronted with big or little life shake ups, or trauma. It is simply just how life goes.
What I DO know, is that educating yourself and those you love about emotional awareness, is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself now, and to generations to come.
With love,
Susanna & family x Founder of Every Day I'm a Rainbow.
(side note: my husbands treatment is doing well and is kicking cancers butt! We have so much to hope for and yes, it IS possible to get back into that happy top floor of the brain again!. In addition, $2 from every deck of Every Day I'm a Rainbow cards is being donated to the Olivia Newton John Cancer Research centre)
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