Can't Run From Anxiety and Trauma.

Imagine that you were literally afraid of your shadow.

You would be in fear every moment of every day because you literally can’t run from it. It’s there… all the time… attached to you… and you can’t escape it.

So, what happens when - over time - you become afraid of your emotions?

When all of the uncomfortable things that you never allowed yourself to feel the first time around begin to appear to you as threats. And when that happens, you end up living every moment of your life in fear because your body is constantly trying to present the old emotions to you for you to finally deal with them, but you won’t let it happen.

In moments of trauma, it’s like your brain says to your heart, “okay, we’re not safe to deal with this right now, so hold onto this pain and I’ll come back and deal with it later when we’re safe”.

So, your heart says “okay… I’ll remind you about it later so we can deal with it properly”.

But then your heart keeps trying to remind you, and you keep responding as if you’re in danger, perpetuating the cycle over and over and over as you keep on stuffing away your pain, constantly adding to the pile of unresolved emotions.

The only way to avoid your shadow is to sit in the dark all day long. If there’s no light… there’s no shadow. And this is what many people do with regards to their emotions. They end up avoiding all emotion so they don’t need to deal with the uncomfortable.

The truth of the matter though… is that your emotions can’t hurt you.

They may be uncomfortable. They may even be painful. But they completely lack the capacity to do you any harm, once you learn how to handle them properly.

You know what DOES hurt you though?

Everything that you do to avoid your uncomfortable emotions. All of the defense mechanisms and patterns that you’ve developed to keep yourself safe from that shadow… those are the things that lead to real problems and pain in your life.

You need to learn how to stop interpreting your emotions as threats. And you do that by getting a better understanding of what’s really happening and by developing the skills and tools of how to confront them head on, along with ending the subconscious cycles that avoiding them have led to.