In my first post, I wrote about my desire to start fresh, with a new site. So much from my old blog site didn’t resonate anymore. Not everything, but I think as person I have changed so much. Naturally.
I started my last blog in 2011. It was the year I turned 30. I was travelling through time and space to find my place in the world. We think we do this as teenagers and in our 20’s, but, until now, I think my defining decade was probably my 30’s.
I actually don’t think we ever stop trying to find our place as we navigate each life stage. I often joke and say; “my mind says I am 25 and my body reminds me I am not”. But through my next decade, my evolution will continue as I navigate this next life stage, and I may look back in 10 years and wonder where my mind was when I wrote all this.
One of the reasons the the old site doesn’t resonate is because I don’t think I was fully myself. I was trying to replicate other successful blogs that I followed. I was denying parts of myself because that didn’t fit with the “flavour” of the blog that I was trying to create. It was all about the fluff, the sunshine and the rainbows. Seeing the glass as half full and finding the silver lining in everything. While that mindset served me well at the time, some of that positivity was toxic, and as I have walked over hot coal and broken glass in the last few years, I am now on a path to authenticity.
When I read the blogs, I can see I was writing from my mind, not my heart. I was writing as a person outside of myself. Even my cancer diagnosis blogs are so clinical, one would swear that I was writing about someone else. It was more information on what cervical cancer is, how you get it and the process of diagnosis and staging. But in reality, I was broken. Literally a shell of who I was before then. In the years that have followed I have been in search of myself; I have been in search of feeling emotions. No one likes feeling uncomfortable emotions, but I felt nothing and that is actually more uncomfortable. I have been commended for how strong I am, but honestly, no strength involved. What has taken more strength has been actually dealing with the aftermath of all my denial and disassociation.
Sugar coating isn’t always the healthier option. Denying pain and “staying positive” all the time can do more harm that good. Being strong is sometimes being “weak”, and just succumbing to the pain you are experiencing is actually where healing can really start. Society praises thought over feeling. We create this facade of strength when so much of the time we just want to sob in the arms of someone.
Why are we so uncomfortable with emotion? Sadness is not illness. It is as normal as laughter. It needs to be honoured and moved through. When I am feeling sad, anxious or angry, I want to know someone is on my side. I don’t want to be told to be see the positive, I don’t even want to see someone else’s point of view at that time. I want revel in my sadness or anger and when my logic can replace strong emotions, that’s when I can see the sun behind the clouds or another perspective. I want to be able to just feel how I feel without forcing myself to feel better at that point. Usually it just takes a good cry or an empathetic ear and the mood is already better. This is not something I would have written 10 years ago…
Cheers to cracking open…
Candice Peetz 