Can I See All These Parts of Me and Still Love Me?



I have some behaviours I do in secret. And I'm really private about them. Private to the point that I leave details out of a story, so as not to tip someone off to the frequency of my interaction with them. For example, Sometimes, I shame-buy the items that bring me that secret pleasure, (chips and salsa.) And sometimes I buy them in an empowered way, only to end up eating them in a shame-way. It's kind of funny, right? Chips and salsa as my secret shame behaviour that I'm afraid to tell other people about? Some might say, "that's pretty mild, you know - there are people addicted to things that are more obviously harmful or dangerous." But really, it's the intention behind them. I feel guilty about it, because I'm trying to hide it, and because I feel guilty about it, I try to hide it. It's a purchase I try to hide from the people I know. I'm sure I cast out that energy too, like, that nervousness that's like, "don't ask too many questions because I don't want to talk about what I'm doing." Often, it may even be, "...because I don't want to face what I'm doing, ...and I want to keep doing it."

I also have a fear of sharing too much of myself, too many things that bring me joy; fear that I will be too much. It keeps coming up for me, over and over, repeated in relationship after relationship. "There is a point in every person," my trauma brain says, "where you say just one more thing or share just one more thing, and it's that one thing that suddenly and finally breaks the connection." I have this constant undercurrent thought, sometimes unnoticed-by-me, that fears that every conversation I have, every text I send, every single email, could be the last good conversation we ever have. It could be the last time they choose to interact with me. It could be the last time I feel comfortable being vulnerable with that person. I'm working around that area to uncover it more...aiming for gently and with compassion. 

I have thoughts that come up that feel, I don't know a good word... maybe "dirty" to me. They come up from real feelings, and I'm thinking it's often from fear. They're there, they've been there for years, and as long as they're unexamined, they exist in darkness, in the closet. Shadows of ourselves. Like paying someone a compliment, and then, an up-till-now-unnoticed part of me saying softly, "I don't want to tell her she's beautiful too often, because then she'll believe she's more beautiful than I am, and if she believes that, she'll quit loving me," (presumably to then turn her attention toward someone more beautiful.) Where did that even come from? So far, I am unsure. But that fear has been there all along, in my closet, whispering to me through the unconscious choices I make.




Fear thoughts, fear choices...
...like someone I know who has a fear of being stolen from. Like someone I know who is afraid of being rejected. Like someone I know who is afraid of being taken emotional advantage of. Like someone I know who is afraid of letting someone in close and then losing touch with that person. Like someone I know who is afraid of feeling more in a connection to another person than that person feels. Like the friend who's afraid of being truly, fully seen. Like the friend I have who is afraid to try because she might fail. All of these fears I've seen in my various friends. And I can see these as aspects of me, light refracted through me, through my Soul, back to me - projections of myself, of a part of me. When I see that, I can then see me in every other person. 

"You have this fear; this is what it looks like when someone says or does something from that same fear. Do you see it? Will you accept it?" I presume the Universe is saying.

...And then what. How does it work? Do we integrate it in some way, do we let it go? Does it matter? ...is all we really need to do is love, love, love it? Love that aspect of ourselves, love that it is projected out so that we may see...
Maybe then we even accept that every person is feeling and behaving and learning in ways similar to us...and everything is okay.


campsite.bio/asher.haley22
or buymeacoffee.com/asher.haley22

Accompanying music:

"We keep runnin' in circles...Until we fall back in"
(lyrics)




"It's just your attitude...It's all within you now..."


Both of the above songs are on my 2020 Faves playlist on Spotify.



A Call to Be:


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