Dear Stephen, you are caught in the CEN trap, where your CEN tells you it’s wrong to share feelings and problems, but you very much need to do so. It’s so important for you to share your whole story with a CEN-trained therapist. I encourage you to check my list of therapists under the HELP tab of this website. If you can’t find one near you, then ask your primary care doctor for a referral. It can make a tremendous difference for you.

Dear Maria, you describe in your own words what it feels like to have a wall and what it feels like when you break through your wall and allow yourself to feel. Thank you so much for sharing this. I think it will help many.

I’m so glad to hear that, Jill.

You write that one should resist the urge to try to escape from the intense emotion.

Yet I have noticed, that ‘something’ seems to ‘move in’ between me and the emotion, so that it is almost impossible to feel it. This is especially true for grieve.

In my life, when I lost a love connection, when someone left me, it was almost impossible to encounter what I call ‘pure grieve’ – meaning: the honest and heartFELT process of mourning the loss of someone I loved without analysis, reflection or (self)blame.

As soon as my body would get ready to cry and give in to the emotion of sorrow, a feeling of shame and disgust would ‘move in’ between the sorrow and me. And this feeling of shame seems to be about me not being worthy of sorrow – because it was my own fault that they left, because I am unlovable, wrong, not good enough.

It is almost as if something within me says: “You don’t have the right to grieve, because you are the reason they left in the first place!” – and that would somehow turn sorrow into something painfully shameful.

Imagine, you cannot feel a loss without simultaneously feeling an intense amount of shame – because your ‘being unlovable’ caused the loss.

Perhaps people suppress their emotions because of THAT: an accompanying feeling of being altogether WRONG, and that’s why they experience unpleasant feelings in the first place!

It is an entirely different thing to feel ‘pure grieve’ – because when you let yourself feel the sorrow WITHOUT self blame, then you are actually compassionate with yourself. Your letting go into sorrow, without self blame, is an act of self love. Like you are saying:

“You have the right to mourn the loss of this person in your life, even if you are not perfect and not always loving. You are still a good enough human being to have the right to feel sorry for yourself when you lose someone you love.”

Once I realized the difference between ‘shameful grieving’ (which is never resolved) and ‘pure grieving’ where your tears are actually healing you, it became clear that I had to consciously ALLOW myself to grieve. And, I suppose, this is what you mean by giving ourselves emotional validation as adults.

Just a few thoughts. Thank you for your healing work.

Best of wishes,
Maria

This and the earlier articles are wonderful in dealing with pains. Thks a lot.

I’m grateful, thank you! I also bought your book and read your post and i found it very helpful i really appreciated.