Go Ahead And Feel

On the value of boundaries and feelings.

When my sister died, I couldn’t help but to feel there was a life lesson I needed to learn. Only I couldn’t figure out what it was.

This gave me a feeling of my head buzzing, like a fly at the edge of my consciousness. I had no choice but to ignore the buzzing to the best of my ability because I couldn’t solve the puzzle. It didn’t sit right with me.

Anna and I were very different people. But what got her killed? It was her kind spirit, her desire to give others another chance, her desire to see the best in others. We try not to judge others. We had all of that in common.

It made me wonder who I was. Who I wanted to be. How could these qualities that I embody be bad? How could goodness lead to abuse and even death? Maybe I could change and be hard and judgmental. But I knew I didn’t want to. I felt like a flower that needed to turn to stone. Yet its softness is not only what makes it beautiful, it is also what makes it a flower. I did not want to become something other than what I was. Yet, I did not want life to hurt me. Some lesson was at hand but still I did not know what.

I finally realize what the lesson is. What got Anna killed was not her goodness, it was her inability to set boundaries. We can be kind, we can forgive, we can give another chance, but we have to set boundaries, draw lines, respond to the red flags. We have to love ourselves enough to say, “No, not past this line. No, I won’t tolerate that behavior. I will remove myself from harm.”

It is hard for people like me to hate. We have been taught not to. “Hatred is a strong word, honey, don’t say that.”

But hate can protect you. What I used to believe was the better part of me says you don’t have to hate, you can just remove yourself. But I know for people like me, we tend to forgive and forget too soon. We want that person to be as good as us. We can not see their darkness because it is not in us. And that makes us a target for people who see kindness as weakness. We must not let our kindness be weakness. We must be both soft and strong. We have to turn our heads away from darkness towards the sun because we can not light up the shade and it will kill us if we let it.

And speaking of weakness. I think to myself. My sister was so physically strong, so much more than me. They looked like good strong arms and yet, she couldn’t fight him off. I bet she didn’t try hard enough. Didn’t believe she needed to. Didn’t believe what was really happening to her. And that makes me angry.

These feelings of anger and hate are so foreign to me. Not because I haven’t seen them before, but because long ago, I chose not to have them. I said to myself- look how destructive and painful they are. I will cut them out. But I didn’t realize I cut out a defense mechanism.

It seems that all our emotions serve a purpose. And we can not cherry pick them (though we must moderate them). We must look closer at them and see what is behind them. We must ask why we are feeling what we feel and tend to the cause of the feelings.

I was also taught to never show my vulnerabilities and that being hurt was a weakness. “You are too sensitive. You can’t show people that they hurt you because in the real world they will use it against you.”

Denial of feelings is dangerous. If you have only permission to be happy, then you are not able to be 3 dimensional. You are not able to handle other’s feelings either. They are overpowering. But mostly it is dangerous because you lose touch with your feelings and then you can’t see the messages they are trying to give you, like run, fight, enjoy, or draw a boundary line. Feelings aren’t the enemy after all.

Feelings can drive us. To protect ourselves. To take up arms when we need to. To fight for things worth fighting for. It turns out that being Spock is way over-rated.