Many years had passed since I last experienced such intense physical discomfort: I spent five days bedridden with a severe cold. My symptoms included incessantly watery eyes, a constantly runny nose, total weakness, heightened emotions (even more than usual!), persistent body aches, and a complete lack of motivation or mental clarity.
As a dedicated practitioner of alternative medicine, my initial response to illness is to let it run its course. I allow my body to rid itself of whatever is causing pain, providing the necessary space and care to eliminate what I had unknowingly accumulated. Since all I could do was close my eyes, I gave myself Reiki and meditated continuously.
Once the crisis began to subside and my mind cleared a bit, I started to question: Where is this coming from? What is the root of this profound discomfort I'm feeling?
Answers gradually emerged, some through my healing team—whom I always consult when I need help and who provide invaluable information—others came as ideas or sensations that clarified my situation.
The obvious reason is that living in a country with a cold climate and a long, gray winter disrupts my body, which was born in warmth. Cold inside and out is too much, and adding that the flu often manifests when we overthink, well, my physical body exploded.
However, I always like to delve deeper, seeking more meaningful answers that lead to learning...
So, I ventured into that mysterious realm, which often scares us because we don't know what monsters might await when we open the door.
I found something I'd worked on before, but now it presented itself from another angle: "Letting go of the past."
Consciously, I live in the present moment, grateful for who I am, what I live, and what I have. I thoroughly enjoy my journey. However, I detected those little things I do to myself that activate my pain unconsciously—those things I do without realizing to cause myself pain. (I don't need anyone; I chop my own onions to cry.)
I realized that for months, I'd been silently activating pain through thoughts, songs, movies, and conversations that reminded me of my losses and abandonments. Since they're not recent and I've cried over them a lot, there was no real need to mourn them, so I didn't release the emotion at the moment but had been accumulating it, like raindrops gathering until the dam overflowed.
By frequently bringing myself to those memories and longings, I also led my body to activate emotions of sadness, melancholy, and pain. This, very quietly, accumulated in my cells.
I'm not saying it's bad to remember or yearn, but in this case, I had been activating it within me over a long period—not just fleeting moments or passing thoughts, but taking the time to connect with the pain, with missing, without a real reason to do so.
My discomfort wasn't with life or what had happened; I didn't seek culprits. But I was angry with MYSELF because I have the great ability to create this pain without any need—a pain from the past that leads only to hurting myself and missing out on the PRESENT, what's REAL.
I realized I urgently needed to heal that version of me that loves to suffer—the one that feels life lacks meaning without drama, the one that feels guilty when there's no reason to suffer and many reasons to be happy.
Where does this version of me come from? From everything: my past, my family, my culture, my personality, the telenovelas I watched so much as a child.
I understood how attached I am to feeling pain, the great importance I place on clinging to the past, and how toxic this relationship is for me. It's so easy to lead myself into pain without even realizing it.
Today, I embraced that version of me with much love, thanked her, but from the bottom of my heart asked her to go be happy and let me be happy. I'll call her when it's necessary to cry for real reasons, but not for those that only lead me to suffer without purpose.
I share this because I know many of us are in the same situation, and it's time to let go of that version of us that only leads to suffering.
With love,
Ana
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