Learning to Love All Your Parts

I’m learning to love all my parts.

The perfectionistic/inner critic part which shows up often, telling me I need to work harder. Do better. Compare myself to others.

The unworthy part that tells me I need to keep going and that it’s unsafe to stop. 

The worrier part that always thinks about the worst-case scenario and is convinced it will happen.

The people-pleasing part that tells me I need to act in certain ways to be worthy of love and acceptance. 

The part that keeps me small and quiet because I’m terrified of judgment and what others will think. 

And many more. 

I always thought the work was talking myself out of the parts, ignoring them, or “mindsetting” them away when in fact the real work is learning to love and accept them.

They want safety, love, and validation- not avoidance and rejection. 

“I see you.”

“I’m here.” 

“I’m listening.” 

“What do you need?”

Every time we give a part what it needs, we integrate it a little more. And we become more free, more balanced, more whole. 

Cultivating Safety From Within

I used to be addicted to “knowing”- I couldn’t get enough. I would constantly consume information, courses, social media posts, podcasts.

And then I realized that I had a belief that the more knowledge I had, the safer I would be. 

I had untangle the belief that safety meant always knowing, absorbing info, constantly listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos.

That my safety was based on external people and situations. 

Of course this is helpful and important to a degree.

But I learned that safety is not something I could find from outside information. 

Safety is a feeling I needed to cultivate from within- by learning to be in my body, connect to my body, listen to my body. By healing trauma, patterns, and beliefs stored in my body. 

Three Ways to Move Emotional Energy in the Body

For most of my life I suppressed emotions- especially anger, rage, and grief. I didn’t know that during the time- I thought I just never got angry. Anxiety, sadness, frustration- yes. But anger, rage, and grief- nope. It didn’t feel safe to feel those emotions.

Then I got really sick, which cracked me open- and all of the suppressed emotions came out with a vengeance. It was intense, uncomfortable, and overwhelming.

I didn’t know how to feel and process anger, grief, or other emotions in a healthy way. Unfortunately, it’s not something many of us are taught at home or in school. Or at all.

It wasn’t until I got really sick that I learned the relationship between emotions and physical symptoms- trapped emotions can actually manifest as physical symptoms, and over time, trapped emotions can create disturbances in our energy field that prevent us from healing.

Actually starting to feel my feelings was ugly, messy, and painful. I mean, who wants to be laying on the bathroom floor, curled into a ball, hysterically crying because a deep overwhelming sadness knocked you over? Who wants to be laying in bed, shaking with anger with no energy to get up and release it? Who wants to frustrated, anxious, depressed, and overwhelmed, all at the same time?!

And worst of all, who wants to feel all of these emotions when you barely have the energy to stand up, take a walk, or even breathe?! And when you are in excruciating pain?!

But as I started to actually sit with these emotions and let them come up, they always passed after a while, and I would feel better- lighter and freer. The phrase “feeling is healing” is true. It’s not fun, it’s not easy, and it’s not pleasant. But it is healing and liberating. And I definitely noticed improvements in my physical symptoms.

There are three ways to help move emotional energy in the body- movement, breath, and sound.

Movement- this can look like shaking, jumping up and down, dancing, walking, yoga, stretching

Breath- I start each morning with a few minutes of breathwork (using the Pause Breathwork App) and do longer sessions about 1x a week. There are different patterns for different emotions, but something you can always do is take long, deep inhales through the nose and long deep exhales through the mouth.

Sound- I take long sigh breaths (taking a deep breath in through the nose and sigh it all out), scream into a pillow, or make whatever noises feel good to me in the moment.

Incorporating all three of these- individually or at the same time- even just for a few minutes- has been a game changer.

Try these and let me know if you feel a shift!

How Breathwork Helped Me to Heal

I tried all of the treatments.
I went to all of the doctors.
I did all of the mindset work.

I had periods where I would feel better, just to crash again. It sent me on an emotional roller coaster full of frustration, anger, disappointment.

A year ago, I had a major crash. PTSD flared up big time, and I was a physical and emotional wreck. The pain was unbearable. I was too sick to leave my apartment for over 2 months. It was another rock bottom. It was one of the darkest times of my life.

Around the same time, I had a couple of breathwork sessions.

During the session, it was the first time I truly felt connected to my body. The first time I felt at home in my body. The first time I realized that I never felt safe in my body. The first time I felt powerful emotions in my body, waiting for such a long time to be acknowledged. The first time I felt an indescribable sense of peace and stillness.

And I had a powerful epiphany- that I haven’t been able to completely heal because of the major disconnection from my physical body.

Chronic pain and illness. Trauma. Programming that I should ignore my body and it’s needs in order to push through, get stuff done, and be productive. Beliefs that it wasn’t safe to be in my body because the emotions felt too overwhelming and out of control. My nervous system being in constant fight or flight mode.

All I knew was how to escape my body. How to numb myself the second things felt too intense. How to keep distracted and super busy so I wouldn’t have to deal with anything uncomfortable. How to live life on auto-pilot.

And my body responded with anxiety, nonstop fight or flight responses, nervous system activation.

I started doing more individual and group breathwork sessions. Each one brought more connection, more safety, more release. I started trusting my intuition even more. I became less anxious. I felt more calm and peaceful on a daily basis. I felt more aligned, more empowered, more ME.

I ended up becoming a certified breathwork facilitator.

Learning to truly be in my body, get out of my head, and feel all of the emotions coming up has not been easy. It’s been a process. But it’s what my body needed to heal on even deeper levels.

If you would like to book a breathwork session, you can do so here.