Shadow Work - Writing Prompts for Aquarians Pt. 3

 

Where am I holding myself back in life due to fear of others' judgment?

There are parts of my grief and what I've discovered as I've processed my grief over losing my parents that I don't share with people because I know a lot of those people would judge me harshly for it. Once someone has passed, it seems like everyone who loved them is suppose to put on these rosy glasses to only see the very best of the person they lost and their past interactions with them. Not everything is rosy. A lot of things are dark and ugly and still hurt long after time and death has changed everyone involved. If you express those things and are honest about the pain, then you are a bad mother/daughter/sister/friend.

I miss both of my parents and I loved and still love them dearly. Neither were perfect people though. There was some very serious psychological trauma in one of those relationships that shaped how I interacted with the world, how I thought, how I loved. Physical and emotional distance helped chip away at the wall I had built to protect myself, but the attempt to avoid further pain still affects my actions every day consciously and subconsciously. Without the constant reinforcement, it's getting better, but I still have a long journey before this rediscovery of self is complete. 

In ways I feel relieved that I am not under the burden of expectations anymore or the psychological/emotional attacks when the expectations weren't met. And that leads to survivor guilt and self deprecation. I am working to work through that. We'll see where it goes.

So, it's hard to express to someone how I feel and not feel awful for feeling it and even worse for saying it out loud. There's a huge burden that's been lifted, and there's another dragging me down. Someday I will fly. For now, I will have to settle for a bit of a float. We all float down here, right?