Living the Sissy Life

Kay Urlich

Witnessing and responding to our own words matters. More often than not, when going through hard times we don't recognize that these are the moments that push us beyond who we think we are. We go through struggles we wouldn't wish on anybody and over time like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, if we allow it, we are transformed by those experiences into places beyond our normal selves to areas far greater than the mind, at the time, can comprehend.

Don't fear the struggle

Fear the absence of progress

We will never know the depth of our true power or how far we can fly until we face the obstacles that trigger our transformation beyond the present reality.

For years I felt despair that set me to worrying about paying bills, and meeting deadlines, but too often it was a vaguer feeling than that where I didn’t know what the problem was and was left with thoughts of impending doom. Too often I would slip into terror not understanding the cause. After years of anxiety and depression, I found I had “trigger points”.

Being "triggered?" is a term that refers to having an emotional reaction to disturbing events such as the threat of violence or a past difficulty, often from childhood, that we can’t quite put a name to.

Feeling triggered is about being around anything that reminds us of traumatic experiences that make us feel as though we are in a never-ending cycle of experiencing the same trauma again and again. It may be as simple as hearing a distressing story that reminds us of a particular situation and increases feelings of helplessness.

Then I asked myself was there a pattern to these feelings and could I break the cycle? I learned that understanding my trigger points was half the battle to finding the cure. The challenge I found was to break the cycle that was repeating through my body, mind, and spirit.

To do this took awareness of “holding” a safe space as I allowed my feelings to surface. Often I felt too vulnerable to tackle this on my own so I would talk to a therapist who helped me let go of the physical sensations and locked emotions such as anger or feelings of worthlessness and abandonment that I held in not only my mind and emotions but in “muscle memory”.

For most of us, triggers can come from the environment whether it be a casual thoughtless comment from a friend or a similar situation. As we have seen, it can come from loneliness such as the increase in mental health needs arising from COVID lockdowns because people have been unable to respond to trauma through their usual busy diversionary tactics. Usually, we can divert our attention away from the pain by switching to addictive behavior such as shopping, drinking, or illegal or prescriptive drugs.

I heard it said, that getting older is not for sissies. But life itself is not for the faint-hearted; in saying that the worst thing we can do is to avoid or harden our heart against feeling our own or others' pain.

To heal, no matter our age is to soften and let our inner self be heard, felt, and understood and this comes about through compassion knowing that life is the gift we were given to express.

To truly heal is to understand and acknowledge our vulnerability, and share that vulnerability with others as we flow with the love of the universe that is ever-powerful that we can connect to through conscious breathing, fresh air, and exercise all of which are freely available in nature.

And to know from deep within that there is nothing weak or sissy about the expression of vulnerability in nature because Nature always bounces back.

_{First Published in Sibyl Magazine USA}