Re-connect

When you know yourself on a deeper level, you will be able to connect with yourself and men on a deeper level. The resistance to looking deeper is the fear of what we’ll find. My personal experience with feeling my emotions is that, for a big part of my life, I felt somewhat cut off from them. When emotions did come up, they often showed up in very intense and sometimes traumatic ways. It was hard for me to handle—and also hard for the people around me.

At some point, I realized I had a choice: either continue pushing my feelings away and stay disconnected from my inner world, or try to find a way to be with my emotions without losing myself in them.

The resistance to going deeper came from how overwhelming those feelings felt. I had to literally learn what emotions even existed. Step by step, I began to recognize: Oh, this is sadness. Now I’m feeling anger. This is shame. I had to learn to name and understand them.