An exhale or a scream

A real-time exploration of emotion

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I wondered if it might be useful to read a more personal account of feeling, seeing, and flowing with emotion. The essence of this post feels a little different; though I have written previously about Internal Family Systems — here is a deeper glimpse into what self inquiry looked like for me today.

Right before we ended the Zoom call, I felt a tensing in my body.

Prior to my cursor hovering over the “Leave Meeting” button, I was in that glowy and magical feeling I get after connecting with my community. I am filled with a full-body blooming of connection alongside the knowing that we, together, are sowing the seeds of safety, support, and friendship.

Then my belly twists and buzzes.

Mere milliseconds later, my brain lit up to figure out the sensation; it had already flickered out.

The Zoom meeting ended. I close the window. What was that?

I open this document to parse it out. The tensing is gone; I still felt the glow. I want to capture it.

It feels hard to articulate that glowy feeling; the feeling that comes from shared time with beloveds. I feel my efforting: stop, pause, I hear. I see if clarity comes.

In a blink of a moment, I feel an absolutely striking, hollow emptiness; the feeling is akin to the moment right before you (desperately need to) take a huge inhale. Another millisecond passes…I feel the kind reminder: slow down…I am still somewhat anchored by that glowy feeling, which helps me to slow.

I call it back…the empty moment-between-a-moment to get a better glimpse:

I am struck with the torrent of despair, the verge of tears, the wrench before the sob--the grasping before the gasping.

I feel alarm at how familiar it is.

    Air fills me. As quickly as the dark emptiness comes, it goes. 

The next moment:

    Breath fills the cracks of hopelessness.

    Breath shines the light on the dark corners of aloneness.

    Breath bathes me in the feeling of understanding.

A little bit of a whoosh sensation arrives and wakes up my thinking—

Is that emptiness always there? I wondered.

Have the depths of my own darkness always been half a heartbeat in-between an inhale and exhale? And then, with twinge of trepidation:

Is the driveway to my sorrow always this close?

in my mind’s neighborhood

I sense vulnerability. The feeling that my aliveness, hopefulness, and connection is tethered to my sorrow, my despair, my longing is disorienting.

Thinking awakens, again: “people” say this - “there cannot be good without bad”. But, uh, right here!? Right with my inhale and exhale?!

I am in my mind, now, no longer in my body: In my most alone, my most despaired, my most sorrowful - the thing that pulls me in from the waves of loneliness is the warm shores of someone. The sandy, gritty sense of the beach beneath my feet watching the waves in lieu of body surfing.

This can be a physical someone // It can’t always be a physical someone

Memories flash by: a memoir, a memory, a pet, a novel, a dance, a film, a painting, a spiritual practice, a journal, an empty path in the woods.

I feel Me.

It may need to be Me.

Me with a hand on my chest as I feel my ribs starting the hug, an exhale just rounding the corner:

     I love you and I am listening

     I sense you

     I am doing my best to be here

ps. let me recommend the book Healing through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair.