Fear only Hurts

Fear only Hurts 

 ---------------RuH

Life for most of us is always a never-ending chain of events and happenings... each affecting and impacting us in multitude of ways. Through our relentless pursuit to find happiness outside of ourselves, we all feel hurt or get hurt many times in our lives and each of us deal with it in different ways. Many take it our outwardly by acting out, exploding, crying and so on. But a person like me, at times too emotional and overly sensitive always implodes.

I have had my fair share of ups and downs in my life but I always kept all my hurts inside myself and suffered silently. Never expressing anything with the fear of hurting others. By my core nature I was the mother hen, constantly feeling obligated to take care of any and all people that come my way and never hurt anyone. I always was fearful of conflict and resorted to any means to avoid it. I really did not know how to value myself. I was hurt at times but then feared that by expressing it I may hurt them back. It became a cyclical thing and eventually my second nature to implode and suffer in silence. I had turned into an eternal empath.

But there came a time in my life where I was literally put on death bed by someone I fully trusted and relied on for many long years. My survival was in danger and future became a complete uncertainty. I was deeply hurt and excessively fearful. I was truly lost. But as life would have it, I was fortunate to find a mentor that made me realise and showed me the way. He ever so gently showed me the fog that surrounded my mind, heart and also made me aware of the chains of fears that were binding me. It became essential then to really go inward to find my own self and what made me what I am. Everything was in haze at the time but I had complete faith in God and my Guru and that became my lifeline.

That inward journey took me in all different directions -  to my past, my present and my unknown future. I had wonderful childhood. My parents and all my extended family was ever loving and caring. Being one of the youngest on my maternal side, all my uncles adored me. But then came a traumatic point in my life when I was so brutally snatched away from my family. A very cruel game of manipulations and deceit was played very effectively.  

I was a naive young girl who was trapped in such whirlwind of emotions and manipulations that before I could even breath and figure out what is happening, I was buried deep in an abusive relationship. I was completely isolated from my family and was made to believe that there is no way back. Funnily I did not even realize that the relationship was abusive for a long time. It was a constant roller coaster ride, at times I was treated like a queen and at the next instant I was made a slave begging and crying at his feet. Not to mention everything was always blamed on me by somehow making it into my fault. As an eternal empath, these tactics were silently playing havoc on my mind and overall health. In an effort to make things work, I was constantly walking on eggshells. I wanted to avoid the triggers that will cause conflict of any sort and make me  get hurt and suffer. Yet I could never really figure out what these real triggers are. Everytime it was something completely unpredictable. Fear became the ruler of all my acts, actions, speech and everything else. I feared everything -  being alone, being abandoned, being incapable and unworthy, being incomplete, being stupid, being naive, and what not. In an effort to leverage control, I was constantly put down and in time I lost all my self confidence and self esteem.  I constantly doubted and blamed myself for any and all issues. I was the victim and was constantly getting abused in multitude of ways, yet every time I would think - only if I would have done this or that, maybe things would have turned out better.  What was further confusing is that, on surface things were projected exactly the opposite -  as to how I am so well taken care of and supported and encouraged. I would make up excuses for the marks on my body or my poor digestive system or anything that appeared out of ordinary. I justified all his irrational acts to myself and to others around me. I essentially lived in fools paradise and abnormal life became my normalcy.

But finally the divine intervened. The severe trauma and inexplicable physical, emotional and psychological abuse finally threw my body over the threshold. I lost 40lbs in 2-3 weeks and there was no end in sight for it. My body systems started shutting down without any apparent physical ailments. Then one day, I completely fell apart and ended in Emergency Room at night very groggy and with severe chest pain. All tests were done, but there was nothing physically wrong with my body. I was attached with IV and was given heavy medications without any results. Even double doses of morphine did not relieve the pain. Doctors could not figure out what was wrong so they diagnosed it as “stress”, “inflammation of chest cavity” and scheduled follow up for my somewhat abnormal EKG. As there was nothing more doctors could do, they finally sent me home at wee hours of the morning of that fateful friday. Little did I know that this day will be forever etched on my mind and heart that started my journey back to my own lost self.

The same day with all the heavy medicines wearing me down, at about little over midnight, while my little one was finally asleep, he went ballistic on me. I was at the lowest point in my life, barely able to stand or walk. Yet in an inhuman act, he used what he thought to be his master stroke - threat to leave me. It had worked every time for so many years to get anything and everything that he wanted out of me. But as he threatened to walk out on me unless I agree to bend and abide to his irrational wishes, I finally realized that even after all that I had done for so long years so selflessly, I had no identity, no value and really no existence in his eyes. Not to mention his complete disregard to my son and impact on his well being. At that realization, something inside me finally snapped. In those moments of despair when I knew that my life was going to end either literally or certainly the way I knew it for so long, I was forced to finally face my fears. Thought of my young son being left alone to fend for himself further fueled the fire inside me to rise. I thought what do I have to lose? Either I live and rise or I die in vain, and if at all I am going to die then I am not going down without a fight.

Here started the true awakening…. I decided to shed my old skin and become anew. Face my fears head on, manage the hurt without sympathising about it. Overnight my body responded. I slowly started to recover and regain my strength. I was very weak and the trauma had taken its toll on my heart, organs and muscle strength. But my mind was finally healing and body followed. Under proper guidance and watchful eyes, I stopped taking all allopathic medications and started all the ayurvedic medicines along with chanting, rituals and meditation. My faith and my Guru became my pillar and source of strength. His support, advice and guidance slowly started lifting the fog bringing clarity to my mind. He made me do my own SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) and told me that you not only need to understand it but also need to convert your Ws into Ss and Ts into Os. Honestly I had no clue what he was saying at the time about many things but I had faith, a real child like faith, so I just was blindly following everything that he told me to do.

As I recovered from the initial shock, I started understanding what he was telling me, analyzing all the matters, applying the strategies to heal. I understood that being emotional and sensitive is the most wonderful thing in life as thats what makes one live and enjoy life to its fullest. But I had made my emotions my weakness and not my strength. I had lot of work to do for my inner wellbeing but my perspective on life had changed after touching the boundary of death. Instead of labelling everything as good or bad all the time, I developed a different sense of objectivity and attitude -  looking at everything just for what it is. I had finally accepted myself for who I am and wanted to strive to become the best of myself. Within months, I started a full time job when just few months back taking two steps was making me dizzy.

My mentor also made me realize how I had fallen prey to manipulations and thus encouraged me to reach out to my family to find the truth. To the delight of my heart, once the truth came out my family embraced me with all their love and told me how they longed for me for so long. With all the love and support, I bloomed further, my mind and heart was healing at enormous rate now.

My heart was diagnosed with abnormal rhythm during my Emergency Room and follow up visits but within years time, they could no longer find any abnormality. I suffered from severe digestive issues…. acidity, heartburn, vomiting was staple part of my life for many long years but I realized that within this past year I have never had a single instance of any of these issues. I was eating freely and literally every type of food without any problems, whereas I could never even imagine having a week without indigestion,vomiting, acidity just a year back. I also suffered from extremely heavy, longer and irregular periods and once again I had not had any issues for past year.

My mentor provided the much needed therapy sessions with his valuable advice and guidance along with alternative therapy treatments. His therapy included different herbs, gems and many more alternative medicines. I became like a sponge taking in anything and everything that he had to offer. To his delight, changes in my health and attitude were miraculous and was getting noticed by everyone around. After a stormy life of long many years, I was finally sailing towards the shore.

My experience taught me that all ailments are essentially psychosomatic and rooted in either our fears or unmanaged hurts. As my guru aptly puts it FEAR stands for False Emotions Appearing Real. No matter how hard you try medications, unless you heal your mind, there will never be real health. Although it's essential to be physically healthy, what's more essential is to strive for the holistic wellbeing - health of mind, body,emotions and energies that flow within.