Major Mind Shift

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the group that my old treatment facility offers every week. A major topic of the group was "shifts" in thinking and behavior. Primarily, about how individuals in recovery tend to have major epiphanies and leaps forward for years after the cessation of symptoms (or even while symptoms are simply dropping off in frequency or severity). Well, I recently had one.

I pride myself on being someone who is true to their heart in all matters. It is something that I have worked very hard at over the last several years. Even before I began my recovery in earnest, I always did my best to ask myself "what does your heart tell you?".  I recently realized, that I wasn't listening to what it told me.

I asked the question, but I was frequently far too afraid to actually do anything about what my heart told me to do. Sadly, I spent many years not heading my own advice. Worse yet, I got to the point where I was so incredibly shut off from what I wanted that my actions became a drastic departure from my beliefs. My self and my self concept were completely torn. (Self concept= how you think about yourself).

Yet, I can have an incredible amount of compassion for myself over this great divide that I created. It was far easier for me to change my thoughts than to change my actions. I had a philanderer for a boyfriend. I had a mother that was out of the picture. I had a raging eating disorder. I had a lot of things going on in my life that would have destroyed me had I actually faced them. My hiding from my feelings is part of what kept me alive. I would have hated myself far more than I already did at that time had I tried to listen to what my heart was actually telling me.

The thing is that I no longer need to hide from my emotions. Yet, I am having an incredibly hard time tapping into the deep ones. Every time I get close, I start to cry. I can't control it. I just start to cry. It isn't because I am upset about something at that moment, it is just that there is SO much emotion that has gone unexpressed for so long. I have gotten too good at being strong, so much so that I have a hard time being vulnerable.

Which brings about how this shift actually happened. I was at my most vulnerable. Any girl who has ever had an issue with their body image will understand what I mean when I say that your mind and your body are completely separate entities. This is especially true when it comes to sex.

Even when I was first in recovery, I recognized that the only times I was ever aware that my body even existed was during physical activity or sex. Well, that is great and all except that it wasn't because my mind was actually attached to my body. I was still completely and totally divided, the only difference was that my body was in charge.

Notice that I have not yet mentioned the presence of my heart in this vulnerable space. Well, that is exactly what I noticed. All of these years, I was focused on giving my body an outlet. Yet, I had to keep my heart out if it. Which connects directly to my inability to listen to what my heart said in the first place. I spent a long time having sex with people that I actually despised. Well, maybe despised is too harsh of a word. How about, that I had been deeply hurt by. There was no room for emotion in sex. I had no positive emotions to attribute to the people that I was with. Which lead me to spend years having completely and totally superficial erotic experiences.

Let me wrap this up a little nicer.

In all areas of my life, I have previously spent a considerable amount of energy on keeping myself from listening to what my heart had to say about it. It was a lot easier to just keep on doing what I was doing and telling myself that my heart was mislead and then eventually just completely shutting it down. This lead to a great divide between who I wanted to be and who I was. This division of the self fostered a huge divide between my mind and my body. Such that even when the mind and the body should be fused, mine was not.

Recently, I experienced what it is "supposed to be like". Meaning that I actually had a moment in my life where my mind, body and heart were not divided. They actually agreed with one another. I was not allowing my body to do something that my mind or heart was opposed to. I was not shutting my mind off. I was also not remaining completely in my mind and allowing my body to stay on autopilot. I was actually fully present for the first time in my life that I can actually point to and know for certainty.

It scared the living shit out of me.


Suddenly, I recognized how many times I had neglected my own wants, needs, and desires. And for what?! The simplicity of being able to just glaze over everything and avoid conflict. Out of fear. Out of complete and utter conditioned callousness. What does that mean about me? What does that mean about my relationships? What does that mean about what I like or don't like? What does that mean about my propensity for being a victim?

It means that it won't happen anymore.


A shift has occurred. I have recognized that there was a previous flaw in the way that I was living my life. I have realized that there is something better than what I had previously experienced.

My world won't end if I let it all in. Now, I just have to prove that to myself.