Feeling Less

Between childhood/ adolescent pain & disappointment, I learned quickly to expect less from others while somehow I eventually started expecting more of myself.  I realize its a strange dynamic. Expecting less of others or figuring out what to expect from them keeps me from feeling hurt or disappointed by their actions in most circumstances, I think this is emotionally healthy for the most part.  If I get caught off guard its a different story all together.  It wasn’t until I was in college that I started expecting more of myself, until then I expected little to nothing of myself because of all the grade school junk I went through.  In college and for several years after I felt a drive to “prove myself”, I had this “look what I can do” or “I’ll show them” mentality. I graduated with honors in Psychology from Liberty University and then went on to prove myself in my business.  A few years ago God finally helped me to release that ‘need‘ and I was able to settle in to what He wanted/ wants for me. 

Now, He is showing me how little I allow myself to feel.  I think it partly has to do with childhood trauma (of course it could have been worse, but its my pain), partly to do with adolescent heartache, & an overall disappointment with life in general.  These things hurt the heart and so I started shutting out anything that could hurt me. This includes getting excited about anything, because in my heart, if I get too excited then something will go wrong and what I’m excited about won’t happen.  It has made it so that most every gut level emotion gets shut out. Getting caught off guard with something can still throw me for a loop and sometimes I’ll feel the pain deep down, but I’ll do my best to ignore it all until I don’t feel it anymore.

This “feeling less” issue is something God is showing me just now and He wants to heal  it in me.  I’m not totally sure what that’s going to look like, but I do know I need to let Him carry me daily. <3