Hurting, healing & trying to be happy.

Post vacation reflections.

I just got back from a magical week in St. John’s NL.

If you’re new around here, St. John’s is my favourite place on earth. If you could have a soul tie with a place, St. John’s would be mine.

It is the only place I’ve been to in the world that feels more like coming home, than actually going to my hometown (St. Stephen NB).

I fell in love with St. John’s when I went there for the month of July between grade 11 and 12. I attended Shad Valley (aka nerd camp, look it up) and immediately knew that MUN was the only university I would be applying for.

I spent 4 amazing years on the rock while I got my Bachelor of Kinesiology and have gone back almost every year since I left in 2010.

I would in a heartbeat repeat those 4 years over again. I had so much fun.

St. John’s was the city I became me, and not the Ashley that was created for and by other people. It was so far removed from St. Stephen that I got to become whoever I wanted to be.

Flying into that city all these years later feels like finally coming up for air and taking a deep breath after being under water for so long. It’s an immediate sigh and an overwhelming feeling of peace.

I haven’t felt that good, at peace or happy in the last 2 years. My friends from home could tell in the pictures I sent them, as they would reply back “you look so happy”, and it’s because I was.

You could see it in my smile, and I could feel it in my body. In the lightness, the lack of tension in my jaw and chest, in the ability to take a deep breath without concentrating on doing so.

Tuning into those feelings in my body was an interesting experience. “Feeling” emotions or sensations in my body is hard for me, and something for the last 35 years I have actively avoided.

In working with my therapist (everyone needs one!) we are discovering that my avoidance to feel things is because I have a sense of feeling unsafe in my body, so why would I want to feel things when I already don’t feel safe? Why feel when I can intellectually think through them instead?

Well, not feeling isn’t working for me anymore. And as terrifying as it is to go there, my body is forcing me to.

The first day home after this trip while cleaning my house I felt discomfort in my low back. I could blame it on strenuous hikes in NL + 8-hours of sitting at airports, on planes and driving home from the airport, but honestly it’s probably because I’m avoiding how I feel having come home from my favourite place.

It turns out that not feeling your feelings means you just store them in your body somewhere, to be activated or triggered at another time. Annoying.

My jaw, pelvic floor, hips & low back are all areas of my body that I know I am storing trauma and decades worth of feelings I was too scared to / unable to safely process at the time.

When I try to not feel something, usually one of those areas becomes quite intense. Intense to the point of causing pain and interfering with my life in a negative way, to the point where I have to deal with it.

And all this time I’ve been treating the symptom, and completing ignoring the cause. Which is a huge piss off coming from a physiotherapist who spends her entire clinic day chasing the cause of issues for my clients so we can treat it effectively eliminating the problem all together, and not throwing a bandaid solution on the symptom.

Blogging helps me process how I am feeling. It’s like an unconscious flow of words hitting the paper (or iPhone in this case) that brings clarity to the shit I am dealing with.

I start every blog post with no real idea of where I’m going, yet always end up writing exactly what I need in that moment of time.

So here is what I do know from my trip.

I am a better me in St. John’s.

I feel calmer, brighter, more confident, more joyful, more hopeful and feel truly and genuinely happy.

I have more energy, I smile more and laugh harder, and I sleep better! Which has been a huge issue for me as of late (since starting Wellbutrin actually).

I clench my jaw less, and I feel less worried about the things and people in my life I can’t control. Out of sight, out of mind maybe? Who knows.

So what’s different between St. John’s and St. Stephen?

I allow myself to be me in St. John’s.

I allow myself to show up in all the ways that FEEL right, be damned what that looks like to other people.

My people are in St. John’s. My best friends who I met when we were all figuring out who we are, live there. My chosen family. Who open their homes and lives to me every visit, and expect nothing of me other than to exist. They let me fall apart, and sit in that with me when I figure out how to put me back together.

And don’t get me wrong, I have people like that in St. Stephen too (I have these people all over the country), as I’ve sought them out and made them be friends with me, but they all met me later in life, it feels different.

When I’m in St. John’s I spend more time being, and less doing. I hike more, and rest more. And some may think that may be just a being on vacation thing, but it always feels better there than anywhere else I vacation.

I know I am still putting myself in a box of what I perceive is expected of me in St. Stephen, which is absurd really because I don’t think anyone cares or thinks about that like I do.

In St. Stephen I am Jeannie & Gerald’s granddaughter, Nancy’s daughter and Chelsey’s sister. I am the good girl, who follows the rules and always has her shit together. I am the caregiver, the one who takes care of everyone else. I am the one no one has to worry about because I’m always doing alright (but really I’m not). I’m a physiotherapist and someone who volunteers.

But I am so much more than that.

I don’t know why I am so scared to show up as me here? I know people would like her.

I guess I don’t want to disappoint people by stepping out of the box I’ve kept myself in. But I can’t keep going like this.

I need to find a way to feel like I do in St. John’s here at home, or I’m going to have to blow up my life and move.

So what am I currently feeling?

I feel the opposite to how I felt last week.

I feel sad and homesick for NL and the people and huge piece of my heart I leave behind every single time.

I feel left jaw pain, a heaviness in my chest and low back pain.

I feel like I can’t unclench the majority of my muscles in my back and hips.

I feel like I’m putting my own life on hold for other people, and it makes me feel resentful.

I feel scared that I’ve made the wrong decisions in life thus far, and am fearful of what it could mean / look like if I chose differently.

I also feel mad that I feel this way, as I have amazing people who I love very much here at home. Who I would miss terribly if I wasn’t here. It feels conflicting and a bit disorienting.

So what have I done about any of this?

I bawled at the airport leaving, and then again when I got home.

I tried to make Steph treat my low back today, and she told me I needed to feel my feelings and sent me a video of some lady on ig working through her feelings with movement (which I did when I got home; and I feel better, shocking I know).

That then prompted the writing of this blog.

I’m going to strive to sit with my feelings instead of ignoring them. Which is fucking terrifying.

I’m going to book a therapy appointment, order a book on somatic healing / movement, hug my dog (who I missed the most when I was away), and do the things I did in St. John’s.

Spend time outdoors in nature on the ocean, have more IRL friendship, and spend more time resting.

I’m going to forgive myself for not showing up authentically as me for so long. And for not being able to heal the things I was unwilling to feel.

I’m going to give myself grace and allow myself to choose differently whenever I want, for no reason other than “I don’t want this anymore”.

I’m going to work hard on cultivating a feeling of safety and peace within me, that I can access whenever I want.

I’m going to stop allowing my outer world to dictate what my inner world feels like.

I’m going to set boundaries that are going to piss off some people in my hometown.

But I’m going to allow myself to be happy, and remind myself that life can feel good, safe, and filled with hope and joy. And i’m going to have fun, I can’t wait to hear what people will have to say about that.

It’s a tall order. But this is my one life.

And at the end of the day that’s going to have to be enough.

and remember…

“you can be a kind person with a good heart and still tell people to fuck off when needed”

Xox Ashley