Being Honest With Myself

I just realized that I am running away from my feelings, again. I try not to do this and I still do it. Sometimes sitting in this body with all of these jumbled feelings is just too much work, so I run. My running takes the shape of eating. Eating buries the fear and anger, pushing them back down inside where I don't have to look at them.

I am furious with myself and with my sister. I can't do anything to change my sister so that just leaves me to deal with. I am the only person that I can change.

I tell myself that I am furious with my sister because she is ruining her life and making her daughter miserable. I got a phone call from my neice and my sister yesterday so I have heard both sides of their stories. I tend to side with my neice. My sister says my neice and I are just alike. Right now, my sister doesn't seem to like her daughter so I assume she doesn't like me either. I was doing some EFT tapping this morning to heal my feelings of anger toward my sister. What I learned was that I am angry at my sister for being irresponsible because I had to be so super-responsible as a child and young adult.

Irresponsibility in another person makes me aware that I wasn't happy being super-responsibile, but I wasn't allowed to be any other way. I was the family hero. My sister was the family scapegoat who was always getting in trouble. She is still living out her family role. I am working on releasing mine. I don't want to be the family hero. Being the family hero calls for too many lies. If I am playing the hero, when someone asks for my opinion, I may not tell them what I really think because it would tarnish my image as the person everyone wants to be around. Heroes don't hurt other people's feelings with their honesty. I want to be real, to honor the truth of who I am and what I feel.

Irresponsibility and super-responsibility are opposites sides of the same coin, both disfunctional, neither one healthy. Both hold resentments against others. Both carry self-hatred. Both are hurting and hurtful. Both are full of rage. Neither one knowing how to heal. Both crying inside but afraid to let the other one know.

Awareness slowly creeps in as I write. I don't want to be angry with my sister or myself any more. I release my anger, my need to be super-responsible. It is so easy to say those words.

I know the right words to say. My problem is with letting myself feel the pain. That is the really scarey part of this work. Eating is so much easier. Eating doesn't take away the pain. Eating just gives me a blindfold so I don't have to see or feel the pain. Eating just adds pounds to the problem. Some days I can deal with the pain. Other days, it is so much easier to just eat. Eating just gives me another reason to hate myself. I have always said that when my self-esteem is where it should be, then I won't have an eating/weight problem.

Have I really released the anger yet? My hurting stomach says no. My shallow breathing says no. A part of me, the abused little kid in me, wants to rant and rave at my parents for giving my sister and I those roles in life. I want this to be easy but it's not. I want this to be over with, but it's not. The little kid in me is "cussin' a blue streak" right now. You know what? I am going to let her. She isn't hurting anyone and it feels pretty good. Now she is beginning to cry. She has that right too. I have that right. It is part of her healing and my healing.

Writing has helped me get this far but it can't take me the rest of the way to where I need to go. I will leave you now so that I can go cry. How honest is that? Tears are healing. Do you have any tears of your own that need to be cried?