Reality is a very hard problem if you think about it.
What is real? Am I real? Is this a simulation? How do I know? Can I know? It gets harder when you have a bunch of people insisting on their realities and you don't know which one to choose. Then infinitely harder when people start lying.
Realizing the importance of a reality was a big step on my journey. What is real? The first thing I remember deciding to be real were my emotions. My emotions are real. They exist inside me. I feel them. I sense them. I have to decide they are real. I can no longer deny them.
My emotions grounded me in something. A truth. That was comforting. Nobody could take my emotions from me. You can't say I don't feel mad. I'm the one feeling it, not you. The more I sat in my emotions, the more I realized how often my mother tried to deny me of this reality.
No, you're not mad, you're just having a bad day.
Don't take that tone with me!
I didn't say that! You apologize right now!
You don't really want that.
Stop being so sensitive.
I don't care if you don't want to, we have to go!
It was hard for me to come to terms with the amount of emotional abuse I experienced growing up. The invalidation, the gaslighting, the control, the misrepresentation, the devaluation. But the more I honored and validated my own emotions, the more I saw it.
Coming to accept this reality did not happen over night. It took a lot of time. But it was important for me to ground myself in something so I could have an anchor.
Meditation and yoga were very important in this process. Through meditation, I could sit with myself and become in tune with my thoughts, feelings, emotions, body sensations. I could focus in on something and be present. Through yoga I could feel my body as I moved and build that relationship. I could accept where I'm at and move forward from it.
I believe starting with ourselves and settling into our own realities is very important. If we can't understand ourselves and have that connection, how can we explore the external? Having a ground zero, a starting point is needed before we can move away from it. And the more you honor your reality, the more you learn to honor other's.
My mom is not connected to her own reality. I ask her how she feels and she can't answer, or she avoids it all together. I ask her to explore an emotion she's expressing, and she won't. She just wants things to be "good". It has created problems for her. That lack of grounding then created problems for me.
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