Often, the thing that will benefit us the most is the hardest. It’s also likely the thing that we’ve been avoiding for months, years, or decades.
If it’s really hard to stay away from sugar, then that’s probably a priority. If a certain exercise is really hard, that’s probably the thing that will yield significant gains. If we tend to avoid difficult conversations with a certain person, it’s likely that this tendency has caused some buried resentments and internal knots.
We can extrapolate this idea to emotions. We all have emotions that we would rather not face. Shame that feels sickening. Fear that feels unbearable. Betrayal that leaves us boiling with anger. Sometimes these emotions linger in the background for years. Other times, decades. If we want to release these emotions, we need to look at what’s there. We need to feel it. We can never be free of it while it lurks in the shadows. We need to integrate it to be free of it.
Releasing deeply held traumas in the body is a long and difficult process. It might require somatic work. It might require dreamwork. It most definitely requires mindfulness and presence. Integration might take years. But it is the path to freedom.