Feelings Hotline: Ep. 2
Feelings Hotline: Ep. 2
protect your garden & remember you know how to swim
Hello everyone,
Welcome to our next installment of the Electric Blue: Feelings Hotline. I received a flurry of gorgeous, raw, vulnerable submissions but I’ve decided on these two to share.
Let’s jump in.
“my life right now is glorious and painful. i am stuck in both a vortex of generational emotional sabotage from my mother and a growing feeling of success that i’m creating for myself. my art is taking off, but my personal family life is breaking down. the way i present myself online is completely different to reality and i am tired of pretending. all i want is to ugly cry in someone’s arms but i do not have anyone i trust enough to talk to about the true depth of how much my heart really hurts. (thank you. i really needed that.)” - Guinevere Virtue
hi guinevere,
first, i want to say i’m so sorry you’re going through this. i’m opening my arms, albeit virtually, to give you a big hug.
i hope you know that what you’re doing, isn’t pretending, it’s preservation. sometimes it’s what we have to do to keep going. especially during this fruitful time you are in. you have something worth protecting.
there’s a polarity of hyper-growth and decay occurring in your life.
your heart is transforming. it is asking for you to bear with it as it does. sometimes other people spark this change. most often our family members. they hold the oldest, most vulnerable versions of ourselves. they know our weakest muscles and targets. as you are strengthening and flourishing in your art, your family is pushing at your fragilities. where your pain is most tender. the veins that touch and hold your inner child.
this inner child, where is she now? reach inside of yourself and take her hand. guide her gently to the sunlit garden you are growing. where your art shines and flickers. let her stare in awe at who she is becoming.
the way i see it, is that life is asking for you to take care of her. to not leave her out of your success. because more good growth is coming. sometimes before that more comes, we have to take care of areas of our life that might have been neglected, or perhaps just need some more care.
there are times our hearts break, but only one half. look at the juice of your vibrant other half. of what is still whole. see what you can pour from there back onto the side which needs it.
i suggest placing a protective fence around your garden. let your inner child sit in the sun for as long as she needs or likes. let her explore. join her when you too need an escape. then when the time is right, talk to her. ask her what she needs. what she needs to let go of, what she needs you to hold, and what she wants you both to keep. in return, she will give you what is missing.
don’t be afraid to set boundaries with your family to make sure that you are okay.
i wish you all the best.
"Disassociated. Like I have lit my life on fire because it was going too well. Exhausted and burnt out. I’ve returned to depression and it’s familiarity feels like coming home. It’s nostalgic. Happiness and faith in a new story become more and more abstract everyday. My father called me from a blocked number. It’s the first time I’ve heard his voice in 8 years. He sounded old. I cried, then I stopped. Stopped feeling any of it. My mind powered down. The world returned to amorphic blurriness. My memories collapsed in on themselves taking my identity with them. I’m on autopilot. Walking through the world with tired, berating old stories on a loop. Because to hurt myself, to hate myself, to distrust myself is easier than to cry about the voice of a dying man who’s conditional love I loved unconditionally. I still do. I’d rather cut myself on my own thoughts born out of his stories about me. Than let the tsunami drown me. That it was never my fault. And that I am stronger now. Better now. But here I am. In a New York City laundromat drowning all the same.” - human
dear human,
to feel the rush of the water you don’t always have to drown. within you, there is a way to swim.
let the water rush.
the fact you lit your life on fire means i know you are craving its opposite. though the water can be so tumultuous, so frightening, so unpredictable. the waves are pulled by a force outside of ourselves. we are victim to them. yet, inside of us, in our core, lies our will.
i feel your strength.
although it may not seem like it to you, you are in control of your story. i know this because you are so clearly explaining all of it. both the old and the new. however, the current is where you need to be. where you need to stay. in the moving water. in the blur. in the collapse.
in this liquid lies a gift. a cleansing. when you have the courage to swim, you will come out of the water clean.
even if it feels like it,
you will not drown.
you will make it back to shore.
and happiness will not be so much of an abstraction, but now a clear reflection on the still water that surrounds your feet.
wishing you all the strength and all the love in new york city.
Do you want to submit to the Feelings Hotline? Click here & you might be featured next week.