Pandora’s Box

"Feelings", seeing the word on the page it seems quite harmless.  Pulling the letters apart, mixing them up (gnefneisl) these letters hold no meaning to me.  However when I internalize what I think the word "feelings"  means to me, how powerful that word seems.

All my life, I was shown that feelings were a dark, mysterious force in the human existence.  As a child I learned to fear some feelings in “others”.  Anger, resentment, frustration would send me hiding to my favorite hiding spot.  I also learned that what I thought I was feeling was incorrect. (There is nothing to be mad about, you shouldn't cry about that, etc.)  Since I wanted to please, I learned to put my feelings in a box.  And as a child who loved mythology, it was Pandora’s Box.  My Pandora’s Box was a jewel encrusted box made of gold.  She was magnificent and yet what she held inside was both treasure and pain. 

As I grew, I would often place items into my Pandora Box, feelings of my own, love, fear, hate, resentment.  I made regular deposits along the way.  Sometimes I would open this box just for a second to let some of those feelings out.  And they came rushing out with full force.  I learned to fear those emotions. And so they sat and sat and sat. 

Then there came a time, when my box was just too small to hold all I had placed within, and these emotions, so well hidden; came out everywhere I went.  Someone said something to me I didn't like, well I told them.  AT&T commercial, I cried like a baby.  It seemed to me I was no better off feeling these things than I was before not feeling them.  I feared this box even more.  The dark magic is possessed, possessed me.  I was an emotional wreck.

And so the journey to understand this box began.  I noticed how I would completely validate “your” emotions while totally discounting mine.  “You” were justified in your feelings, mine were stupid and senseless.  I also noticed that this box had become quite heavy to carry, in fact too heavy. 

So I sat down with my box.  Looked at it from all angles, examined the rusted locks which kept it closed tight.  And I decided to open it.