Life & Therapy

Most people have had this happen: you wake up from a deep sleep and you can’t feel your arm.  You might not even be able to find it at first- maybe it is tucked behind your head, or under your back. So, you take the sleeping arm into your waking hand, and put it where you want it to be.  Then, the painful part begins.  As your arm wakes up, it feels as if a thousand needles are poking it.  It’s not the sleeping that hurts so much, it is the waking.

Sometimes, there are parts of ourselves that have been asleep for years.  If you grew up in an abusive environment, you survived by tucking certain aspects of yourself deep inside, safe from harm.  Usually, these are the things that are your strongest qualities, because you get abused for that which stands out about yourself.  Maybe you put your vulnerable, caring part to sleep, so that you wouldn’t feel the pain of the abuse. Perhaps you shut down your desire to express unique ideas, so that you wouldn’t be ridiculed. As an adult, you may start noticing that you want to wake these parts of yourself up again, so that you can have a more fulfilling experience in life.  This is where it might get painful. 

As you start to rouse your sleeping emotional limbs, you might feel the pins and needles of raw vulnerability.  You may re-experience some of the feelings that made you tuck those parts of yourself away in the first place.  The important thing to know is that, as an adult, you are no longer in a dangerous situation, even if it feels that way at first.  There is no need to rush into waking everything up, and it really does help to do so in a supportive environment.  But once the waking-up starts to happen, it is good to know that the prickly feelings will pass, just as they do when your arm is finally awake.