The Out Loud

Like many people, thoughts run around my mind - Sometimes a quick pass-through, other times one thought leads to the next, and others just seem to run around my mind. They run about, bounding around my mind and staying confined.

The other day I was asked a question I had thought about many times but stayed in my mind's confined space. I never let the thought out and cannot even recall journaling. In answering this question, I said the thought out loud. I hadn’t realized how much the words moving externally would impact me.

I think of the old cartoons when the words spoken would look like a bubble outside of the person’s body as if still contained in some invisible bubble. Maybe when I shared my thoughts out loud, I thought it would be contained in a bubble somewhere, but it was now. The thought was free to roam about, and did it roam!

I feel like that thought somehow gathered up some energy from being outside of my mind and decided, “I’m not done with you yet.” The words spoken lingered, and I found myself repeating the words out loud. Each time I did that, they gained more energy and power. As they gained energy and power, I felt the hurt of each circumstance that led to the cumulating of the words spoken out loud, stabbing me over and over and over. Tears ran down my face from a buried pain that I let out with a handful of words spoken out loud.

I know the words needed to be spoken out loud. I know the pain of each situation that led to the common words spoken that sat inside of me sometimes for years and were now out to roam about. I know the tears associated with those situations needed to fall to help with the healing process. I know the words need to be released and spoken out loud.

It’s a lesson for me that when I experience something that I know has hurt me, while it is safe to an extent to let it run around my mind, it may not provide the avenue to truly hear the words as they are listened to when spoken out loud, even if listened to by me, and may stall the healing process. I am finding that through this thought process, spoken out loud, and the tears-shedding process, I can see more clearly and feel the healing begin.

So, next time I want to bury a hurt, hoping it will stay hidden away, I need to find the courage to gather those thoughts and say them out loud. And welcome in healing and acceptance.