Honor Your Feelings After Abortion
This episode is part one of a four part series. Should you choose to participate, by the end of the series you will never think about your abortion the same way again.
Happy listening and as always feel free to send me your reflections and questions.
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Show Notes:
The best things in life seem to unfold at your fingertips; it’s like an unveiling or a blooming and all you have to do is keep showing up and stretching your wings in order to bring it all to fruition. That’s how I feel about what I have in store for you this month on the podcast. Over the last few weeks, it just kept unfolding in little bits and pieces until we arrived here, together, ready to honor abortion together.
I feel like I’ve been given a mission. In the next four episodes we’re going to talk about:
Honoring Your Feelings,
Honoring Your Decision,
Honoring Your Desires,
and Honoring Your Future.
Everything I’m about to share with you comes directly from my own experience, and has been validated by what I’ve seen, heard, and learned in the last few years of my personal healing and evolution. It is my belief that by honoring our abortions we enter into a level of acceptance that allows us to grow in ways we never could have imagined possible. We welcome in the LIGHT.
Some of you will take what I share here and completely change your lives. Some of you will share the podcast link, and change the lives of others. And it’s my hope that any of you looking for 1:1, and or group support, will reach out to me so we can take all of this to the next level and unpack what comes up for you together, in a deeply healing and nourishing way.
If you are ready to take abortion coaching seriously, I recommend you grab a stack of paper or a journal and get ready to take some notes. You can listen to this once, or over and over again. For most people, this isn’t one and done work. It takes time to heal and move forward purposefully.
I’d like to get started with one of my very favorite quotes,
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”― Rumi
I hesitate to call abortion a wound, but for many of us it feels that way. A womb that once was nurturing new life stands now empty, and the emptiness invites a flood of feelings. Although they can seem overwhelming or out of control, every single feeling is here for you. It’s an opportunity for you to grow and evolve as a human.
Many of the feelings are as to be expected, and others tip toe or come crashing in, well outside our predictions. That is the journey of being human. We are soulful creatures who like to imagine what the future will hold, even when we’ve been shown time and time again that the only way to thrive is to flow with the unexpected. All we have is this moment. It’s the only one that really shapes us.
It doesn’t matter how long ago your abortion was, or if you are listening to this in preparation for an upcoming procedure, because you are human, I can guarantee that you have a buffet feelings about what it means to terminate a pregnancy.
There are no right or wrong feelings.
And there is certainly no timeline for feeling them.
Relief is as real and valid as anger.
Joy can be as powerful as shame.
Determination may power you through, or curiosity can pave your way.
Sadness may wave in and out like the tide, or seemingly swallow the ground from underneath you.
You might find yourself completely engaged and distracted one day, and barely able to lift your head from the pillow the next. It all makes sense, you are human.
Because so many of us experience the strongest feelings in times of significant change or transition, we have learned to attribute our feelings to our circumstances.
“I am sad because I was left alone after the procedure.”
“I am embarrassed because the birth control failed .”
“I am angry because the protestors were there that day.”
“I feel shame because my family doesn’t agree with my decision.”
But the truth is that our experiences can’t make us feel anything. In fact identical experiences can create very different feelings for different people.
One of us may feel sad being left alone, and another feels free.
One of us may be embarrassed by the unplanned pregnancy, and another at peace knowing that there was always a risk the condom would break.
One of us may feel angry at the protestors, and another compassionate.
One of us may feel shame in making a decision against her family values, and another confidently independent.
Circumstances themselves don’t make us feel anything.
It’s our thoughts that create our feelings, and this is the best news you’ve heard in a long time because if your feelings are caused by your thoughts it means you’ve been in control all along. Or as iconic Glenda the Good Witch says,
“You had the power all along my dear.”
It can be tempting when you first recognize that your thoughts create your feelings to want to push them away. If thinking “I’ve disappointed my family” brings you shame, then why not just think something else, perhaps something like, “They don’t need to know.” That’s an easy enough thought swap.
It seems simple enough, but every feeling is here for a purpose and the only way to find the freedom you seek after abortion is to feel through all the feelings it stirs up. Pushing feelings away with new thoughts will only make them stronger. Unprocessed feelings will build, and pop up like an explosion at times you least expect. All the energy you exert to keep them hidden, will wear you down and distract you from the most important things your life has to offer you.
Before we get carried away with the how of consciously directing your feelings, we have to take a step back and recognize what they are. We have to honor all our feelings if we want to truly heal and make meaning from our experiences with abortion. Whether you are having positive or negative feelings about your abortion, you have an opportunity to honor it in a way that will bring you healing and purpose.
Remember that journal I suggested you grab before we started? Now is the time to work your writing muscles. You can pause at any time and resume when you’ve let all the ink that’s meant to flow go from your fingers.
The first thing I’d encourage you to do is to make a list of every emotion you have felt in your abortion experience.
What did you feel when you realized you were carrying a pregnancy you didn’t want to keep?
What did you feel while working with your care providers?
Before, during, and after the procedure?How did you feel when you told people you love,
wanted to tell people you love,
hid from people you loved?
Write down all the feelings you can think of. Even though they may feel like the good, the bad, and the ugly, they are all just vibrations in your body and none of them can actually hurt you.
You look at your list and take it deeper by exploring:
Is this feeling mine?
If so do I want to keep it?
Either way, am I ready to release it?
Your invitation here is to notice; there’s no right or wrong in Honoring Your Feelings.
When you are ready to sink in a little deeper, feel each feeling in your body.
Where do you feel it?
Does it have a shape?
A color?
A texture?
Is it hot or cold?
Heavy or light?
Big or small?
Does it want to move?
Travel somewhere else in your body, or leave completely?
