I have a burden that I live with.
Too much passion.
Too much love.
Too much happiness.
Too much excitement.
Too much anger.
Too much drive.
Too much sadness.
I can be a person of too much. When I cry, it’s hard. When I laugh, my laughter can be heard for miles. When I dance and sing, the neighborhood can hear me. It is a burden. But it is also my driving force in everything in life. It’s what makes me go hard when I need to. It’s what makes me the person I am.
So, I guess you can say I am the Queen of Balance in every aspect of living except for this? This is my personality. And it’s not always easy to restrain. But I think it’s okay, because this fierceness can also be defined as passion.
Our household growing up was a working-class household. Both my parents worked hard to build a life here in Canada and build a family. There was a lot of hard work and there was a lot of passion. Passion everywhere. Passionate about earning money. Saving money. Paying off the house.
When we were upset, it showed. When we were happy, tears of happiness would stream down our faces. Same with when we were sad. At weddings, we would dance and sing our hearts out. Such fierce passion for life. For living. For working. For everything.
We FEEL all the FEELS and nothing is tampered. We are at one with our feelings. This is how I grew up. Deal with the feelings and resolve it. This is where my passion comes from. It’s within me. However, showing vulnerability is not.
It’s an interesting dichotomy because on the other side of that spectrum I was taught to be polite, not to shame the family…I was a “good girl”. I guess this is where the showing a brave, strong, balanced front comes in. It’s that public face and persona we actually all have.
So here I was with all this passion, and sometimes I wasn’t able to release it. Sometimes I had to restrain it…but don’t we all at times? We can’t all run around saying whatever the heck we want all the time now can we? No…that then would be considered really unbalanced now wouldn’t it?
But isn’t this the way life is? That balance of yin and yang. That part of knowing when to release that beast and when to cage it up. I think so. Just some of us have a little more zest or passion is all. Some of us keep things inside more. Some of us say too much.
I am living more out loud now than ever before. If I feel like swearing, I do. When I want to dance and blare that music, I do. This is 50. And guess what? This is my new balance. This is all part of my growth and my learning. And what I have learned is that living out loud is so much better. I have had great teachers in my life. My family – loud and proud people. My husband, while far from loud, always says it like it is. My kids – honesty is the best policy. Be real. Feel real. Be present.
I am so uninterested in fakeness now that I immediately turn off when I can feel that phoniness in someone. I turn cold and shut down. I can’t hide it.
So? What does this all mean? It means feel your flow. It means maybe you don’t always have to hide beneath that persona. Maybe you don’t always have to be that “good girl”. Maybe you can show your cards a bit and show that vulnerability. Be true to who you are. Be real.