Tough It Out

Ah, human emotions.

How I love to talk about them.

Listen, I know how passive-aggressive that may sound for me to phrase it like that, but believe me when I say that I am a sucker for deep conversations revolving and involving anything closely relative to spilling our hearts with authentic vulnerable intention.

For those of you who don't know me, hello!

My name is Daniela.

My friends call me Yela...yes like the color! Please feel free to refer to me as Yela, as well. For if you are reading this, I consider you a friend.

Here's a brief background or personal biography, if you will, before we get into the hot-topic of human emotions.

I am an intuitive and introverted personality, highly sensitive and empathetic, who has learned to harness this once perceived "weakness" of mine to an impenetrable strength.

I am a writer, poet and mixed-media artist.

I have recently finished a year-long book of poems, September to September, that is in fact my very first published work as an aspiring author.

Recently, I've tapped into my appreciation for anime and am even apart of a small team of artists in hopes of developing one in the years to come.

I love, love, LOVE learning about human psychology, philosophy, spirituality and/or paranormal studies.

You see, these various vessels of creativity have quite literally saved me from old, toxic, coping mechanisms as well as self-sabotaging behavior.

As far as psychology goes, my compelled interest towards the science of human behavior started some time before middle school, when I began to feel my own emotions start to take control of me.

I remember hearing about psychology through the grape-vine when I was probably 10 or 11 years old, and felt an intuition so strong, but never fully immersed myself in it until I got some more years of adolescence under my belt.

My inclination towards spirituality and the paranormal soon followed and are concurrent with my current circumstances now, in early adulthood.

This will all tie into the subject of my writing today, I promise.

You see, I was having trouble deciding what my first "story" on Vocal should be about and not to my surprise, my heart decided to go with introducing my story. . .

My personal journey to how I got myself to where I am today.

This "story" will more than likely take more than one article to do it justice, but bear with me while we do this dance into my past.

I've titled this story, "Tough It Out", because I believe that this common idiom, truly personifies what my entire 22-years of existence have felt like.

I have felt subjected to continuously "tough it out" through my personal struggles, specifically in regards to my mental health.

For a while, I had thought that I would see myself working in the mental-health field, as a clinical psychologist or maybe even as a social-worker.

I have seen 4 mental health therapists in my life so far, and they have all planted their own unique seeds of wisdom that I needed for those particular moments in my life.

Yes, I am also a firm mental health advocate and stand by those in the profession of de-stigmatizing mental illness and therapy.

However, recently I have noticed that my love for psychology may not be sufficed by the pursuit of helping others with talk-therapy or even in a clinical setting.

With my interest towards philosophy and spirituality, I am beginning to notice this burning passion inside of me to want to use my voice to reach a vast audience of people.

Whether that is with my writing, or with my actual verbalization, a profession where I am constantly communicating through intellectual means is what is calling out to me.

It is through learning the secret language of non-verbals, what some spiritualists may call "reading energy", as well as developing myself inter-personally that I have been able to heighten my self-awareness and appreciation for people around me.

Listen, I admit I have a lot of learning to do still and, will believe that I always will, I take that with me to the grave, but I think that it's time that I reflect on what I have accomplished because, man, it's a lot to unpack in my eyes!

So, here's the deal.

I won't go into my ENTIRE past, because I'll have you reading forever, but I will take you into the world of little Yela, back to those days when I was 10-11 years old first encountering these internal battles with my own emotions.

In those days, I struggled a lot with feelings of alienation, being misunderstood, feeling unheard or not listened to, and just keeping my distance as the quiet observer of the family.

A family member once described my personality as a child, as being "within the shadows", and ever since he relayed that to me, I've always thought that it was pretty accurate.

Thing is, when you live in the shadows long enough, and don't have people who understand the language of the shadows, you can begin to lose yourself within the vast darkness.

My family comes from a traditional Christian/Catholic culture as mestizos from the Central-American country, Honduras.

I moved here to the U.S., when I was 2-years old.

Yes, I was born in Honduras.

It was just the 7 of us. My parents, my 3 older sisters and my younger brother.

My maternal grandfather, his ex -wives, his several kids, all lived nearby in nearby towns, but yeah, that was it.

Most of my family, remains in Honduras, that is until these last recent years where a lot of my family from both my parent's side have gone their ways to different states and countries.

So, anyway, I believe that Christianity, and lack of emotional-awareness from my parents, were two of my biggest influences for my neurosis.

We moved to a small town in Western, New York. 30 minutes outside the city of Rochester.

We have lived here ever since I was 4-years old.

Growing up as a foreigner, in a predominantly white town was. . . interesting.

It really exemplifies that notion of "living in the shadows", feeling alienated, and misunderstood, that much more.

There were very few friends that I had, that I could relate to.

For me personally, it wasn't more so the cultural differences, rather it was the social-emotional differences between my family and the family of my peers growing up.

I always felt very jealous when my friend's parents would show interest and initiative towards their lives as a blooming child.

My parents came here believing that they needed to work non-stop, and that providing for us materially, was enough.

I grew up believing that it was normal for your caregivers to not communicate interest towards your dreams, goals, passions, towards your inner-world overall.

My parents would fight in front of us as kids and young teenagers. Both verbally and physically.

They would bicker often about money, and would use it as a way to shame us as children.

No child should have to know why you're behind on your mortgage, or that you're overflowing in bill payments.

Nor should they see you put your hands on one-another, either.

The delivery from their communications was often always guilt-tripping, and manipulative.

Never once, did either of them, consider to take things outside, talk things out calmly and rationally, it was always a battle of who could get the last word and proving each other wrong.

A battle of the egos.

It still continues to this day, but of course it has improved.

I've learned to detach from them and their arguments, it's not easy but it's what has helped me to discover my own strengths.

I had to learn to validate my own needs.

My own experiences.

I had to learn to go through the dark alone, and radically accept that my parents may be fixed in their ways, and that it is not my responsibility to please them or meet their expectations.

It's my responsibility to live my life authentically, and to love myself for who I am, just as I am.

This conditioning is what a lot of my shadow-work involves, spiritually.

They are the two people who helped build my DNA and genetic make-up, and for giving me life, I will always be grateful. My dearest wish would be for them to understand that there is more to parenting then merely "providing".

It's taken a lot of work, through the dark, facing all the anxiety, depression, alienation, intrusive thinking, you name it, to get me to where I am.

I have learned that this will always be an ongoing battle, that my anxiety and depression are not me, but simply a part of me, and that there is always a way to work with them, rather than against them.

Because I faced a lot of shame and guilt growing up, being silenced, and feeling out-casted, these are usually the themes of my shadow-work.

These are often the emotions and feelings that I suppress and that come up when I am triggered or overwhelmed.

One of the most powerful lessons of my spiritual, and mental-health journey, have been learning to acknowledge all of my feelings, including the ones I often don't want to feel, and learning to not take things personally by others, especially my parents, because it is often a projection of their own shadows.

This has lifted so much weight off my shoulders over the years, and has brought a lot of closure for myself, because it helps me to understand my own emotions and to be able to distinguish what ones are mine, and what ones belong to the people around me.

As an empath, it can be very tricky to be able to do that.

I want to reach people's hearts and souls through my voice, my speech, my writing, my art and teach them how to use their own voices to free themselves from their own shadows that they may not even be aware of living with.

I hope I have been able to do that. I hope I continue to be able to do that as I continue to discover myself through my passions that I mentioned before.

I know that as long as I reach one person, that that is enough to influence an entire population of people.

All it takes is one person to empathize with your experience for you to feel free to be yourself.

I am on a spiritual-mission to learn how to strengthen and cultivate my innate empathetic nature for empowerment and to build resiliency by learning to live out our lives in genuine authenticity.

Through means of communicating openly, creating freely, and acknowledging our deepest fears, we open the gates to our true passions, our divine-destinies just as I have learned to throughout these past few years.

I continue to write, in hopes of reaching an audience of like-minded souls.

Here's to facing our fears and loving ourselves for it!

~Yela xx