Pins and needles

Ever have a leg or an arm go to sleep and then move and feel that horrible pins and needles sensation of returning circulation? That always made me long for the numbness again. Returning circulation can be incredibly painful but it's necessary. Without circulation our limbs would die and rot off or have to be cut off and when that happens, if you don't get to them in time, the rest of the body dies. Emotions can be like that, too.

If you've spent most of your life, or even a good part of it, denying your emotions, numbing yourself so that you can't feel anything, not even happiness, and suddenly your emotions kick in because you fall in love or wake up or have an epiphany, the pain is just like the pins and needles of returning circulation. Most of us don't like pain and we long for the numbness, for the time when we didn't feel anything or know that such pain existed, but unless we let emotional circulation return we die...slowly and painfully, rotting at the soul's core.

It's so seductive, that feeling of numbness where you can't feel anything, and the pain of returning emotions is almost more than you can stand at times. I know. I've been there. You just want the pain to stop. But you have to endure the pain in order to live, and living is far better than dying slowly or your soul rotting away. The thing is that once you allow your emotions to surface, get thru the awful pins and needles, you don't have to endure that pain any more. There will be other pains, but none so bad as the pins and needles. Believe me, it's worth it to feel again. Not all tears are to be avoided. Some of them cleanse our hearts and our souls like a fresh spring rain after a long dry winter.