Letting Go Of Oversharing & Reclaiming My Self-Sovereignty
Personal Growth, Self-Care, healing
In my past,
when I was in my lowest emotional waves, I had a tendency to overshare, overexplain and unload excessively to others. I would share about the experience (with specific details), the situation-specific emotional pain (grief, anger, resentment) and even my mental thought process for a long period of time. Each time I share a piece of the experience, I would further ingrain the victim narrative within myself. My friends would feel drained listening and holding the space for me. My emotional pain was assuaged and the sharing felt like a release (just the slightest). But truth was, I was really looking for validation, for sympathy, for comfort, to feel loved as I was hurting/resentful/traumatized/grieving. I had zero awareness of where this natural reflex/response (aka conditioning) of oversharing and overexplaining was rooted from. Reiterating my experience as a victim did no good to my emotional pain or helped in my healing either.
Sounds familiar to you?
Before I began my quest of self-discovery and personal growth, I never knew what true boundaries were. As someone who admittedly holds boundaries highly in her life, I never truly understood the multi-faceted layers of boundaries and self-care conditioning. I thought I did, I assumed that my ability to be in my own space alone, qualifies me as a strong, empowered, balanced woman. But I was wrong. I never dug deeper. I never saw how intricately my poor boundaries were weaved with my wounded feminine and my inner child wounds.
“Find your bones. Believe in what you are.”
Uncovering our wounds
Astrologically with Your Chiron
In my article of Astrology: Understanding your Chiron Sign, I shared how our Chiron Sign is referred to as the area in our life that we experience our deepest wounding. I personally relate our Chiron sign to our Inner Child woundings that we received as a child. Our Chiron reflects the areas in our life where we experience hypersensitivities because of experiences that we have undergone from the moment we were born till around the age of 18 months. This hypersensitivity is an energetic reaction stemming from your childhood either from your parents, caregivers, or immediate guardians. This wounding is a rejection at a young age and other future triggers/woundings are echoes or re-representation of that original wounding. It could be something that you did or didn’t do when you were younger that was disapproved/condemned or when you felt slighted/unloved —regardless intentionally or unintentionally. Knowing our Chiron sign offers us a glimpse of how we can embrace this wounding; reminding us to love, re-parent and accept ourselves again.
Going Inwards with Your Inner child
We all have a wounded inner child. Our inner child is our innocent and most youngest version of ourselves. This inner child could have a number of ages. She/he could be 4 years old, 10 years old, or both, and so on. The age does not matter, but what matters is she/he is the truest and most authentic core of your being, that transcends beyond the rigidity of your ego. Despite the purity and charisma of the inner child, she/he is also the part of you that is the most insecure, scared, and shame-ridden. In fact, it is your wounded inner child who is at the core of your anxious tendencies and depression. It’s your wounded inner child who underlies your addictions, self-sabotages, resentments, and toxic core beliefs in your current life. As we grow up, this inner child can remain wounded; the wound inevitably surfaces when she/he is stressed or feels threatened. Such situations trigger the memory of the reaction one used as a child in defending or protecting themselves. Our inner child is still residing in our adult self.
Embodying self-love and anchoring our most authentic self is done through our inner child.
This is the aspect of us that wants to be seen, heard, loved and ultimately, integrated. Our inner child is always trying to get our attention so that we can learn how to meet our own needs and love ourselves, instead of assigning those roles to people, places, and things.
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What I eventually realized was that my response of oversharing and overexplaining was resulted from my inability to accept the feelings and fears of abandonment and rejection from others. My inner child felt the need to explain, share, express, apologize, vocalize myself to feel seen, heard, validated and loved.
In the aspect of our coping mechanism in regards to oversharing, this could play out in the following:
excessive need to make one see the side of your perspective
excessive oversharing, overexplaining from a victim perspective
rationalizing and verbalizing our “why”
feeling a need to defend our truth and worth
apologizing for our needs, limitations, desires and emotions
If you are reading this article, a part of you identified with oversharing and your inner child resonates with this. And I promise you, you are not alone. The steps to healing our inner child begin with re-parenting ourselves. Re-parenting our inner child is a bonding experience by being a parent to ourselves in terms of experiences and emotional support that were not met in the past.
Oversharing and overexplaining still come up for me sometimes, but I would notice myself responding above and taking a conscious effort to re-parent myself. Making room for her in ways that only I know— and not validating her through others. Energetically, it is simply taking back who has the rightful access to your (her) energies and reclaiming your self-sovereignty.
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Self-sovereignty
Self-sovereignty is an empowered, integrated state of your True Self that already resides within you. It is a state that welcomes all spectrum of emotions and experiences in a non-judgemental way. It holds the door to unlocking joy, peace and freedom within you. When we are self-sovereign, we acknowledge and recognize each other as sovereign individuals too. We accept them for who they are and acknowledge their space for their human nature, their individual healing and their unique soul path. We look at social interactions, emotional triggers with a deeper awareness and profound understanding. We understand that in each resistance and discomfort lies an opportunity for healing. We engage our empathy muscle. We become masters at observing, detaching and responding from a place of unconditional love, compassion, grace for another.
Self-sovereignty means taking full accountability and ownership of your emotions, desires, responses and actions.
This means making a safe space for yourself to process, analyze, internalize and contemplate (aka your mind). Then disengaging with your mind, making mindful, unattached objectivity for impassive wisdom and clarity to come through. Doing the work, not for the betterment of our ego, but for the betterment of everyone around us. Do note this process varies for every individual as it is extremely personalized— what works for one may not work for another. And eventually, allowing the emergence, expansion, integration and embodiment of your newfound wisdom. It is the ability of individuals to take actions and decisions in a conscious, deliberate and independent manner. A remembrance of our True Self, engaging in our divine role and embracing the cosmic truth that we are all connected in the unseen, unfelt, yet transcendental and ethereal web of Unity. It is remembering your life is no one else’s, but your true responsibility.
below are my 3 Tips in overcoming oversharing and Reclaiming your Self-Sovereignty:
Begin by cultivating (and reclaiming) your self-sovereignty today
As explained above, self-sovereignty means taking full accountability and ownership of your emotions, desires, responses and actions.
Hold a non-judgemental space for yourself for every emotion, desire, action and desire as an opportunity to introduce healing, integrate inner work and to become the most empowered version of yourself. Take time to work through the shadows in each transformation. Allow what no longer serves you, like limiting beliefs, falsehoods, past wounds to surface and be released. Internalize, disengage, integrate and embody. Allow awareness in each breath of it. Take responsibility for your mistakes, unresolved pain and projections. Take conscious actions for what you want to manifest and what you want to release. Trust yourself and honor your inner child in what he/she needs. Honor your “processing” process. Allow time for your own clarity to come through. Do not compare your unique process with anyone. Release any timelines. Draw boundaries. Share when you have properly processed and integrated them within you. Do it again, again and again.
Observe yourself deeply
Notice how and what you really feel when you are oversharing. Do you feel acknowledged, or recognized? Was that your real intention because you have not made room for your inner child to feel seen, heard, validated and loved? Notice that each time you are oversharing or overexplaining, the wounded aspect of your inner child is just seeking validation from that person. Engage /reparent in the ways that your inner child needs right now. Is it some movement, art, music, time in nature, watching a light-hearted movie/cartoon, or simply a self-hug and crying it out? Most of all, be so gentle with yourself. Allow this bonding experience to be fun.
Shift your questions from Why to What.
What does she/he really need right now?
What can I do to make her/him feel safe in our presence?
What creative activities we can do together to express the emotions in a safe manner?
Protect your energy with boundaries
Know that not everyone needs to have access to your energy. Know that not everyone needs to have access to your energy right now. In the process of processing our emotional pain, fostering emotional clarity and reclaiming our self-sovereignty, our energy is more volatile and sensitized by external factors. If we are not discerning, and these individuals are not self-sovereign enough, we can be easily inundated by other’s opinions, unresolved pain and projections too. Not everyone is equipped with the emotional awareness to hold your emotional pain, you can jeopardize your healing too and warrant any potential emotional bypassing. Boundaries are incredibly imperative when you are at your processing stage.
What I personally do is to let my close ones know that I am in the midst of processing something/ something has happened, and I do not have the ability to respond as actively as I used to or hold space for others, as I need to hold space for myself right now. I would eventually only share to a handful of closed ones after I have processed them myself. As a line 1 in Human Design, my process is more of an individuated path. I have noticed that I need to process in my own time and space. I do it using a variety of ways, from movement, crying, meditation, nature, silence. It may differ for you.
Emotions are meant to be felt, not suppressed. Un-attach yourself with any timelines and let them flow through you. Let them in, let them through, and when you are ready, transmute and eventually let them go.
I hope the article helps you in ways which have helped me even through my present. Self-sovereignty plays an integral part in my personal growth and spiritual journey.
Inner child work is an important chapter that I cover in great detail in Bhava: Your Journey Inwards Toolkit. A journey of self-discovery where I will walk you through several expansive tools and exercises on healing your inner child and reclaiming your power and your sovereignty. Do give Bhava a look if it resonates and let me know below if you have any questions!
Sat Nam,
Sylvia
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I am Sylvia— the founder, writer, intuitive healer, and human design reader of Arawme. “Arawme” is basically, a raw me put together.
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