The quieter it gets, it’s always still there….there’s just more room to love and be loving because peace of mind is a choice. No matter how you feel and what exists and what doesn’t, peace of mind I have found is always a choice.
The two main things that stuck out from my last therapy session have unleashed a revolution in me. I’m noticing so many patterns. Such as how after a few days without therapy my mind starts to return to over-thinking, second guessing, painful ruminating on things not in the present. As soon as I get back into that safe space and process things out I return to grounding.
I am catching my triggers before they hit the ground now.
Knowing this helps me to tell myself anxiety and trauma is lying to me and operating as a mechanism not as a mindful choice and to be still and ground and make everything ok again by doing so. It works. If you do the work, the work will work for you. It fucking works.
I could be afraid of being dependent on therapy. There are worse things to be dependent on. If self-growth, grounding, and awareness is a way of life for me, which it is with or without therapy, then is that the worst thing? No! There are far worse things. I’ve lived (autocorrect changed lived to loved and I almost left it) them, over and over.
I think there will come a time when I’ll move on to the next phase of my therapy and growth from relating in general, and rather than make that time happen, I will trust in the timing and the work I am doing. That is after all the most important thing, and it’s also something I’ve lived 40 years of my life without.
So the two takeaways from therapy. In a personal journey to forgive myself for so many things right now and to see myself in ways I’ve always deserved, in my full spectrum of humanity, I have worried about impulsivity. I mean I literally tried to take anything available and make it into forever. I did this every single time. And while all of those situations were worthy of such a pursuit…. What I have learned is something truly can already exist available, without doing all of that work. Holy shit that’s a revelation that I can know cognitively, but embodiment will take much longer. That has to become real.
So my therapist asked me to consider the difference between impulsivity and irresponsibility, because I’ve been using them interchangeably. She said I’m not irresponsible and of course my pain wants to resist. My harsh relationship with myself says yes I am, because if I didn’t have that out of balance I felt I would not hold myself accountable. Except I hadn’t updated my software to my new self, the one I’ve been becoming for years.
Because trauma makes us invisible to ourselves. Often times trauma survivors can see others and the world with a staggering clarity, but during all their pain they left themselves to survive. I left myself to survive, and I never came back. Until my brink of 40 awakening. Wherever you go, there you are.
Here I am. I am here to stay!
I believed for years, mired in my health symptoms that I would be snuffed out early, and this past year I’ve had some habits that haven’t felt that. My energy healer and I identified those old coping comforts as self betrayal and that really helps me make one healthier decision in front of the other. One step at a time becomes a way of thinking and life, rather than a cheesy rhetoric.
Because no one wants to be uncool. But cool is such a different thing than can be seen on the outside. Cool is a heart that refuses to surrender in the fight of pursuing a life that feels it’s direct making: path. That’s fucking cool. Watch me work and peel back all these layers of gunk that built up at one time to protect me.
How could I see myself so poorly.? Easily Christina. You were not seen. But once you see yourself for all the beauty there is no turning back. I’ll never abandon me again. And that’s a scary concept, but not a disconnected one. So scattered, my mind so shattered, I thought I wouldn’t find my way out of the dark wood, and now I’m basking in the light.
It still smarts. There are new scars. The tissue is pink, they burn in the sun and in the sand, and the tears slide down my cheeks, but I feel and I am alive and connected with me. I’ll never lose this, you can’t take this from me.
So I was thinking how shitty it’s been to refer to myself as impulsive. You wouldn’t tell a Veteran they are being impulsive when they jump under a car because a muffler backfired down the street, you would feel compassion for them. The design of my life and my own ability to shoulder my own burdens never wanting anyone else to be uncomfortable by my story, has led to shame and misunderstanding after misunderstanding.
And I scrambled to explain myself, to beg to be seen. Something felt off, not connecting. Could I really be selfish in the way I was being accused, and I mean look at all the evidence.
I had to fucking recover and reclaim me, my right to exist. And if you’ve never had to do that then all I ask if that you listen no matter how many times I need to talk about it, because if it makes you uncomfortable imagine what it’s done to my insides. My fucking insides, screaming, tight. My intestines tightening, roiling, and I’d keep all that away from anyone else and the fact I couldn’t breathe, to make sure not to upset anyone. Because when I saw their upset even if it was compassion for me, it was so distressing.
So I internalized it all. And now I need to get it fucking out. Out of me. I need to talk about it, without being afraid of hurting someone else. And I need to be able to say aloud when I don’t feel well, like everyone else does. Instead of silently praying it will just get better and pass and if I make less of a big deal about it, maybe I won’t get so anxious.
I’ve tried every trick in the box to manage this burgeoning insanity (trauma) so it would never make anyone else uncomfortable so I wouldn’t have to drown in shame. I tried it until it consumed my body. My body began attacking itself, and I was forced to wake up and journey. However that was so scary and so painful that I just kept trying to find a safe space to belong and cling so my kids were kept safe while I felt so shattered.
And then that too became a fault and a problem and a bad thing about me, then I was co-dependent and this and that and finally my out of congruence landed me as the ultimate monster…. And I’ve had to walk my way through the ruins of that, finding the compassion for the battle itself, rather than me being a ruthless bomber of Pearl Harbor magnitude.
I’ve had to stop that.
So now here we are. Walking, crying, talking, learning, laughing, leaning, breathing, connecting, aloneing, singing, playing, and so many other things.
The second thing from therapy is again this concept of not accommodating, and being on egg shells, because I’ve been in such scarcity the only thing I knew how to do was chameleon. I can’t say what I want need or feel because it always seems to be a burden. And the suggestion that anyone you can’t be yourself with, your whole self (well that’s a lot, see that’s what immediately think). That’s not your person and those are not your people.
So not making myself smaller to belong or be comforted. Being my full size.
And then….. now….. my story and then books and teachings…. They will emerge.
It is in this year of my life that I’m able to see every mechanism to cope. Every irritability with my kids was all the pain I’ve been in, and now it’s time to release it so I can enjoy them and living…. Life itself, with my whole heart.
I want to educate parents about trauma and how they can misunderstand because of it. How we can mistranslate one another. And help them connect the dots to finding a relationship with their children that feels like the one they want, with realistic expectations, which are so hard if we have never known what those are.
Small shifts…. RE-wiring.
Wired for love.