Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Breaking open

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To live this life. To live it with wholeness and gratitude and trust. In the pain and the glory. In the mess and the grace. In the sacred and the desperation. This is the stuff of which real superheros are born. ~Jeanette LeBlanc

We are here to love hard and true. Here to give ourselves over to the rush and bliss of it all. Here to offer our patchwork hearts over and over again. Here to feel and fall and hurt and bleed. Here to say yes and to choose wholeness and to break anyway and to do it all again. ~Jeanette LeBlanc

Here you are.
Still standing. Fierce with the reality of love and loss. Wearing the truth of our hearts on your tattered sleeves. And yes, this one very nearly took you out. And yes, there were days when the darkness was heavy and the climb out of that rabbit hole required you to mine your depths for strength you didn’t even know you had.

But here you are.
Broken open by hope. Cracked wide by loss. Full of longing and grief and the burn of that phoenix fire. Warrior painted with ashes. Embers from the blaze still clinging to your newborn skin, leaving you forever marked with scars of rebirth.

And just look at you. Heart broken but still beating. Arms empty but still open. Face raised to the sky and giving thanks for the light, even when it hurts your eyes.

My god, you are beautiful. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

In preparing, I ran upon an old ACT UP handbook. It reminded me of the ways the “masters tools” are used break movements. Using power over to suppress us.
To shame us
To make us invisible
To mute our voices and our message
To kill our trust
These tools of the master are used to break one’s spirit, to disempower, to confuse, to divide, to immobilize. These tactics are another assault on our humanity.
They will not work.
We must love our people more than they hate us.
Movement work is about healing, building engaging and transforming. ~Desiree Lynn Adaway

Love.  Relating.  Having hope, even in and after devastating heartbreak.

I’ve been writing a lot over on IG the last few months.  It has been in part processing some grief around a specific relationship.  It has been in part confirming my truth in how we need to relate to each other, in all our relationships.  It has been in part me showing up as me, for me, and for you.

When my marriage was crumbling, and even shortly after it ended, I didn’t believe I would ever love again.  I didn’t believe I could ever open myself to that kind of heartbreak again.  I didn’t even know if I was capable of loving again, not in the ways that I had loved my ex-husband.

I kept my walls up.  My armor was on secure and tight.  I started “dating” eventually, because frankly, I wanted sex.

I wasn’t ready for and honestly, I didn’t want to have, a Relationship (with a Capital R).  I didn’t want to “catch feelings.”  I didn’t want to be vulnerable.  I didn’t want to risk having my heart shattered again.  

I didn’t meet anyone who changed my mind on this for a while, several months.

And then I did. 

It is ironic to look back at the very beginning of this relationship.  We texted for a week and I wasn’t overly interested, though in text we seemed like a good match.  I almost canceled our first date.  But then I wanted to get out and we had plans, so I went.

And I met him.

There are so many details I’m going to leave out.  And I knew, I knew, that he would break my heart.  I knew, from that first night, he would break me open in ways I didn’t want to be broken open, in ways I wasn’t ready to be broken open.

But are we ever really ready to be broken open?  I don’t think so.

I knew he and I were probably not going to last forever.  I had lost all faith in happily ever after and ’til death do us part.  I didn’t want a white picket fence anymore (ironically, he actually has a white picket fence at his house).  I didn’t want to be tied down with expectations and promises, mine or anyone else’s.  So I knew, at some point we would come to an end, and when that day came, my heart would shatter.

I wrote this the other day on IG ::

Sometimes we meet people who have profound impacts on our lives and our Self. Just by being them they create space for us to unearth some lost pieces of who we are. They show us what it is to be loved and adored. They teach us what freedom is. We may want these people to be in our lives forever but that may not be how it works out. They may only be with us for a short while & yet their impact is massive & our hearts shatter when they leave.

Hearts are meant to shatter I believe. And then to be put back together. We are meant to love & lose that love. Nothing is forever.

And sometimes relationships come back & start again. There are those in my life who I can literally go a decade without talking to & when we see each other it is as if no time has passed.

There are people who light us up regardless of time or distance.

We can’t “keep” these people though. People are not for keeping. People are for loving, for caring for, for experiencing life with. In whatever time allows us to have with them.

“All we have to see, is I don’t belong to you and you don’t belong to me.” ~George Michael

I am in a time of grief.  It is true.  I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.  I left the door open for the future, and who knows.  And also, in these moments I need to accept the ending of what was.  

This hurts like hell.  My chest literally aches.  I cry at the drop of a hat.  

I’m not miserable though.  I wouldn’t change any of this, because knowing him allowed me the space to get so much of myself back, including my knowing that I am meant to love, and to love deep and hard, without apologies or fear.  I am more me for having known him, even if it was for the briefest moment of time. 

I will eventually move through this grief.  It is true.  While time alone doesn’t heal all (or any) wounds, it does help to dull the pain, and in addition I am processing the hell out of this year and our time together and what it has all meant to and for me.

Here’s a thing though, our love, our wide open hearts, our vulnerability, our authenticity, aren’t only meant for romantic love.  They are meant for friends.  For (chosen) family.  For colleagues.  For comrades.  For our grocery clerk.  For total strangers.

We need to bring love, our whole broken open selves, into all our spaces.  Most especially into those spaces that are about bringing systemic change, about tearing down the status quo, about ending oppression and authoritarianism and marginalization.  

The world needs our wide open hearts.  The world needs us to be willing to risk having our hearts shattered, over and over.  By lovers, friends, family, and strangers.  With every shattering, the world needs us to choose to put our hearts back together and then to enter the world with them wide open once again.  

This doesn’t mean walking through the world without boundaries (we all desperately need those).  It doesn’t mean being a martyr or allowing people to cause us great harm in the name of Love.  It doesn’t mean we are passive.

We can be warriors with open hearts.  I would argue the only way to be a warrior is with an open heart.  With the strength and bravery and willingness to move through the fear and let people in and to hold space for others to let us in too.  

In order to be in the world with our hearts open, and able to hold space for others with open hearts, we have to do our own work.  Our own internal work.  Of healing old wounds.  Of processing old traumas.  Of becoming self aware, self reflective.  Of creating the pause before we react to situations out of anger or frustration or hurt.  Of getting to the roots of the ways we have internalized oppressive and authoritarian behaviors and attitudes. Of getting to the roots of our own blackholes of abandonment, neglect, not feeling worthy or deserving or wanted.  

We need to do this work so we are not only able to allow ourselves to be broken open, but also so we can be in the spaces with others who are breaking open themselves.  We need to do this so we don’t continue to carry the master’s tools.  We need to do this so we can break harmful inter-generational patterns and cycles.  We need to do this so we can create a world where love, not fear, is abundant and the motivation for all our actions.  

We need to do this work for the sake of our most intimate relationships, for the sake of our least intimate relationships, for the sake of our Self, our humanity, our real purpose in life.

Which is to love.  Each other. Our Self.  Our world.

/../

This essay was originally published in my weekly(ish) newsletter on November 18, 2019. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays, you can subscribe here.

Shame, complex trauma, & relating with others

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Shame is a soul eating emotion. ~Carl Gustav Jung

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change. ~Brene Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. ~J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

If we turn away from our own pain, we may find ourselves projecting this aversion onto others, seeing them as somehow inadequate for being in a troubled situation. ~Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

When we live with complex trauma in our minds and bodies, relating to others in ways that are not harmful is complicated and challenging. We need to be incredibly self aware, to be able to analyze when we feel activated if what we are feeling is because of the other person or because of our past or some combination of the two. And there are times when we stumble and fail, and our trauma gets the best of us.

We may feel shame when that happens. Shame that we lost our shit, again. Shame that we are “broken.” Shame that we can’t just be “normal.”

In addition to this, many of us carry general shame around the abuse or neglect we experienced. We may feel it was our fault or we could have prevented it somehow. We may feel embarrassed about what was done to us. We may feel “tainted” or “damaged.”

And of course there is the guilt that quickly turns to shame around the harm we caused another person in the present.

Shame is a part of living with complex trauma. Shame for the past. Shame for the present. Shame for a future that only looks bleak.

This shame isn’t ours to carry, though.

It was not our fault, what happened to us.

We are not responsible for the actions of others.

We are only responsible for our own actions.

And.

With this truth that we are responsible for our actions, and any harm we may cause others, it is also true that we need to have compassion for ourselves, compassion for the young children living in us who didn’t get compassion or love, compassion for the ways we are still in the midst of processing and healing, compassion for our humanity and the reality that we will each fuck up.

What matters, to me, and according to Attachment Theory, is not whether we cause harm (because we all will), but rather the ways we work towards repair, atonement, amends.

It is how we handle the aftermath of our “losing our shit” that matters.

Shame would have us hiding out. Pretending what happened didn’t happen. Not addressing the harm. Ignoring it.

Shame would have us defensive. Making excuses. Placing blame on others for our own actions.

Shame would have us causing further damage to the relationship, both with the other and with our own integrity, values, and Self.

Shame, and all the aspects of our complex trauma, causes harm. To our Self. To our relationships. When we are able to connect to our shame, to get to its roots, to find ways to calm it and soothe it, to offer it and ourselves compassion, we begin the vital repair work in our relationship with our Self.

As we are able to repair our relationship with our Self, to find compassion and understanding for the whys of the ways we are in the world, we also create space to work on the repair in our other relationships.

Having compassion for our Self and the harm we have caused another does not “let us off the hook.” We can never use our own traumatic experiences as an excuse to allow us to harm others or to not make the important repairs necessary to rebuild and strengthen our relationships.

This compassion doesn’t make it okay to be abusive, neglectful, or to try to ignore the ways we have damaged another and our relationships.

This compassion does give us a lens to look through, at our Self. To see all, or at least some of, the hurt we carry within us. To see the ways this hurt comes out and impacts others in our lives. To see where our work is, where we can begin the next layer of our own untangling and unraveling.

We will each inevitably cause harm to the people we love. This is, unfortunately, currently part of being human. However, while it is inevitable we will cause harm, it is our choice what we do after.

If we choose repair, with both our Self and the other, we are making the brave, and terrifying, decision to break generations old patterns and cycles, to take down the status quo one relationship at a time. This choice not only brings change within our smaller world, it has ripple effects that will create change in our greater social structure.

The more we are able to intimately, and vulnerably, relate with those we care most about, the more the way we look at relationships with all other humans will also shift. These shifts will also impact and influence others.|

One relationship at a time.

One fuck up at a time.

One repair at a time.

/../

This essay was originally published to my weekly(ish) newsletter on January 20, 2020. It has been edited and revised for publication here. To receive my most recent essays, you can subscribe here.

We will be exploring shame and how it impacts us and our relationships in Embodied Writing :: Too much, not enough, & shame. We begin Monday, January 27, 2020 and registration will close on Sunday January 26 at 10pm PST. To learn more and register, click here.

Renewing in the Underworld

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Each of us has his own way of emerging from the underworld, mine is by writing. That’s why the only way I can keep going, if at all, is by writing, not through rest and sleep. I am far more likely to achieve peace of mind through writing than the capacity to write through peace. ~Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice‎

The most important journey you will take in your life will usually be the one of self transformation. Often, this is the scariest because it requires the greatest changes, in your life. ~Shannon L. Alder

Change is supremely inconvenient, uncomfortable and naturally scary. Yet we only move through life through the process of change, reinvention and renewal, and so bravery is our quintessential rebel for pushing us past our own limiting beliefs and behaviours. Bravery is feeling the fear, immersing yourself into it and through it so you can come out the other side. ~Christine Evangelou, Rocks Into Roses: Life Lessons and Inspiration for Personal Growth

Our world is filled with stories of the Underworld, the place of the dead.  It is often portrayed as a dark place, a sad place, a lonely place.  In western culture we don’t view the Underworld as a place of transformation, but rather as a final landing place, where are soul will rest, or not rest, for the rest of eternity.

In the story of Inanna, she spends three days, dead, in the Underworld after being killed by her sister, Ereshkigal, before she is freed by her handmaiden Ninshubar.  In this story Inanna’s time in the Underworld is that of transformation, reformation, and eventually rebirth as she emerges back through the gates with the aid of her friend and handmaiden.

I see our time in the Underworld not as a “final resting place” but more as a place of transformation like in the story of Inanna.  I see us traveling in and out of the Underworld throughout our lives, and have come to name this space and time The Goo.

Long time readers have heard/read me talk/write about The Goo before.  The Goo is that time and space when a caterpillar is in its chrysalis, and has totally disintegrated, but has not yet begun to form into a butterfly, moth, or dragonfly.  It is this in-between stage and is so often uncomfortable because the past is no more and yet the future becoming is totally unknown.  It can be a terrifying time, and it can also be a time of calm, renewal, and self-care and nourishing.  

When we are able to allow ourselves to be in these in-between places, in The Goo, without anxiety or fear, we can find our ways to our deeper Self.  We can shed some of the pains that we had held onto for too long, and create space for something new, different, more true to who we want to be in the world, and not only a person reacting (unconsciously or consciously) to our past traumas and experiences. 

Learning to sit in this discomfort, in this unknown, is no easy feat.  For those of us with complex trauma the unknown can be so terrifying we freeze and or spiral into the depths of anxiety and or depression.  Being able to “know” what is next, having our plans (and sticking to them no matter what), brings us comfort and helps us feel like our lives are less chaotic and that we actually have some amount of control – which then brings us a sense of safeness which allows us to function in the world.

Here’s a thing though, life is chaotic.  It is unpredictable.  Each next moment is actually an unknown.  Plans change.  Natural disasters happen.  Accidents occur.  There is much out of our control, whether we want to think about it or not, and no matter how much we try to bring in order from the chaos that is living life as a human on this planet.

So.

When we are able to accept the chaos for what it is, simply part of living life, we may be able to begin to tolerate the unknowns, the in-betweens.  Once that happens then maybe we can learn to find ways to be in those in-between spaces, in The Goo, not only without anxiety, but with a sense of understanding the importance of these spaces, these times.  Then perhaps we can learn ways to nourish ourselves, to replenish ourselves, to allow ourselves to rest while we are in The Goo.  In the Underworld.  In the midst of transition and transformation and rebirth.

/../

This essay was originally written for my weekly(ish) newsletter on January 21, 2019. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays, you can subscribe here.

We will be spending some time in the Underworld in my seven week writing program Embodied Writing :: Too much, not enough, & shame. We begin January 27. You can learn more here.

Our shame narratives

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We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare. ~Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

We all carry with us narratives from our families of origin, narratives from our communities, narratives from our greater culture.  The stories of how we are too much this or not enough that.  The stories about how we should feel shame for what we want, what we do, who we are, that we even exist in the first place.

These narratives didn’t come to us out of the blue.  These are stories that have been cultivated for generations and generations, by a greater culture that sees humans as a commodity to be used, but not respected.  These stories stem from capitalism, authoritarianism, patriarchy, misogyny.  These stories stem from those in power wanting to stay in power and doing whatever they can to keep everyone else in line and doing their bidding.

That is where those stories come from on a meta level.  That is how they seep into our communities.  Into our families. Into our relationships.  Into us.

It is true that our own experiences of abuse feed these stories.  Complex trauma only makes those voices louder, only makes the stories seem more true.

And.

I would argue that the abuse of children – sexual, physical, neglect – all stem from this meta source.  

Why else would children be beaten if not to be forced to fall in line with the status quo?

Why else would children be molested if not because the abusers were indoctrinated in the idea that children exist to serve others, in any and all capacities?

Why else would children be neglected if the adults weren’t so busy trying to stay alive within a culture that wants to kill them?

I am not dismissing the responsibility of the abusers for their own actions.  Regardless of our own experiences of oppression and abuse we are always responsible for how we treat others in the world and whether or not we perpetuate harm.

What I am saying is that these narratives are fed to us from many, many different places.  Hearing these narratives is inescapable.  If it’s not our family, or our Self that’s telling us how we are too much or not enough and should feel shame, our greater culture definitely is.  

These stories are fed to us, from birth.  These stories seep into under skin, into our muscles, our sinew, our bones.  These stories keep us small, quiet, complicit, compliant.

These stories keep us stuck in harmful (to us and others) patterns and cycles.  

These stories impact the ways we relate to others.  They have us judging.  They have us expecting.  They have us assuming.  They have us demanding.

These stories keep us disconnected from our Self.  Our true self.  Our tend, broken open heart, Self.  The self that knows, in its very being these narratives are total bullshit.  The Self that asks over and over, why do you keep believing these lies?

Because a truth is, we are not too much.

A truth is, we are exactly enough.

A truth is, we get to take up space.  And there is plenty of space for everyone.

A truth is, we get to state our wants, whatever they are, without shame. 

A truth is, we get to have our boundaries respected.  

A truth is, we are exactly enough just as we are.

A truth is, we can do the work of untangling all this cultural indoctrination and trauma.

Let’s do it.  Let’s undo the generations of training we have living in our bodies and minds.  Let’s begin to feel good in our own skin.  Let’s find our ways to connection, real connection, without losing pieces of ourselves in the process.

We can do it.  I know we can.  

/../

This essay was originally published in my weeklyish newsletter on January 14, 2020. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe here.

We will be exploring these narratives in my seven week writing course Embodied Writing :: Too much, not enough, & shame. We begin Monday, January 27, 2020. To learn more and register, click here.

Reclaiming our Self, reclaiming our life

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What makes you come alive? What keeps you going ? Is there hope in your heart still or has the weariness of the world attached itself to you like a limpet leaving you afraid and passionless? Do you wake up with a smile and stars in your eyes after restless, feverish soul-searching in the night? Do you dream, dream beyond what is possible and beyond the narrow confines of your jaded existence? How old do you feel? How much in love can you fall? How much step is there in your dance, o how many notes left in your song? Have you decided to sit by and watch others dance or weep at the dying notes of your own swan song?

Shake your lethargy. Come alive to innocence once more. Believe past your own jaded cynicism. Pretend you are young once more. Jump up with a spring in your feet, fall breathlessly in love again. Let the colors of the world wash over your walls, brushing the greys away. Let the sunlight of hope flood through your doubting self, o let the music play.

Dance till you ache and drop, laugh till you cry. Sing till your lungs burst, and journey till the very road ends and dream by the moonless starless nights. Sleep with a secret smile on your lips, your body flush with the imprints of lips. Come alive, my dearest …reclaim yourself from the living dead. ~Srividya Srinivasan

After a very traumatic year (2017), followed by a year of trying to find my footing again (2018), I welcomed the new year of 2019.

As 2018 came to and end and 2019 began, I felt a huge shift within me that, if I’m honest, started in the spring of 2018, but that I wouldn’t begin to recognize until October of that year, and wouldn’t fully acknowledge or accept until that mid-December.

This is what our personal change and growth can look like.  The changes can be happening within us, without us being fully aware or wanting to fully admit them.  And yet, they are there, they exist, they are happening, and in so many ways we can’t stop them.

Entering 2019, I felt I was on the other side of the traumatic events of 2017.  I had a sense of calm and peace and happiness that I didn’t know if I could say I had ever truly felt before in my life.

Getting to this place, accepting that I was in this place, was a process.  Acknowledging that I actually felt freedom, calm, joy… it had been a process of reclaiming who I truly am.

Over the years, I can see how I got lost in adulthood.  In motherhood.  In wifehood.  In the idea of what it means to be a “grown up” and do “grown up” things.  I knew that parts of me were being lost in this process, and told myself, that is just part of becoming, being, an adult.

It was a good story.

A truth is, we don’t have to lose who we are in order to become an adult.  We don’t have to sacrifice the things we like and love about ourselves in order to be “good parents” or spouses/partners, or employees.

True growing up doesn’t look like stuffing those parts of ourselves that we love, that actually truly define us, down.  It doesn’t look like “playing a role” because that’s how we think adults/partners/parents “should” act.  

True growth, and growing up, looks like celebrating who we are.  Yes, our interests will grow and shift. Yes, there will be times when we need to prioritize others and put our own wants and needs on hold for a period of time (as in, not forever).

We all lose ourselves from time to time.  It takes courage to acknowledge this, and even more courage to begin the process of reclaiming who we are, what we want, what we love.  

Coming home to our bodies is part of that process.  Relearning who we were and who we want to be is part of that process.  Reclaiming our own truth, our own wants, our own needs.

Reclaiming is part of our process of personal change and growth, and also part of our trauma processing work.  Reclaiming who we are, at our core, reclaiming our life as out own, so that we can stop surviving and begin thriving, can be intense.

And I would say, this is what truly being an adult is about.

/../
This essay was originally published in my weekly(ish) newsletter on January 28, 2019. It has been edited and revised for publication here. To receive my most recent essays, subscribe to my newsletter here.

We will be exploring reclaiming parts of our Self and life in the seven week program Embodied Writing that begins on January 27, 2020. To learn more and register, click here.

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