Category: being & becoming

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On Self Care :: Stress, Grief, & Embodiment

When we contemplate the miracle of embodied life, we begin to partner with our bodies in a kinder way.

~Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

I have a confession.

I actually love the winter holiday season.

I love all the lights and glitter. I love the promise of snow.  I love the food we eat this time of year.  I love the hustle and bustle and the quiet snuggling in.  I do.  I love it.

And.

This time of year is also challenging for me.  My mother’s birthday is in mid-December and so there is a triple reminder of how she is not here to celebrate this time of year with us.  I notice how certain family members don’t call.  I think of friends who have moved away.  I consider the things and opportunities in life that I have lost.  I think about the life I wanted compared to the life I have.

In short, while I love this time of year, it is also a time of grieving.

And while I do love the bright energy of the hustle and bustle of this time of year, I also am acutely aware of how that bright energy can become heavy and oppressive.  How what is supposed to be fun can become overwhelmingly stressful.  How one moment I may look at my full calendar with excitement and anticipation and the next I may look at it with dread.

Basically, I am human.  Which means I am complex.  Which means I can have a mix of seemingly opposing emotions and feelings all at once.

Just like you.

To me, it’s never a question of my complexity.  Rather, it’s a question of how I hold all of me at once.

In other words, how to do I allow all my complexity to flow and be?  How do I sit with the bittersweetness of this time of year?  How do I not only allow myself, but also encourage myself, to feel all the various and opposing emotions, thoughts, and well, feelings?

For me, that answer is being in my body.  Not leaving it, not sitting or hovering outside of it.  Rather, being in it, in the now, and finding ways to tolerate all the complex sensations and emotions that I may be having.

Embodiment is both simple and not easy.  Coming home into our bodies, and deeply feeling and sensing our lived experience can feel overwhelming at times.  It can feel too much.  And also, with practice, we learn to tolerate those challenging emotions and sensations more and more.

We stop stuffing them down, only to wait for them to explode.

We stop ignoring them, only to have them crop up as various illnesses.

We start connecting to them, dipping out toes into them at first, and in time and with practice, going further and further in, finding new ways to embrace our own complexities, our own disparities, our own both ands.

I talk more about this in the 14 minute video below ::

This essay is the third and final essay in a three part series I have put together to introduce some of the topics we’ll be exploring in my winter self-care circle, Self Care for Challenging Times :: Holiday Edition.  If you’d like to learn more and possibly join us, you can click right here.

Other essays in this series::

Holidays, Trauma, & Our Nervous Systems

Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries

 

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On Self Care :: Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries!

Boundaries define us.  They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and where someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership.  Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom.

~Henry Cloud

Boundaries.

We talk about them a lot.  On my most recent Open Office Hours call we talked about them, in fact.

We talked about what a boundary is.  What they mean to us.  What some of our “obstacles” may be in honoring or defending our own boundaries.  What some of our stories are when others honor their own boundaries. How boundaries run both ways.  How they are fluid.  How they are complex.

There are many things I believe about our boundaries.  One is that they are fluid and living and breathing; they change from day to day and person to person.  In a phrase, what our boundaries actually are depends on All The Things.

In my experience there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to boundaries.  What may be a firm boundary with person A today may not be a boundary at all tomorrow with person B.  Many of our personal boundaries change with time, and some never change at all.  This is part of life – we all change and grow and it makes sense that our boundaries would do so too.

I also deeply believe our boundaries, physical, psychological, and emotional, are directly tied to our bodies.  What I mean by this is that I believe we can sense when a boundary is being violated long before we are fully consciously aware of what it happening.  Our body reacts, in one way or another, to this intrusion.  It could show up as a knot in our stomach or literal pain in our neck.  It could show up as suddenly feeling agitated or anxious, without any “real” or “logical” explanation.  It could show up in any number of ways.  The point being, our body is giving us information, long before our brain can comprehend what is going on.

Our boundaries are also tied to our histories.  If we have trauma in our past, how our caretakers modeled boundaries when we were children, both inform what our boundaries are as well as how we react when our boundaries have been violated.

Our culture also informs our boundaries, and more importantly, how or if we defend them.  We all have messages about “being nice” and “not hurting people’s feelings” in our psyches and bodies to unravel.

We have all been told in one way or another that our Noes don’t matter, aren’t valid, and should never be voiced.

Most of us learned at a young age that when we say no to someone or something we are giving them a message that we don’t love them.  And of course, while we internalized this direct message, we also internalized the reverse :: that if someone says no to us it means they don’t love us.

Again, boundaries go both ways.  There are our own boundaries for us to connect to and consciously and intentionally decide to defend (or not!) and there are the boundaries of others that may stir up some of our own stories of worth and value and instigate an unconscious response from us.

There is so much for each of us to unravel around our boundaries, including becoming consciously aware of where they come from and when and if we want to honor  and defend them (and I’ll tell you now, the answer isn’t always yes, there can be many different reasons why we don’t defend our boundaries and none of them have to do with us being “weak” or having “poor judgement.”)

I talk more about this in the 13 minute video below ::

This essay is the second in a three part series I have put together to introduce some of the topics we’ll be exploring in my winter self-care circle, Self Care for Challenging Times :: Holiday Edition.  If you’d like to learn more and possibly join us, you can click right here.

Other essays & videos in this series ::

Holidays, Trauma, & Our Nervous Systems

Stress, Grief, & Embodiment

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On Self Care :: Holidays, trauma & our nervous systems

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

~Audre Lorde

We are entering into that time of year again.  That time here in the northern hemisphere where the light recedes and we enter into more and more darkness as each day passes.  It is also the time of year of the winter holiday celebrations, which can for some of us, bring their own darkness with them.

I have always declared that the winter holiday season begins with my birthday in mid-October.  Then quickly is Halloween and the All Souls and All Saints Days.  Next is Thanksgiving.  And then we move into December when most religions have a festival of lights celebration of one kind or another.  With all these holidays often comes gatherings with family – ones that we either attend or avoid.  With these gatherings come all the stresses of connecting with our families, be that in person or in spirit.

There is also the truth that for many of us this time of year is a painful reminder of the people we have lost in our lives, either through death or severing of ties.  It can be a reminder of those we loved who aren’t here to celebrate with us, and the grief that comes forward has its own way of showing up at a time of year we are told over and over we need to be joyous.

There are a million plus different reasons why the this time of year can be challenging in many ways and why we all need to remember self-care, real self-care, during this coming seaon.

One of my frustrations with our current culture is how the term self care is defined. For many this term has a very white, privileged look to it.  It looks like spa days or mani-pedis, or days at the salon, or weeks at some tropical local.  It’s looks like, according to many, something only the wealthy can afford.

I have a very different definition of self care.

For me, self care is first and foremost about calming and soothing our nervous systems.  It is self-regulation and being able to bring ourselves back from a “triggered” or highly emotional state.  This can look like many different things, including drinking water, getting sleep, any of the numerous Nervous System Soothing tips I share with you in the weekly love letter and on Facebook, drinking tea, locking ourselves in the bathroom for five minutes of solitude… all of those things are self care. These are the small, non-glamorous things that keep us going and keep us feeling calm and sane.

And, self-care isn’t 100% regulating our nervous systems.  The other big piece of self care, for me, is boundaries.

You know, that whole being able to say No thing.  (I’ll talk more about boundaries as self-care in the next essay in this series.)

However, I do believe that before we can really connect to, and then honor and enforce, our boundaries, we need to be able to connect to our bodies and calm our nervous systems.

What do I mean by “calm our nervous system,” “triggered state,” or “activated nervous system”?

I deeply believe that all of us have trauma living within our bodies.  It could be a trauma (or multiple traumas) of our personal lived experience.  This could look like abuse, neglect, rape, or car accidents, surgeries, living through natural disasters.  Any and all of those events that we may personally experience our bodies experience as traumatic events.

In addition, we have intergenerational, or ancestral, trauma living in our DNA. Epigenetics has shown us how these “trauma markers” are passed down through the generations and how they are “mutable” or “reversable”.  This means that the unresolved, unprocessed traumas of our parents, grandparents, and back to the beginnings of time, live in our bodies today.

Finally, there is what I call Cultural Relational Trauma.  This is the trauma we experience living in a white supremacist, capitalistic, misogynist, patriarchal culture.  This is the trauma of isolation, of being told we are less than, not enough, too much, that we should feel shame for who we are and for existing at all.  This is the trauma that tears us from our communities and teaches us that one “group”is somehow superior to another.  It is the trauma we hold in our bodies that is put in us every day.

Because we all carry trauma in us, our nervous systems are generally all out of sorts.  What this looks like day to day is that we are easily irritated, or anxious, or depressed, or have rapid and far ranging mood swings, or feel like we want to crawl out of our skin on a regular basis – but with all of these things happening we can’t always pinpoint the why or what actually caused the dysregulation or what is also called an “activated” nervous system or a triggered state.

Calming or soothing our nervous system brings us out of this activated state.  It allows us to feel good in our bodies, to be in our frontal lobes (where empathy and logic live), and eventually to respond to stimulus (or triggers) in a way that isn’t harmful to ourselves or others (and by harmful I mean not only physically, but also emotionally, psychologically, and physiologically).

I talk more about this in the 11-minute video below ::

This essay is the first in a three part series I have put together to introduce some of the topics we’ll be exploring in my winter self-care circle, Self Care for Challenging Times :: Holiday Edition.  If you’d like to learn more and possibly join us, you can click right here.

Other essays in this series :: (active links coming soon)

Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries!

Stress, Grief, & Embodiment

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On Unleashing and Rebellion

I’ve been writing for a while about the idea of being unleashed. How the word unleashed has sunk its fangs into me and the truth of it is swirling around in my blood and nerves.

The idea of needing or wanting to be unleashed. Because we have been tamed. Domesticated. Trained.

How we are taught that being unleashed equates to being out of control and very, very, very dangerous.

How fighting tooth and nail to become unleashed is an act of rebellion.

Which then leads me down the path of thinking about rebellion. How on the one hand many of us were taught to stand up for ourselves, to go against the grain, to be our own person. And then in those moments when we do we are told how we are wrong and bad.

The shame involved in not-so-simply speaking our truth, using our voice, being our own person. It runs deep and is fed to us over and over and over again, both intentionally and unintentionally, by our family, our “authority figures,” our culture.

We live in a culture that glorifies rebellion in may ways. Or really, only in a fashion sense.

Rebellion isn’t about fashion. Though, it certainly can be.

Rebellion is more complicated than our clothing or hairstyle choices though.  It is messy. It’s dirty. It’s about dragging ourselves through the mud and shit and remaining unapologetically ourselves. It is standing firm and bending but not breaking.

It is being self-reflective and self-aware.

Rebellion is about being unleashed. Breaking the rules. Saying fuck you to the status quo. Shaking shit up and burning it the hell down.

Rebellion brings about change. Transformation. Destruction and then creation.

Rebellion is dangerous.  To the status quo. To the patriarchy. To white supremacy. To misogyny. To getting on to get along. To silence. To shame.

Being unleashed is dangerous to all those players too. Because once we have torn off that leash, they can no longer control us. Because we don’t believe their lies any more. Because we now know our power, we feel it coursing through our blood and we’ll be damned if we are going to let the world continue on as if everything is just fine.

Shit is not just fine.

Rapists are not serving full jail time because it might be too damaging to them.

Teenagers are spreading racial hatred and calling for a return of slavery.

Women and children are being murdered. Every. damn. day. For speaking up. For having the “wrong” color skin. For wearing the “wrong” clothes. For daring to breathe.

And we are on our leashes and watching it all happen.

To me, the first part, perhaps the only part, of becoming unleashed, is allowing all we have tied, stuffed, pushed down, and tried to ignore to come up to the surface. To be acknowledged. To be seen. To be heard.

There is a lot of rage that is being stuffed. A lot of grief too.

We have a lot to be angry about. Our rage is very, very, valid.

We have a lot to grieve. So much has been lost and stolen.

I see the pockets and corners where rage and grief are bubbling up and out. I see the power coming to the surface. I watch women stand taller. Find their voice. See with new eyes. Know, in their marrow, their worth, their value, their truth.

So yes, perhaps being unleashed is dangerous.

Because once we know our worth, our power; once we trust our selves and use our voice… all hell breaks loose.

And it is a glorious and gorgeous rebellion to be a part of.

Let’s do this. Let’s let our our fury. Our rage. Let’s acknowledge our grief. Let’s open our throats and let out our wails, our howls and our roars.

Let’s burn this shit down and create something gorgeous from the rubble and ashes.

In rebellious solidarity, always.

xoox

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The doing and the being. The nourishing and replenishing.

I’ve been feeling the feels lately.

I’ve been on a bit of a roller coaster.

I’ve been busy with the doing. The doing of gathering and guiding circles. The doing of figuring out next steps. The doing of mothering and homeschooling and wifing and friending and well, adulting in general.

I haven’t been getting enough sleep.

Or downtime.

Or space.

Or water.

I crave space. Silence. To write. To breathe. To be.

To sit and be.

Toddlers are not about sitting and being. They are about the doing. Nine year olds are too, to a degree. Well, also forty-four year olds.

What I am remembering is the importance of space. I am craving spaciousness. So much so that I cleaned off our kitchen counter on Thursday. It is a blank slate. I need the blank. The open. The empty.

We all do sometimes.

Only when we are empty can we fill ourselves up.

I don’t feel empty. I feel full. Too full. Overflowing full.

And that has it’s own beauty and light. And still, exhausting. And the wanting something different.

Friday the kids and I met a friend and we went for a little hike at a nearby park that is filled with woods and trails. I could have spent the day in those woods. Instead we spend less than an hour.

And for all the doing and going of the toddler, his short legs allowed a very slow pace.

And breathing.

And stopping to look at mushrooms growing on fallen logs.

And there I found some space in the doing.

I’ve been talking a lot about self-care in my circles. What it is, how we deserve it, and how our practices ebb and flow. I’m a bit talked out about it at the moment and allowing my own words to sink into my being.

As I write this, a tall glass of water is next to me.

As I write this, I stop and count my exhales a few times. And let out deep sighs.

As I write this, I think back to this morning and know in all my fiber I need more time in the woods with the trees and overgrowth and the mushrooms.

Slowly slowing, moving back to nourishing. Back to replenishing. Feeling this tide come in. Or maybe it’s going out. Either way, I feel the ebbing or the flowing; the shifting; the movement and the settling.

Sending you breath and peace and space and being.