Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Dreaming of the future, the past, & the now

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Beneath the twinkle lights, I find myself staring out into the fog that has enveloped our fairy forest. The chilly coziness of this grey blanket brings a smile upon my face as I dream of my future that is quickly becoming my now.

I dream of women gathered together, around a campfire on an ocean beach. Howling, laughing, crying. Hugging, holding. Seeing each other’s strength in their vulnerability to share and shed and be and unbecome and become. Being witness to the evolution and transformation of each beautiful soul in those moments of community, grace, and sisterhood.

My dream shifts to couples sitting together, around a short coffee table alter, a fire burning in the background. They are holding each other, hands, shoulders. Tears fall and laughter rings. Repair, reconnection, returning to their foundations. Seeing each other again as they see the other couples in the room. Witnessing their common threads of trials and pain and knowing on the path to healing they are not alone.

My smile broadens as the images of children playing, connecting, sharing comes into my vision. Mothers and fathers in circle together with each other, with their children and without. Days together of joy, connection, seeing and finding new ways to be together, to cope with the ever changing way of being in their particular family. Beauty as understanding comes forward and villages are built. Connection, support, chosen family.

As I sit here at my desk, my smile broadens. I am humbled to know these dreams are being birthed now, both in my internship and guide work allowing me to do the work my heart is called to do: Connecting, healing, circling, transforming.

And as I sit and think of my future, I see so clearly the now that is forming: the women who are gathering and circling with me now in my programs; who are called to quest and circle with each other, allowing me to guide them along this step of their journeys. I feel a deep gratitude for this work and these women. I find myself in awe of them and me: the long journeys we have all been on, together and not, each of us transforming ourselves and each other along the way.

I see my own transformation in this work, this work that fulfills me and changes me and allows me to give to the world as others have given to me. I see my own trust, lost and found, in my own soul and body as it expands and comes more fully into being. I feel myself, my own raw stories, and I know that I am softer and stronger and that these two things are not opposites but necessary compliments of each other. I feel my own juicy center bubble up and feel that knowing smile as I look back and forward and feel the very essence of the now.

There is more to any story we have, and for my own stories, the digging deep, the unearthing and then the exploration, the examination, the questioning and asking has all come both naturally and as though pulling teeth without anesthetic. I know my own metamorphic pains and I am witness to the pains of others, as they go through their own fires and rise from the ashes, shedding what isn’t theirs and becoming more themselves than before.

As Shedding Shoulds comes to a close this week and my focus turns to Being and Unbecoming, I am feeling nostalgic of this circle of life and transformation. I think of the layers and depths and spirals we all travel through and down and on and feel the community of growth and expansion and rebellion. I see, in each circle that gathers, a bit more of the status quo worn away and a new way of being and living and loving emerging.

And that’s what happens when we circle and it is why I do this work: we change ourselves, yes; we change each other, for sure; and whether we see it or not, we are changing the world to be a place of softness and strength, of beauty and awe and most importantly, love.

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Myths, Personal and Otherwise

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While reading for school I came across this quote:

    Our stories are not always composed by us, but come to us in powerful ways from others. If, as children, family members describe us in a particular way, these family stories often remain the same no matter how we change. What others believe about us, what we learn in school, in the media and from the reactions of strangers, define our stories.
In searching for alternative narratives about ourselves, we are often drawn to stories about others. Listening to these stories may offer us new possibilities, but if our new life stories are to fully emerge, we must also challenge the underlying myths and prejudices that limit us.”
— Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey “The Variable Tales of Life” (2007) as quoted in “Revisioning Family Therapy: Race, Culture and Gender in Clinical Practice”, Monica McGoldrick & Kenneth Hardy (eds).

This quote speaks of how our personal stories evolve, where they come from, and in many ways more importantly, how we can heal and rewrite them. It is true that community and society and our families and friends contribute to the creation of our negative myths about ourselves, and it is ironically true that through our community, families and friends we can re-write them, creating positive stories about ourselves and our lives.

I’ve written in the past about my personal struggle with the myth of the Not Good Enough or Bad Mother. I’ve struggled with this generations old story from both sides of my family. The struggle, in many ways, has guided me to being a Good Enough Mother (in Winnicott’s terms) and has led me to develop a strong and deep connection with my daughter. Most days I am in a place of peace with this story, knowing both in my head and heart that I am a Good Mama, that my girl and I have a beautiful relationship and that I am breaking a pattern and cycle and myth that was handed to me on a silver platter. It has taken every rebellious part of me to break away from what was given to me, to re-write motherhood for our family and for myself, and I honestly couldn’t have done it without my friends, my husband, or, perhaps ironically, my mothers (birth, step and adopted) and grandmothers.

Still, some days I struggle. I struggle with my daughter’s independence and free will. I struggle with her opinions and self-determination. I struggle when she has absolutely no interest in following the path I think she should follow. I struggle with acknowledging her, who she is and where she is at and accepting her wholly and encouraging her to be who she is. I struggle with walking that line of guiding her, being a present parent to help her function in life and society and squashing her individuality, her sense of Self, her brilliant, creative and sensitive soul.

It’s a line all parents walk, I believe. We have all our own shit, some of it buried deep. Those messages we were given when we were squashed, how we weren’t good enough just as we were, how we needed to measure up to some arbitrary standard, how we needed to fit in (but never felt like we really did). When our children start to express who they are, we have a knee-jerk reaction to squash, simply out of defense for ourselves, simply because it is all that we know, simply because we can’t always see the nonduality of life and how it is yes/and not either/or.

In those moments I struggle to find my breath. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I stop myself from saying some shaming thing or another. Sometimes I can slow down enough to open the space for her to be her and acknowledge my own pain and give each of us a little extra love.

Sometimes. Not always.

There are the times when the shaming words come out and sometimes I immediately regret them and start the repair work and sometimes it takes me a while to get there. This is human. This is part of my journey.

There are other parts to this motherhood journey. Myths that speak of value and worth, both financial and emotional. Myths that on bad days can break me down into a ball of sobbing tears, feeling that my girl would be better off with any other person on the planet for a mother than with me. Days that can start to eat me alive. Myths, that on good days, just piss me off and help me stand tall, knowing that today, in this moment, I am not that person, I am not the prescribed, pre-ordained bad mother, knowing that in this moment I am doing the healing work of generations.

I have a gorgeous circle of women who help me explore these myths. We guide each other on our journeys of digging into the stories that have been so deeply ingrained in us, and yet aren’t true. It is through this community of beautiful souls that the deeper healing is happening. Together we explore, we heal, we deconstruct and rebuild. We don’t erase, but we do re-write.

I have many circles and tribes, some of them intimate and in-person, some of them global and online only, some a mix of the two. It is through my circles that I excavate my myths and guide others to unearth their own. I believe that in order to heal, to find our way to joy and the present moment we need to understand what has stopped us, what pieces of our past and present, what messages from our families and our cultures, have defined us in a way that doesn’t ring true to us any more. This deep exploration of who I Am is, to me, a vital piece of our healing process.

Who I Am changes, sometimes from day to day, or moment to moment and with each shift of the tide I’m given the opportunity to explore the myths, to heal and to rewrite or embrace as I feel moved to do in that moment.

I love this journey. I love my own growth and change and I am deeply grateful for the people who allow me to be witness to their own growth change. It is a process, an unfolding and an awakening and I deeply believe that together we can heal: our Selves, each other and the world.

It is my life work, the unearthing of personal myths, guiding others while they guide me, finding our true selves and healing generations long stories of pain and lack. It is my life work, this rebuilding of relationship to our Selves, to each other, to our world. It is my life work to heal and be a part of other’s healing, to bring change and love and joy into the world. It is my life work to find and share the beauty of the present moment, to laugh deep belly laughs and to cry body-wrenching sobs and to support others in their similar yet different journeys.

I am grateful for this life and this life’s work. I am grateful for you, allowing me to be a part of your journey.

(Enjoy reading this? Then subscribe to my weekly love letter right here.)

Revolutionary Kindness

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I was raised to be a Good Girl. You know, the kind of girl who is always polite, never argues. The kind of girl who always obeys her elders and plays by the rules. The girl who rarely stands up for herself and when she does she is punished, scorned, ridiculed. The girl who never questions the status quo and lives in the little box that others created for her.

I was raised to be a Revolutionary. You know, the kind of person who doesn’t care what others think, who follows her heart, does what she wants. The kind of girl who rebels against all the norms that don’t fit in her skin. The girl who stands up for herself and debates and fights back, with or without the support of those who surround her. The girl who brings the status quo to it’s knees, changing the world, one small piece at a time through her own strength and vulnerability.

My maternal grandmother raised me to be a Good Girl. My mom and dad raised me to be a Revolutionary. The irony being, the more of a revolutionary I became, the more my maternal grandmother approved of me and the less my parents did.

One of the lessons taught by both my grandma and my parents was to not hurt other’s feelings. To be kind. To understand the other’s perspective. And depending on if it was my gram or my parents, I should then either bow to the whim of the other or stand my own ground regardless. Ultimately though, I should be kind and thoughtful.

What I’m learning now, is that being kind and thoughtful IS revolutionary. That thinking of others, considering their points of view, being open and willing to bend or change my own mind is revolutionary. To seek out my own opportunities for growth, release and healing is revolutionary. That caring for others, their thoughts, their feelings and guiding them to growth and change is revolutionary.

However what has really been coming home to me this last week,  is that it is only revolutionary if we do all this while holding true to who we are. It is only revolutionary if we listen to and follow our Soul’s calling. It is only revolutionary when we understand that sometimes the only way to be kind to another is to stand firm in who we are, to defend ourselves, to open the space for the Other to step outside his or her own box and grow to become the person he or she is truly called to be.

Let me repeat that:

Sometimes the only way to be kind to another is to stand firm in who we are, to defend ourselves, to open the space for the Other to step outside his or her own box and grow to become the person he or she is truly called to be. 

This is a tough one for me, to be honest. It’s Truth resonates through my entire being, however I truly struggle with conflict. I don’t actually like making people I know and interact with regularly uncomfortable. I have often thought that this is because I am a highly sensitive person, and when others are in discomfort I feel it as my own. What I come to realize is that the Truth is not actually the other’s discomfort that has me in a state of discomfort — it that I was given  a double message about standing up for myself and being True to who I am and to my own values.  The discomfort I feel isn’t about the Other, it is about owning who I am, accepting and loving who I am, and knowing deep in my soul that I am truly a good and kind person and that a kind person is also strong in who she is.

When we feel discomfort it means there is a lesson there for us to learn about ourselves. I have been triggered, pretty severely, this week by people in my world. They have tried to silence me, not allow me the expression of who I truly am. They have done this in such a way that my first response was to disregard who I am to make a situation easier on these other people, actually creating more stress and work for myself. However after this initial betrayal to my Self, the others demanded that I betray myself even more.  My physical response was shaking and nausea and conflicting fight-and-flight reaction. I could not betray who I was any further, I needed to step back  into my own Truth and values, to stand firm in who I am and what is right for both me and my family.

I struggled with this, standing firm in who I am. I believe in being open to change, to growth. To finding the opportunities to dig deep when another triggers us and to figure out the whys and hows of it all and to grow. I always focus on my own growth in this respect. I see my growth from the events this week to be that of calmly and comfortably standing firm in who I am. My growth is to be comfortable with another’s discomfort. My growth is to be who I am so that space can open for the others to go deep, to grow, to adapt, to explore their own discomforts and disappointments, to let go of desperate attempts to control and to find ways to simply Be. Be their own Selves, be part of a community, be in the world with others.

I wrote about adaptation the other day. The importance of my own ability to adapt, my own ability to spin my internal messages around to a more peaceful and loving way of being. I am being revolutionary in opening the space for others to find their own way towards adaptation, by not “fixing” things for them, by allowing them to sit in their own discomfort and find their own inner growth.

It is an act of kindness to act as a rebel, a revolutionary, to open the space for myself and others to find growth, adaptation and liberation. It is an act of kindness to stand in my own strength, my own truth, to Be fully me, as my soul is called to be.

And of course, Green Day says it best.

Those of us who stand in our Truth, our Strength, our Vulnerability are rebels. We are saints. We are dangerous. Dangerous to the status quo. Dangerous to stagnation. Dangerous to dormacy and inactivity. Dangerous to those who do not want to own their own stuff, who want others to bend to their will and not be questioned. Dangerous to those who are afraid of their own growth, their potential, their own healing.

Let’s embrace our rebelliousness. Let’s embrace our sainthood. Let’s be dangerous and let’s bring forth liberation, for our selves, for each other, for the world.