Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Moving into softness

By

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

Attachment is a unifying principle that reaches from the biological depths of our being to its furthest spiritual reaches.  ~Jeremy Holmes, John Bowlby and Attachment Theory

Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?  ~Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

As we adjust to our “new normal” and social distancing, many of us staying “safe at home”, our anxiety may be running rampant.  As we are either in close quarters with those we normally live with or are alone because that is our normal, we may find ourselves feeling frustrated and our attachment wounds being activated.

This can have us turning to all kinds of unhelpful or even harmful behaviors.  Behaviors that we developed at a young age that were meant to either keep us alive, or are meant to try and get our attachment needs met (in perhaps a very backwards sort of way).

We may find ourselves picking fights.

Pushing people away.

Feeling “clingy” and demanding.

Allowing (untrue, harmful, and hurtful) narratives about others or about ourselves to run rampant in our heads.  

Falling back into ultimately harmful relationships (and remember, a relationship doesn’t need to be outright abusive for it to be harmful, any relationship that keeps us stuck in repeating hurtful patterns and cycle and doesn’t encourage our healing and growth, is harmful).

Our anxiety may be over the top.

Our fear of abandonment may be going wild.

So much is happening in our minds and bodies right now as we move through this unprecedented and totally unknown space.  

We can find ourselves becoming rigid.

Hard.

Immovable.

Ultimately stuck, stagnant, repeating patterns and cycles that hurt us and others. 

Now is the time for us to slow down.

To find ways to calm our systems, take a half step (or more) back, and to consider situations from a more rational place.

A time to examine if the reaction we are having is based in an old trauma, the present situation, or some combination of the two.

A time to consider how our past pain and hurts are impacting us in the present.

A time to find new, helpful ways, of soothing our systems.  Of managing our overwhelm.

A time to shift into softness.

To connect to compassion, for ourselves and others.

To find ways to be more vulnerable, with people who are safe enough.

To explore our own wants, our needs, our desires, for our relationships, for our world, for our Self.

To nurture our own bodies and minds, those we care about and for, our planet.

To consider what fulfills us, what ignites our passions, what gives us a sense of abundance.

To expand, to transform, to evolve.  

To move into softness is counter-intuitive when our fear response is activated.  It is challenging to do even in the best of times.  We live in a culture that encourages us to disconnect, to judge, to be harsh and hard.

Moving into softness can be challenging.  It requires self-awareness and a willingness to shift, to grow, to transform.  It asks us to come home into our bodies, to learn to sit in the discomfort of our emotions and their bodily sensations, to expand our windows of tolerance so we can respond to situations with love for ourselves, others, and our relationships.

We are in challenging and complex times.  Finding ways to calm our systems, to rest, to allow the space for our own evolution is vital.  We are at a precipice in the collective, a time for us to decide if we want to continue on in the harmful ways, destroying our relationships and planet, or if we want to shift into a nurturance culture, one of caring, of compassion, of coming together and lovingly encouraging each other to expand outside our comfort zones, to break generations old patterns and cycles, to revolt against all that keeps us apart and to evolve into the people, and the society, we have always dreamed of.

/../

This essay was originally written for my weeklyish newsletter and has been edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays, you can subscribe here.

Last weekend Sarah Martland (Founder of Trauma & Co) met to figure out ways we can support our community right now.  We have changed the pricing the the Trauma & Co Community to make it more accessible to more people, and we’ve also made some changes to what all will be offered in it.  We have also brought an offering planned for later this year forward, as well as added an extra pricing level.  You can learn more about Resourcing for Complex Times: Supporting Ourselves Through Challenging Experiences here.

Managing our stress & anxiety in challenging times

By

The bodies of traumatized people portray “snapshots” of their unsuccessful attempts to defend themselves in the face of threat and injury. Trauma is a highly activated incomplete biological response to threat, frozen in time. For example, when we prepare to fight or to flee, muscles throughout our entire body are tensed in specific patterns of high energy readiness. When we are unable to complete the appropriate actions, we fail to discharge the tremendous energy generated by our survival preparations. This energy becomes fixed in specific patterns of neuromuscular readiness. The person then stays in a state of acute and then chronic arousal and dysfunction in the central nervous system. Traumatized people are not suffering from a disease in the normal sense of the word- they have become stuck in an aroused state. It is difficult if not impossible to function normally under these circumstances.  ~Peter A. Levine

Unspeakable feelings need to find expression in words. However… verbalization of very intense feelings may be a difficult task.  ~James A. Chu, Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders

There is no one way to recover and heal from any trauma. Each survivor chooses their own path or stumbles across it.  ~Laurie Matthew, Behind Enemy Lines

We are living in an unprecedented time.  The current COVID-19 pandemic is having us “socially distance” from each other, while (in the US at least) schools, community centers, and libraries are closing their doors.  We are being encouraged to stay at least six feet from other humans, to work from home, to “self-quarantine” while also receiving messages to go out and support local restaurants and other service based businesses, leaving us confused as to what is best for ourselves, our families, and our communities in general.

Add to this we have social media.  And the internet.  Which means access to information literally 24/7.  This can be soothing to some and activating to others.  The greater issue is the sometimes conflicting and misinformation.

This is all activating our survival response.  This is all exacerbating our anxiety.  This is all stressful and leaves us in a state of not being clear on what we should or shouldn’t be doing (other than washing our hands).

And.

Our need for connection, for belonging, is also increased right now.  Our bodies are wired to be in community and groups when crisis arises.  So when we are unable to connect to our communities, fear around our own survival (subconsciously and consciously) sets in. 

Part of our fear response is denial.  Denial that things are “that bad.” Denial that this crisis will affect us.  Denial that we need to worry about it at all.

As a whole we are on a spectrum between denial (fear suppression) and holy fuck we’re all gonna die (full on fear overwhelm).

I write all that, to try and help normalize what your personal response is.  What is happening for you.  How we can be vacillating between being completely annoyed by this all to being completely terrified.  How we simply feel lost in it all, are trying so hard to figure out what our new normal looks like and to accept that we don’t know how long this new normal will be for. 

This is all deeply stressful.

For those of us with complex trauma, for those of us who need routine and stability and predictability, this is beyond unsettling.  

This means that our practices of soothing and calming our nervous system are vital.  Whatever they may be.   

It means taking time to breathe.  To rest.  To be present with our people now.  

It means allowing all the complex and sometimes conflicting feelings (emotions and sensations) to come through.  To not deny our experience.  To acknowledge where we are in this moment.  Where ever that may be.  

It means having compassion for our Self, our loved ones, and our communities, as we navigate this “new normal” and figure out what does and doesn’t work for us, our families, and the greater collective.  

It means knowing that we are going to get some things wrong. It means those we love are going to get some things wrong.  It means those we trust and respect are going to get some things wrong.  

It means we are all stumbling.  Trying to figure out how to support ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities.  

It means there are no absolutely right or absolutely wrong answers or ways of being right now.

It means we are living in liminal space.

Which, whoa, our activated nervous systems DO NOT LIKE.

I invite you to allow yourself to stop.  To take a breath or a beat to allow yourself to not be in reaction mode.  To stop and just allow yourself to be, just for a moment.  To stop and not make a single decision, just for a moment.

Remember to care for yourself.  Remember that we absolutely can NOT be of service to anyone if we are in a state of constant overwhelm and or burn out.  Remember that our families, our communities, and our own bodies and minds, need us to be caring for our self.

Self care is NOT selfish.  It is necessary for survival.  

It is especially necessary during times of crisis.  Like now.

There is no “under-reacting” or “over-reacting” right now.  These are unprecedented times.  We absolutely do not know what to expect in the long or even short run.  Our fear response is both valid and understandable AND needs to be managed (not suppressed, managed).  

Reminding ourselves as best we can to create that pause between stimulus and response is important right now.  Sometimes we will be able to do it and other times not.  And that is okay.

Reminding ourselves to have compassion for ourselves AND others is important right now.  Sometimes we will be able to and other times not.  And that is okay.

Reminding ourselves that all our complicated, complex, and contradictory feelings are valid is important right now.  Sometimes we will be able to do this and other times not.  And that is okay.

Giving ourselves permission to show up as fully human, that is what matters.  To let go of shame and shaming as much as we can.  

We are truly all in this together.  AND we need to take care of ourselves as we take care of each other.  Be gentle.  Be loving.  Be kind.  Be compassionate.  Towards others, and most especially to your Self.

In rebellious solidarity, always.
xoox

/../

This essay was originally written for my weeklyish newsletter on March 15, 2020. It has been edited for publication here. To receive my recent essays, subscribe here.

If you are looking for resources and tools to help you regulate your system during this time, I invite you to explore our offering at Trauma & Co, Resourcing in Complex Times and or our Trauma & Co Community.

A love letter to you and me

By

I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. ~ Anais Nin

You torment yourself wondering
how they could not love your 
Burning heart.
and the answer is darling, 

You are not the star
you thought you were.

You are the fucking universe.

and not everyone is an astronaut.
~wild moon woman

And you tried to change, didn’t you?  Closed your mouth more.  Tried to be softer, prettier, less volatile, less awake… You can’t make homes out of human beings.  Someone should have already told you that.   And if he wants to leave, then let him leave.  You are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful.  Something not everyone knows how to love.  ~Unknown

Breathe.
Oh you gorgeous human, breathe.

You live in a world that hates you. That wants to mold you and reduce you and put you in a box of its own liking.

But you won’t let it.

You live in a world that wants you quiet, silent, agreeing with everything the status quo says is right.

But you speak out.  You speak up.  You use your voice.  You have the audacity to disagree, sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly.  

You live in a world that views you as a thing.  An object.  Something to be used and abused and consumed at someone else’s whim.

But you demand to be recognized as a human being.  Who is not to be used or objectified or trifled with. An autonomous being of your own creation.

Breathe.
Oh you fabulous, effervescent human, breathe.

We live in a world that says we only have value if we are producing.  Babies.  Content.  A beautiful home for our husband.

But we take time to slow down, to rest.  We decide for ourselves if children are to be a part of our path or not.  We demand that any spouse or partner take equal part in creating and maintaining a shared home.

We live in a world that tells us we are hysterical, that our rage and sadness and frustration are all invalid.  That we want and expect too much of others, of the world.  That we are unreasonable.

But we know that our rage and sadness and frustration stems from generations of oppression, of abuse, of murder.  That all our feelings are valid.  That expecting others to treat us with basic respect and dignity and kindness is a baseline.  That we are beyond reasonable and are always looking for ways for everyone to get their needs met, but not at the cost of our own.  

We live in a world that expects us to beg for scraps and when we receive them, even though they aren’t nearly enough to sustain us, we are supposed to be and act so fucking grateful.

But we know our worth, we know our value, and we know it is bullshit to accept scraps that aren’t nearly enough to nourish us, to sustain us.  

Breathe.
You gorgeous, amazing human, breathe.

You are beautiful and amazing.  You are strong and capable.  You are brilliant and so fucking deserving of everything good and incredible.

You wake up every single morning and you fight.  You fight by getting out of bed and making yourself (and or your kids) food.  You fight by taking a shower.  You fight by saying you are going to keep going, even if only for today.

You are gorgeous and awe inspiring.  You are a force of nature.  You are dazzling and so worthy of love and respect.

You do your work, every single fucking day.  Your work in the world.  Your inner work.  You do all that you can, what you must, to stop the generations of abuse, neglect and trauma from being passed down through you.   

You are exquisite and magnificent.  You are uplifting and awesome.  You are luminous and significant.

You bring light and hope to those who know you.  You give love, so much fucking love, to those who are in your world.  You matter to so many.  The world would be a darker place without you in it.  

Breathe.
Oh you stunning, sparkling human, breathe. 

Thank you.  

Thank you for all you bring into the world.
|
Thank you for doing your work, for stumbling and getting up and trying again the next day.  

Thank you for wanting more, for wanting different, for wanting better, for yourself, for the world, for the generations to come.

Thank you for all you do in this world.  Even if you feel like it isn’t enough.  Even if you are so fucking beyond exhausted.  Even if all you can do many days is simply keep breathing.

Thank you.

Remember that you are enough.

All you do is enough.

You don’t need to prove your worth.

You are already worthy.

You don’t need to prove your deserving.

You deserve all amazing things simply because you are alive.

Remember to give yourself credit for all you have done.  For the person you are today.  For the changes you have already made.  For the work you have struggled through.  For the darkness you have clawed your way out of.

Remember to give yourself credit for all that you are.  For the love you give.  For your willingness to grow and shift and change.  For all those generations old patterns and cycles you have already broken.

Remember you are amazing.  You are gorgeous.  You are deserving and worthy.

Of course you still have work to do.  Of course you still struggle with certain patterns and cycles.  Of course you fuck up, on the daily.

You are human.

All of that does not make you less beautiful.  It does not make you less luminous.  It does not make you less deserving of love, respect, liberation.

Today remember all you are.  You are made of star dust.  Of raging fire.  Of luscious earth.  Of vast oceans.  Of life giving air.

You are strong, even when you feel weak.  You are loved, even when you feel you don’t deserve it.  You are part of the web of humanity and the cosmos, even when you feel so very, very soul-crushingly lonely.

You are a fighter.  You are a survivor.  You are a warrior. Even if you don’t feel it most days.  By simply continuing to exist you are these things.  Be simply demanding to take in breath, you are these things.  By doing all you do beyond this, you are these things.

And because of this, because  you are wholly you.  Unapologetically you.  Unfailingly you, human, flawed, perfectly imperfect.  Struggling, scared, anxious.  Fucking up and still continuing to try and do different.

Because of this and so much more, I am so deeply grateful you are here.

You matter.

In this world.  To those who know you personally and intimately.  And to me.

/../

This essay was written and originally published in my weekly(ish) newsletter on March 8, 2020. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe here.

We will talk a bit about self-worth, deserving, and self compassion in the six month Trauma Informed Embodiment™ for Sexual Trauma Survivors (TIE™ STS) group that being on March 16. To learn more, click here.

Breaking open

By

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

By

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.