Gwynn Raimondi, MA

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.

On being an adult in relationship

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Our work, then, is not to abolish our connection to the past but to take it into account without being at its mercy.  The question is how much the past interferes with our chances at healthy relating and living in accord with our deepest needs, values, and wishes. ~David Richo, How To Be An Adult In Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving

David Richo states in How To Be An Adult In Relationships, that in order to be an adult, we need to be self-aware and mindful in our actions. 

 In other words, self-awareness is vital on it’s own, but until it is coupled with mindful and intentional action (or inaction), we still aren’t fully acting in our frontal lobe, or “adult” brain.

Those of us who experienced chronic trauma in childhood have a lot to be angry about.  We have a lot to be sad about.  We have a lot to rage and scream and wail about.  I don’t believe anyone would deny that.  The atrocities that were done to too many of us as children are horrifying and all of it is held in our body and mind memory. 

The trauma doesn’t want to stay trapped within us however, it wants to get out.  This is great news if we are in therapy and doing a combination of talk and somatic therapies to help move that trauma on out of our systems and being.  It’s not so great news if we aren’t and so we try to stuff it down and eventually it bubbles up and out and we spew it all over an unsuspecting passer-by.

That passer-by could be our children, our intimate partner(s), our friends, other family members.  It could even be ourselves.

It is understandable that we have so much hurt and torment living within us.  I makes sense that it all needs to get out.  It is not okay for us to lash out at others.

Even when they cause us harm.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Even when  a person causes us harm, it is not acceptable for us to lash out and cause them harm.

The whole “two wrongs doesn’t make a right” thing.

Here’s a thing, though.  For most of us, I don’t think our “eruptions” or “lashing out” are intentional.  I know for me it mostly certainly isn’t mindful.  It comes from a primal place within that only cares about our survival. And so when we are already wounded, like any animal, if we get poked or prodded we go into fight/flight/freeze because we see any hurt as an attack and we need to protect and defend ourselves.

Rollo May wrote: “Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness.“

The work of self-awareness is to be able to grow that capacity to pause and allow space for us to mindfully choose the response we want to to actually have.

This is not to say there isn’t a part of us that wants our response to be screaming at the top of our lungs and stomping our feet.

It is to say however, that we need to take the moment to consider the longer term impacts of us screaming and stomping our feet.  And if the longer term impacts actually cause us and other (more) harm, then perhaps we could consider a different response.

Shifting from a space of automatic, mindless, response to one where there has been space created between being activated and actually responding, is no simple task.  We cannot undo the habit of a lifetime of automatic, mindless responding simply because we decide we want to do so.

It takes time.

AND.

It takes practice, a LOT of practice, learning to regulate our systems: calm our sympathetic nervous system, activate our parasympathetic nervous system, move the stored up cortisol out of our system.

It takes practice, a LOT of practice, connecting to our boundaries and coming into our bodies.  Learning to truly understand, on a very visceral level, where we end and another begins, physically, psychically, emotionally.

It takes practice, a LOT of practice, finding our ways to ground and our own center, being able to find our way to not only be in but stay in, the present moment, despite any and all the discomfort we may be feeling.

And after all of that, it takes practice, a LOT of practice, to break the patterns and cycles that we have become so accustomed to.  To actually not engage in an argument even though we may be being provoked, to walk away, to calm ourselves in the moment, to bite our tongues, to actually feel empathy for the person causing harm.

None of this comes easy.  Or at least, none of it has come easy to me.

Changing life long, if not generations old, patterns and cycles takes effort.  It requires compassion.  And we will all screw it up along the way, slipping back into old ways of being because that is what is known.  

And.

It can be done.  With practice.  

What is interesting about changing these patterns and cycles is that as we begin to do so on our end, the person(s) on the other side may try to up their game. When this happens it can be so tempting to engage.  Believe me, I know!  And, it is all the more important for us to continue practicing our own work, to continue growing that “pause”, to continue our own work of breaking harmful patterns and cycles.

Eventually those who try to engage us will change too.  Either they will simply go out of our lives because they aren’t getting the emotional charge from us anymore, or they too will begin to create space, to cultivate and grown that pause, to break their own patterns and cycles.

We can’t do any of that for them though.  We can only do our own work.  Even in those moments when, right then, we really just want to scream and stomp, and perhaps, especially in those moments.

In rebellious solidarity, always.

/../

This essay was originally written in May 2018 for my weekly newsletter and has been updated and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays, you can subscribe to my newsletter here.

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On Anger

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The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. ~Joe Klaas, Twelve Steps to Happiness

Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness. ~Viktor Frankl

In the Unleashed Woman Book Club call a couple years ago we got to talking about the idea of “going with the flow”.  The conversation was inspired by a FB post by Toi Smith.  Toi wrote ::

“silence is beautiful.

not speaking up is sexy.
going with the flow makes you tolerable.
doing everything without complaint makes you loveable.
making yourself always available is the expectation.

-love letter to women from patriarchy”

We talked about all the ways we have been trained and conditioned to go with the flow.  To not speak up.  Eventually this led to a conversation about anger.

A couples therapist recommended a book to my now ex-husband and I about anger when we were trying to find ways to save our marriage.  It’s not really an anger management book per se, but it talks about all the ways anger is bad for us and how it “destroys our lives” (that’s a direct quote from the book).

I’m guessing you can imagine my response to this book. Wanting to throw it across the room was the most tame of my responses.

I did skim through it.  There were some interesting, and perhaps in the right context, valuable exercises.  But the premise that anger will ruin our lives had me rolling my eyes and wanting to burn the book.

In general my issues with the book, beyond this uninformed premise, are:

1. It does not come from a trauma-informed perspective
2. It does not come from a systems perspective
3. There is not discussion of the neuroscience or neurobiology of anger (it did talk about the physiological affects of anger)
4. Because it does not come from a systems perspective, it does not tie anger to social/political/institutional reasons for anger
5. There is zero discussion of epigenetics and how anger (or other unprocessed by our ancestors emotions) may be passed down
6. It did not offer any somatic-informed approaches (it only talked about the mind and thoughts)
7. It was written by three white middle aged men with PhDs who I am assuming are at least upper middle class in economic status and carry with them all the privilege that comes with this.

Again, admittedly I only skimmed the book, however the general sense I got was that anger is bad.  And there was no science to back up their claim.

(That said, again, the exercises in the book, which are mindfulness based, could be helpful for people in processing some anger and in helping to control their (potentially harmful) actions that stem from anger.  We can’t always throw the baby out with the bathwater, even if the baby is mostly made up of elitist and privileged bullshit).

I have become very weary of anyone who claims that anger is always a “bad” thing.  Or that is it always destructive (and in these cases destruction = bad.  My view is that often destruction = good, growth, change.  But that may be another conversation for another day). That we should move past anger as quickly as possible.  That anger will “destroy our relationships and our lives”.

Anger, as I have shared before, is an active emotion.  It needs movement.  It requires physical, emotional, and cognitive movement.

What this means, is that when we are in the height of anger, we do need to physically do something to help release it.  This could be going for a walk or run, screaming into a pillow, punching a pillow/punching bag/mattress/cushion, doing jumping jacks/pushups, running up and down stairs, etc.  Once enough adrenaline and cortisol (two chemicals that are produced by our bodies when we are stressed, which includes when we are angry) is burned off, we can then move into calming practices, like the nervous system soothing exercises I share with you each week.  But those chemicals have to be burned off and begin to flush out of our systems first otherwise our nervous system will stay activated and we won’t be able to fully connect to our frontal lobe (where logic and empathy live).

It also means that when we are angry, not in a rage, more that we are simmering, that we can use this anger as a motivator for action and change.
It means it can be an encouragement to have those difficult conversations with our partner about how they have hurt us, or those difficult conversations with our boss about how we aren’t compensated fairly, or to make difficult decisions that will change the trajectory of our lives.

Sometimes there are other emotions beneath our anger.  Sometimes there is sadness, grief, frustration, hurt, betrayal, or any other number of emotions. And it is important to be self-aware and to recognize when our anger is protecting us from some of those even more challenging emotions, particularly those of hurt, betrayal, and grief.

And it also is true that sometimes we are simply angry.

Angry because of any number of injustices that take place daily in the world and possibly even in our lives.

Our rage is valid.

Historically speaking and present day speaking.

When we take the opinion that anger is a “bad” or “negative” emotion or that it will “destroy our lives” then our tendency is to shut our anger down (or at least to try).  To stuff it.  To ignore it.  To pretend we aren’t really angry at all.

Let me tell you something, that doesn’t work out so well in the end.

Remember how I said anger is an active emotion?  It will come out, even if you (try to) stuff or shut it down.  It will show up as:
• stomach/gastrointestinal and/or digestive issues
• depression
• anxiety
• chronic pain
• chronic illness
• mood swings
• irritability

It will manifest itself, in one way or another.  And you can choose to try to ignore it, or you can meet it, shake its hand, and find ways to release, process, and be (positively) motivated by the anger.

Anger in and of itself is not bad.

Sometimes how we act when angry can be harmful to both ourselves and others.  And finding ways to release, process and be motivated to healthy action is important.  I am in no way condoning physical, emotional or psychological violence to ourselves or others using the excuse that we were angry.

We can all learn to find that space between “stimulus and response,” to expand it and find our ways to responding to and with our anger in appropriate ways.

And, because sometimes some people act inappropriately, or even in harmful ways, when angry, does not mean that anger itself is “bad” or will “destroy our lives.”

Anger can be our way of protesting the status quo.  It can be our way of saying we will no longer go with the flow.  We will no longer be compliant and complicit.  We will use our voice and our intelligence and our resources to promote justice, to demand justice.

So, remember::
Our rage is valid.  It is the culmination of generations of rage that has been suppressed and passed down.  What we choose to do with this rage, well, that is up to each of us, individually and collectively.

/../
This essay was originally written for my newsletter in September 2017 and has been edited for publication here.

If you would like to receive my weekly newsletter you can sign up here.

Slowing into the pause & breaking harmful patterns

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Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. ~Rollo May, The Courage to Create

she learned to walk away
from everything
that didn’t inspire her
toward greater things
~Mark Anthony

a successful life is created
with two words: yes and no
have the courage to say yes
only when it feels right
and no to the old patterns
that do not serve you
~yung pueblo

One way that complex trauma impacts us in our adult lives is in our relationships, be they with friends, family, or intimate partners. Many of us with complex trauma are not good at tolerating painful emotions, like sadness, frustration, or disappointment. 

In fact, most of us don’t have a lot of tolerance for the more “positive” emotions like happiness, joy, and pleasure either.

Any feeling – sensation and emotion – can feel too much and can trigger our fight/flight/freeze/fawn response. The feelings can be overwhelming and so we need a way to release them, to get them out of us, because actually feeling them is intolerable.

So, we start fights. Or turn away and cut people out of our lives. In the moment we may freeze and feel stuck or placate and people please and then later move into the space of either wanting to fight or flee. Depending on the situation we do one or the other of these or we do some in rapid succession. 

Our reaction is generally immediate and coming directly from our back (or reptile) brain. There is no thought that is going into it. We don’t slow down to engage our front brain and are fully in our survival instinct. Because feeling our feelings feels like our actual lives are in danger. It feels like they might consume us. It feels like we won’t survive the sensations and emotions that are swirling within us.

I know for me a go to reaction was always to flee. And by flee I mean turn my back and cut people out of my life. One disappointment, one time of feeling rejected or abandoned, and it was “proof” that the person wasn’t trustworthy and therefore I needed to shut them out of my life. My armor would go up and if need be I would start fights if they wouldn’t “let” me leave. 

It has taken a lot of time, therapy, practice, patience, and self compassion to find my way to pause between the action of an emotion being activated and responding.

Because for most of my life I reacted, immediately, and without thought. What I want for my life, for my relationships, is for me to be able to thoughtfully respond, to slow down and evaluate the facts of the situation and previous situations so that I can respond intentionally and mindfully.

This has meant coming into my body. This has meant learning to tolerate all those intolerable sensations and emotions. This has meant practicing keeping my front brain (where logic, reasoning, creativity, problem solving, and compassion live) online while also experiencing the sensations and emotions that live in my back brain.

It hasn’t meant stuffing my feelings down. 

It has meant allowing myself to experience them and learning to know they won’t actually kill me. They will be uncomfortable, I may not like it, but I certainly won’t die.

When we are able to engage our front brain while also experiencing our feelings, we can begin to look at situations more objectively. We can look for patterns, for habits, for cycles. We slow down not to make excuses for the other person, but to see if our own pain is actually stemming fully from something they did or said or if it also stems from a long ago wound that never healed. 

And then we can decide how we want to respond to the person. We can intentionally decide if this is an opportunity for our own personal growth and processing. We can decide if it is an opportunity for us to communicate our needs, to repair in relationship and to stay. Or to communicate our needs, set a boundary, and possibly leave.

It is true that when another person triggers our feelings of disappointment, frustration, abandonment, and or betrayal that it was indeed their action or words that did this. It is true that our hurt is in part due to the what the other person did or said.

And.

They don’t deserve the full force of our fury or rage or pain, most of which comes from past hurts from others we trusted.

Sometimes when another person triggers our painful feelings it isn’t intentional, or may be a matter of circumstance or what they did or said is actually a perfectly reasonable or normal thing, but it sets off our alarms anyhow. Sometimes these triggers are not an indication of who they are as a person.

And honestly, sometimes it is.

Which is why we need the pause. So we can slow ourselves down and determine what we actually know about the other person. What we actually know about ourselves. What patterns we have seen. What other actions and words we have witnessed or not. 

We need the pause so we can engage our frontal lobe and respond in a way that lets us stand in our own integrity and authenticity. Without needing to cause another pain. Without lashing out. Without cutting people out because in that moment we are hurting and find it unbearable.

The pause requires us to be in our bodies, to be able to tolerate uncomfortable even painful emotions and sensations. It also allows us to enjoy the fun and pleasurable emotions and sensations that can also a part of living as a human.

Learning to live embodied, to tolerate, experience, and sometimes even enjoy the sensations and emotions of our fully human lives is a life long process. There are not five easy steps and then you are done. It is not a one time thing we can check off. It is a constant practice that will have its own ebbs and flows.

The pause will not come to us quickly. It will take time. At first you will notice while you are reacting that you are indeed having an immediate response. With time you will be able to “bring yourself down” more smoothly and quickly. Then, you will begin to notice that you are about to lash out and eventually stop it. In more time, with more practice, you will be able to catch yourself at the very beginning of being triggered. You will be able to feel the sensations and emotions and also be able to explore them, analyze them and the situation logically. And then intentionally decide how we want to respond.

Having patience and compassion for ourselves during this process, while learning to come into our body and to tolerate all the different, varied, and nuanced sensations and feelings and learning how to find that breath, that pause, when some or all our old wounds are triggered is vital and part of the process.

It is true that what was done to us by others is not our fault, we are not to blame for their actions. And we are responsible to learn to respond to new hurts in ways that hold us in our own integrity, in a way that does not continue to pass on harmful patterns, in ways that allow us to break painful cycles for ourselves and the generations to come.

/…/

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Love is not a victory march

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And love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
~Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah

The last year plus has been traumatic for our world politically and culturally, and because of this, also for many of us personally. We have seen some of our worst fears of what would happen with Republican run Executive and Legislative branches here in the United States. We have seen so much put back forty or more years in time, so much more that has been attempted to be put back. With each hit it feels like we are sinking deeper and deeper in a dystopian novel.

And.

Last year saw #metoo. And this year #timesup.  We see more and more women coming forward and some of the men who perpetrated sex crimes actually having consequences for their actions. I have been witness to more and more people becoming aware of the social injustices in the world, acknowledging their own internalized biases, compliance, and complicity, and doing the work to make change both within themselves and out in the world.

This shifting in our culture and within ourselves has been about love.

Unearthing what love actually means.

That love is a verb.

That love is not always gentle.

That love can be fiery, fierce, loud.

That love can be both protective and can push us outside of our comfort zones.

That love and justice can and should go hand in hand. And in that mix there needs to also be compassion and boundaries.

I believe that on any given day in any given moment all of us are doing the best we can with the tools we have.

This best we can may not be good enough. This best we can may actually be harmful to ourselves or to others. Other’s don’t have to accept our “best we can”. And in order for me to have hope in humanity, I do still believe we are each trying our best to be the best humans we know how to be.

And.

It is also true that sometimes the “best” others can do is something we need to say a firm NO to. And this No can, and in my opinion should, come from a place of deep love. Love for ourselves as well as love for the other person. And perhaps love for all humanity.

The #metoo movement that has caught fire in the last couple of years is a statement of this kind of love. A love comprised of clearly stating this is where I end and you begin and you don’t get to cross this line without my permission. A love comprised of compassion for ourselves and the traumas we have experienced at the hands of (mostly) men. A love comprised of empathy for others with similar experiences and especially for those who are able to speak up and out.

It is a love that seeks more than justice. It is a love that seeks our humanity.

We are at the dawn of a new epoch of human history. We have perhaps been at this dawn for the last hundred or so years. We have seen cultural “norms” slowly, sometimes painfully slowly, shift. We have seen the emancipation of slaves, the suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, all in the last 150 years. This is after, literally, millennia of slavery, and the de-humanizing of women, persons of color, queer folks, the poor, and anyone who is not a white, heterosexual, middle class (or “better”), CIS, male.

One hundred fifty years is barely a drop in the bucket when you look back three to six thousand years.

The shifting of our culture feels slow. And it is taking multiple generations. And will likely take multiple more before we live in a world where racism, misogyny, ablism, and homophobia are quaint things of past.

And.

With each movement, more movements are born. With each small shift there is a ripple effect.

And those ripples are getting larger. And stronger.

And the more we do this work of shifting ourselves and our world, the more we see the importance of doing this work with love made of justice, compassion, empathy, and boundaries.

Love is not always gentle. In fact, I believe love can actually be rather rude. Love shows up when we set our own boundaries and love shows up when we respect and honor the boundaries another person has set for themselves, whether we like those boundaries or not.

Love is willing to be uncomfortable. To sit in the discomfort of unraveling our own familial and cultural training. To sit in the discomfort of unraveling the trauma that lives within us and sorting what is ours, what is our ancestors, and what has absolutely nothing to do with us or our lineage. To sit in the discomfort of sometimes being wrong and causing harm and doing the work to make amends. To sit in the discomfort of acceptance that we are not always in control, and that sometimes honoring the boundaries of another person can be personally and emotionally painful (not harmful, painful) for us.

Love is fierce. And can be filled with rage. Love can be loud and bold and demanding.

Love is sometimes gentle too. And can be quiet. Love is supportive, always. Love is in the giving and receiving. To ourselves and to others. Always and in all ways.

Love is not a bully. It is not used as a weapon to cause harm or manipulate and impose unrealistic expectations.

Love is a comrade. It is a tool we can use to deconstruct our oppressive culture. It is a tool we can use to create a new world where there is justice and safeness and the embracing of differences.

Love is speaking and listening and hearing. Love is respecting and honoring.

The Christian bible states in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ::

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

I can agree with most of this. And, I do believe that love is not blind, that while it doesn’t keep score and it does trust, it is always smart and aware and knows who and when to trust and when not. Love is not gullible.

Love has been a tool for change within myself for most of my life and in particular I have leaned on love this year. Love for my Self. The love of friends and family. Love as a verb. Love as a lesson. Love as a breathing, shifting, thing that both has torn me apart and put me back together.

May we all use love as a tool for destruction of our own old harmful patterns and ways and for creation of new ways of being which invite ourselves and others to live in compassion, empathy, justice, and truth.

/../

This essay originally written in December 2017 for the subscribers of my newsletter.  I edited it a bit for publication here.  If you’d like to subscribe to my weekly love letters you can fill out the form on this page.