Gwynn Raimondi, MA

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.

Self regulation, body reclamation, & trusting ourselves

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Knowing yourself is first step towards self reclamation.  ~Amit Gupta

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.  ~Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

When we self-regulate well, we are better able to control the trajectory of our emotional lives and resulting actions based on our values and sense of purpose.  ~Amy Leigh Mercree, A Little Bit of Meditation: An Introduction to Mindfulness

Living with unprocessed complex trauma means living with a dysregulated nervous system.  It means living in a state of dissociation.  It means not being able to trust ourselves, our reactions, or others and our surroundings.

Living with complex trauma, living in that activated state, in that anxious state, more hours of the day than not, is exhausting.  Emotionally, psychologically, and physically/physiologically.

It impacts our health.  Physical, emotional, psychological.

The impacts of living with unprocessed trauma is exacerbated by the world we live in.  A world where womxn, people of color, trans and non-binary persons, are oppressed and murdered for simply having the audacity to breathe.

A world where being poor is essentially a death sentence.

A world where billionaires can buy their way into the presidency.

A world where victims are blamed and survivors aren’t believed.

A world that is ultimately unsafe.

Knowing this, knowing our world is unsafe, fundamentally so, that this reality activates and exacerbates our complex trauma, how to do we find ways of regulating our nervous systems, reclaim our body, and learn to trust our Self and not be at the mercy of our fight/flight and freeze/fawn reactions?

First, I believe it is so important that we don’t gaslight ourselves.  That we don’t tell our Self that the world is perfectly safe when it’s not.  Yes, there are spaces where we are more or even mostly safe.  In those spaces, we can tell our systems, body, and Self that we are safe enough. 

That said we can also go out and function in the world without being controlled by our limbic system.  We can learn to lower our baseline anxiety, to self regulate, to reclaim our body as OURS and ours only, and even to trust ourselves without lying to ourselves about the reality of the world we live in.

In fact, we need to be able to go out into the world and function.  We need to be able to learn to relate to others in ways that aren’t activating, that don’t escalate already tense situations.  To relate to others from a place of compassion, curiosity, community.  To actually relate to other humans, and ourselves, instead of constantly being on the defense or offense.

I believe in order for us to learn to relate to others, in any and all spaces, we need to bring our baseline anxiety down.  To regulate our autnomic nervous system.  To reclaim our body as our own and to come home into it.  To trust our deeper knowing, our body, our perceptions, while also being curious and open to check in with ourselves and see if what is happening is a response to a past trauma or the present moment.

We need to know if what is happening within is a response to the present moment or that our past trauma experience(s) is being activated in some way, in order to relate to people and situations in ways that are beneficial for all involved, and for the greater collective.

Ultimately, I’m saying it is important for us to do our work.  To learn to self regulate.  To reclaim our body and come home to it.  To know our self well enough so we know when we can trust and when we need to dig a little deeper.

It is important for us to do our work not only so we can enjoy our lives more and have deeper and more fulfilling relationships, but also so the the new ways we are in the world start to make a greater shift for our communities and the greater collective. 

We aren’t required to do this work.  It wasn’t our fault that we were harmed and what we do or don’t do with our processing or healing is wholly up to us.

AND.

We are required to not cause harm to others.  To not perpetuate abuse and trauma.  

I honestly don’t know another way to not cause harm, to ourselves, to other individuals, to the collective, to the planet, than to continue doing our own personal trauma work and breaking the generations old patterns and cycles that have brought us, individually and collectively, where we are today.

This is not simple work.  I don’t believe it’s ever done.  We have layers and layers, lifetimes worth of patterns and cycles to unravel and untangle.

Learning to regulate our nervous system takes practice and time.

Reclaiming our body as ours takes practice, compassion, and an understanding that this part of our work will ebb and flow.

Coming to a place of both trusting our inner knowing and being self-aware enough to know the difference between this knowing and an activated past trauma response takes knowing how to self-regulate, coming into our bodies, and practice, time, compassion, and patience.

This trifecta, self-regulation, body reclaiming, and trusting our Self, is so key to being able to change all our relationships and changing the world. It is how we shift from our own individual survival to having a life that is fulfilling and thriving.  It is a vital part of the revolution and evolution of our species.  It is an important piece of how we will burn down our authoritarian, white supremacist, oppressive systems and come together to build something different, where all persons are free, loved, and liberated.

/../

This essay was originally written for my weeklyish newsletter on March 1, 2020. It has been edited for publication here. If you would like to read my recent essays you can subscribe here.

In Trauma Informed Embodiment™ for Sexual Trauma Survivors we will explore this trifecta, learning tools to self regulate our nervous system, practicing exercises of reclaiming and coming back into our body, and exploring ways to deeper self-awareness, starting to know the difference between our inner knowing and an activated past trauma and seeing the ways we can begin to actually trust our Self.  We will begin on Monday March 16 and registration will close on Sunday, March 15 at 10pm PST.  There are nine spaces total and six are currently still available.  To learn more about this six month group program, you can click right here.  

When the media activates us

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There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.  ~Laurell K. Hamilton, Mistral’s Kiss

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.  ~Elie Wiesel

Fear and anxiety affect decision making in the direction of more caution and risk aversion… Traumatized individuals pay more attention to cues of threat than other experiences, and they interpret ambiguous stimuli and situations as threatening (Eyesenck, 1992), leading to more fear-driven decisions. In people with a dissociative disorder, certain parts are compelled to focus on the perception of danger. Living in trauma-time, these dissociative parts immediately perceive the present as being “just like” the past and “emergency” emotions such as fear, rage, or terror are immediately evoked, which compel impulsive decisions to engage in defensive behaviors (freeze, flight, fight, or collapse). When parts of you are triggered, more rational and grounded parts may be overwhelmed and unable to make effective decisions.  ~Suzette Boon, Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists

A couple weeks ago there was a tragic helicopter crash in which eleven people were killed.  One of the deceased happened to be a celebrity.  A celebrity that was accused of a very brutal sexual assault in 2003.

Images of him and him and his daughter (who was also killed) were all over social media for a couple of days as well as all over the more “traditional” media outlets.  It seemed no matter where you looked, there was his face.

This was hard on many people, especially those who had experienced sexual trauma of their own.  Seeing not only the image of a sexual perpetrator all over the media, but also seeing him exalted and all his good deeds repeated with no to very little comment on the rape accusations, was retraumatizing, painful, and activating of our fight/flight/freeze responses.

Many people had similar responses during the Brock Turner trial in 2016.  Or during the presidential election of same year.  Or any other number of instances when a sexual offender is praised and their image is all over the media. When regard to a sexual predators future or career is given more credence than the future and trauma of their victims.

Our autonomic responses, our fight/flight/freeze, are understandable given our histories.  Our histories where we weren’t believed.  Where we were blamed for what happened to us.  Where the future of the perpetrator was more important than our present or future.  Where we were the one in the wrong for breaking the family apart, causing problems by speaking up. All of that contributes to why when events like this occur we go into an activated state.  We are reminded again and again why our stories don’t matter, why what happened to us was our fault, and why we aren’t important, weren’t important, aren’t relevant.

These responses are so completely understandable.  And to a great degree out of our control. 

So what do we do when the media is filled with images that are activating for us?

We do what we need to do to care for ourselves.  That is going to look different for each of us.  For some it is putting down our phones/going off social media.  For others it is curating our social media so it is only our close friends/family or others who “get it”. It could look like requesting an extra session with our therapist.  It could look like writing our own pieces from a survivor/victims point of view.  It could look like going out in nature.  Drinking lots of water. Eating comfort food.  Asking our friends or intimate partner to hold us or conversely to not touch us.  Telling our close people that we are activated and asking for some grace and support.  It could look like hermiting and having our own space binging on Netflix (or whatever streaming service).  

Most importantly, we need to have compassion for ourselves.  We need to recognize and acknowledge that we are activated and remind ourselves that it makes sense why we are.  We allow the space for the rage, the grief, the frustration.  We let ourselves feel the emotions and sensations that are coursing through our minds, bodies, and being.  

The event a couple weeks agao will not be the last time a sexual predator will be honored and exalted in the media.  It won’t be the last that victims were brushed under the rug, disregarded, or disrespected.  It will, unfortunately happen again.

It is true that tides are changing and we are starting to hold some perpetrators accountable.  It is also true that it is a slow process to change rape culture and there are those who are fighting like hell to keep it alive and well.

So it is vital that we develop the resources and tools to care for ourselves in these times.  To let those close to us know that these kinds of events can be activating for us and ask they check in on us or let them know how they can support us.  

I wish the world were different.  I wish we didn’t put the lives and futures of sexual perpetrators above that of their victims.  I wish that we could accept the complexities of humans and not try to put all people in either “good” or “bad” categories.  I wish that victims were believed, supported, and cared for by our culture as a whole.

And.

We are moving in that direction.  I believe that with all my being.  In the meantime though, we have to take care of ourselves.

/../

This essay was originally written for my weeklyish newsletter on February 3, 2020. To receive my most recent essays and more, you can subscribe right here.

Trauma Informed Embodiment™ for Sexual Trauma Survivors (TIE STS) begins on March 2. Part of the program is support during times like these when the outside world is activating our own trauma experiences. To learn more, click here.

Renewing in the Underworld

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So.

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

/../

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

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

Plans, resilience, & trauma

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Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. ~Allen Saunders

Only when a child’s authenticity is threatened do they develop unhealthy behaviors, distorted reality perceptions, and emotional difficulties. When you force a child to do what they don’t want to do, feel what they don’t feel, and think what they don’t think, their authentic self becomes damaged. ~Darius Cikanavicius, Human Development and Trauma

Those of us who have trauma living within us, and especially childhood/development/relational trauma, like plans.  We like to plan.  To have a plan.  To know what is going to happen when and where it is all happening.

We aren’t so good at surprises.

I used to fall apart if a plan needed to change. By fall apart I mean become non-functioning to the point of crying non-stop, not eating, and at the worst of times going on a suicidal ideation bender.  I could not deal with plans changing.  Even small ones.  If a friend got sick and needed to cancel a date we had it was the end of the freaking world and I would literally spend hours to days flipping out and disparaging said friend to other friends (They are so unreliable.  They are always so flaky.  You can’t trust them at all.)

My late 20s and 30s were all about learning to adapt to plans needing to change.  What this looked like was I had plans A, B, C, D, E all the way to ZZZ.  This way if one plan failed I had another to fall back on and if that failed then there was still another.

I still always had a plan this way, and also it created some space for my friends to get sick without my entire universe imploding.

With time, age, and a lot of really great therapy, I can now say that while I still like to have a plan, it’s not always necessary.  When a plan does fall apart, I don’t fall apart too.  I’ve learned to adapt, really adapt.  To allow for change and surprise and create space for my own problem solving outside of the box when it’s needed.

 There are even times when I don’t have any plan at all, just go with the flow of whatever is happening.  

It’s been a big shift for me in my ways of thinking and being over the last several years.  My level of resilience has increased exponentially and I have gotten to the point where the small stuff (like a friend getting sick and needing to cancel our plans) is no big deal.

The big stuff still has its impacts, for certain, and even with that I do seem to be able to come back from a major upset relatively quickly.

A thing about growing resilience though, is that life seems to give you plenty of opportunities to continue to build that muscle.

Life has a way of doing its own thing, regardless of our plans or intentions or actions or even odds and statistics.

My family received a really big shock in the early spring of 2018.  The kind of shock that would have lasting reverberations for us no matter what we did in the moment or how we chose to move forward.

The shock was one of those things that we never in a million years expected.  In fact, all our previous experience as a family would tell us that it was impossible.  

Yet, there we were.

We sat in the space of processing the news, and honestly in a bit of denial for a bit.  

The denial was part of the process for certain, and also it’s not a place where we could have sat forever.  Decisions needed to be made and plans needed to be figured out.  

A thing is though, that sometimes, (and really even in this case), we can sit in that denial place.  For a very long time.  Life will still go on.  Not making a decision is a decision in and of itself.  Allowing “fate” to have its way is one thing that happens when we sit in that denial space.  And sometimes “fate” can make things a whole lot worse.

A note: Denial isn’t always or only trying to claim that something that is fact is not fact.  Denial is also when we simply don’t want to deal with reality or the facts.  When the facts feel too big or overwhelming or terrifying.  Or when the facts cause too much cognitive dissonance within us. 

Sometimes we need to accept facts that don’t make sense.  Or seem impossible.  Or don’t fit with our own worldview.  Because regardless of whether they make sense or seem possible or fit into the ways we see the world, they are still true, reality still is what it is. 

When we live with unprocessed trauma, allowing what is to be what it is, is a pretty foreign concept.  Most of us who had childhood trauma, have so much cognitive dissonance about the people who were (supposed to be) our caregivers, that we need absolutes.  We need definites. We need Sure Things.  We need things to fit into our worldview and to not break The Rules (whatever those rules may be at the time).

Childhood trauma creates its own form of gaslighting.  We are often told to keep secrets, or not talk about, or worse if we dare talk about what has happened or is happening to us, we are told that couldn’t possibly be true.  Our own sense of reality and what is true and what can be true gets skewed.

So when we make plans, and life throws us a curve-ball… well we tend to fall apart.  Because our grip on the here and now can be pretty tenuous at times, and every little disturbance to our plans and worldview, can lead us to a very dark place.

And.

We don’t have to continue living like this.

There are many ways to process our trauma.  There are multiple avenues to find help.

We don’t need to live in constant overwhelm or denial. 

We can learn to adapt.  We can learn resilience.  We can learn that things don’t have to make sense; that the impossible can actually be possible; and that sometimes our personal worldview isn’t the be all end all truth.

(Yay neuro-plasticity!!)

It takes time.  It requires learning self-compassion.  It depends on having safe-enough relationships where we can explore and experiment and be wrong and shift and grow.  

And.  

It is necessary for us to move out of living in constant overwhelm, to start experiencing moments of calm, peace, and even joy.

Plans aren’t everything.  Sometimes when they fall apart something more amazing happens.  Not always.  And sometimes.  Learning to be open to that possibility has been such a personal shift for me over the last five years.  

I wish this shift for you too.  

/../

This essay was originally published in my weekly(ish) newsletter on March 18, 2018. It has been edited and revised for publication here. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe here.