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I want (a declaration)

October 18, 2019 By gwynn

On February 1, 2019 I wrote the following :: “I am getting to discover what I actually want. Who I am. The kind of person I want to be with. Not forever and happily every after. Because that illusion is shattered. Rather for now and we’ll see where the days take us. I want to be with someone who feels as cozy as the idea of home and who pushes me outside my comfort zones in ways I never imagined. And I want to be the same for them. I want someone who has a whole life and identity outside of me and us. And I want the same for me. I’m learning not to compromise these things.“

Then, on February 14, 2019 I wrote: “Want :: feel like home; feel safe, at ease; be silly; honest; easy; sweet; gentle; tender; trust; amazing sex; physical; cuddly; funny.”

On February 15, 2019 I met a truly amazing person and could check all these things off.

I believe there is power in stating what we want in our lives. Not in a “manifesting” kind of way, more in a getting really clear on what we want in our lives so that we can learn to not settle or compromise when we don’t need to.

I created a revised list of wants in August and have been editing it over the last couple months. I have been holding this list relatively close. When I started I was going to limit my number of wants to 48 (as I’m turning 48 today) and then realized putting limits on our wants is kinda going against the point. So these wants flowed. Some are about the type of intimate partner/relationship I want. Some are about the friends I want; how I want to be with my kids; how I want to be in life in general. All of them are morphing and shifting and changing. And some of my wants are likely missing because I haven’t been able to fully articulate them yet.

And.

For the days leading up to my birthday, each day I posted a different image that lists some of these wants on my secret IG account. I did this for me, to help me get clear with myself. To explore the ideas of adult relationships and wanting and wounding and getting curious about how some of my wants may not necessarily be so great for me, and also some are.

To be clear I don’t want all these things from a single person. Rather, these are things I want in my life, somewhere, with someone. And sometimes that someone is me, myself and not someone outside of me.

Below is the list of wants, in its entirety. It is a love poem of sorts, to myself, to the world, and to you.

In rebellious solidarity and wanting, always. xoox grr

I want (a declaration)

I want passion. Red. Hot. Smoldering and bursts of flames.
I want deep belly laughs that won’t stop.
I want to write. About processing trauma. Poetry. A memoir. A love story.
I want touching. I want not being able to keep our hands off each other. I want personal space respected.
I want to paint. I want to freely express my Self. I want to move it out. I want to let it in.

I want snow magic and summer heat.
I want saltwater and salt air, rocks and sand.
I want narrow trails through dense, lush forests.
I want open, honest, consistent communication.

I want political compatibility with just enough difference to spark debates so deep we get turned on and can’t help but want to kiss each other ravenously.
I want out of body experiences. I want deep dives into our souls.
I want support. I want to be told to never doubt myself, to never sell myself short.

I want safeness and home and being pushed outside my comfort zone.
I want mystery and curiosity. I want well known and semi-predictable.
I want rainy days curled up in bed and sunny days stretching on the water.
I want the sweetness of protectiveness knowing they know I can take care of myself.

I want games of pool and smooth bourbon and pale ales. I want witty conversation and knowing looks.
I want to light up at the sight them as they light up at the sight of me.
I want good morning texts when I can’t have good morning kisses.
I want hand holding, our hands fitting each other’s perfectly.
I want to feel valued, understood, appreciated. I want to value, understand, and appreciate.

I want texting just because, without concern about bothering or boring each other.
I want forehead kisses and ass slaps.
I want rolling over in his sleep and wrapping his arms around me.
I want dinners in and dinners out. I want movies in bed and movies at the cinema. I want drinks at home and at the bar.

I want dog walks at twilight.
I want safeness and ease.
I want honesty and emotional intelligence.

I want sweet and tender, gentle and kind. I want softness as strength.
I want to trust and be trusted.
I want flowers for special occasions and just because.
I want to get lost in his eyes and while I’m there knowing how loved and wanted I am.

I want to feel accepted, in all my awkwardness and dorkiness.
I want to not always be in control or making all the decisions. I want equal effort.
I want to break cycles and patterns. I want to shift . I want to fill the black holes within myself so they can no longer devour me or anyone else.
I want snuggles and secret sharing and telling dumb jokes.
I want childish giggles and smirks and the thoughts that go with them.

I want to be alone together, each doing our own thing in the comfort of each other’s presence.
I want singing together in the car to my favorite bands.
I want road trips and adventures. I want quiet Sundays together at home.
I want to feel so overwhelmingly happy I have to sob.

I want dancing late at clubs with loud music and dancing slow in our living rooms in the middle of the day to no music at all.
I want sparks. I want electricity. I want fireworks.
I want quiet. I want peace. I want breath.

I want the Marvelverse and vampires and campy thrillers.
I want butterflies and giddy nervousness. I want ease and relaxation.
I want to tingle at the sound of his voice.
I want lots of amazing sex.

I want sunsets and moonrise and star gazing and warm fires under dark skies.
I want sunrise and burning fog and cool crisp air and seeing our breath.
I want freedom and space and closeness and intensity.
I want creativity and rawness.
I want growth. Mine. Theirs. Ours.

I want to be wholly seen and still be adored. I want to feel wanted, every part of me.
I want open, honest communication. I want shadows shared. I want to bask in each other’s sun.
I want to live life in the fullest ways I can. I want rest and naps and regeneration.
I want gentle and rough. I want smooth and scratchy.

I want unbreakable love and appropriate boundaries. I want clarity. I want emotional maturity.
I want to be held together when I feel I’m falling apart. I want to hold them together when they feel like they are falling apart.
I want separate lives. I want our lives to blend and grow together.

I want expansion and contraction. I want beyond the edge of the universe and cuddled close together on the couch.
I want playfulness and fun. I want seriousness and dedication.
I want to go out and stay in. I want to be social and have solitude.
I want connection beyond this realm, indescribable, outside of language and the deep knowing that goes with this.

I want to not take life so seriously, not take myself so seriously.
I want pleasure in every sense. I want financial stability and security.
I want the hard times that bring us together and help us grow.
I want open communication & expressing our needs and wants, without demands or expectations.
I want presence. I want being here now. I want self-awareness and doing our own work. I want repair when harm is unintentionally done. I want loving each other and our selves enough to encourage growth, change, and healing.

I want long term with no contracts or promises. Decades filled with single days waking up and choosing each other and ourselves over and over.
I want to feel more alive than I ever have before.
I want what I had. I want what I have. And I want more.

*I reserve the right to edit and revise as I want.*

…

Filed Under: Complex Trauma, declaration, declaring, happy birthday to me, Relationships, this is 48, wants

High maintenance, low drama, and other code words

August 12, 2019 By gwynn

She’s not high maintenance, you’re just low effort. ~Unknown

“High maintenance” is a great way to make a woman who puts tons of effort into her own life sound like a burden on a man. ~Unknown

Having standards doesn’t make you high maintenance. It makes you a bitch who knows what the fuck she wants. ~Unknown 

I’ve in and out of the online dating world since last fall.

Something I’ve noticed on many CIS/hetero male profiles are the phrases “No high maintenance” or “no/low drama“. These are code words for “I want a woman who I can walk all over and won’t state her needs or wants or, if she does, she won’t demand or fight for them.” These are code words for “I don’t want to have to deal the consequences of me being a jerk or selfish or inconsiderate of another human being I’m being intimate with“. These are code words for “I’m the only one who actually matters, who is actually fully human, in this relationship.“

I don’t think (most) men think these things consciously. They have been trained in this culture just like we all have. We have all been trained that women are meant to be accommodating, submissive, quiet. We have all been trained that when a woman is angry or frustrated then she is being hysterical and unreasonable. We have all been trained that when a woman states her needs or wants that she is being demanding and just too much.

And as a dear friend says “Priviledge. It’s a hell of a drug.“

This past week I read an article in the Paris Review titled The Crane Wife. It is a written by a woman telling the story of her breaking off her engagement and cancelling her wedding, the reasons why, and the ways she sold herself out in the name of not being a “burden” or a “bother” or too demanding.

I related to this article as if I could have written it myself. I look back on the twenty years I was with my ex and see all the ways I was “accommodating” and all the ways I “compromised” which translates to mean all the ways I didn’t ask for nor demand some of my own basic needs and wants. The ways I convinced myself those things weren’t important, that I didn’t need them, that I was expecting too much and being… unreasonable. I look back and see all the ways I gave my Self up, piece by piece, in the name of love, in the name of not being too much, in the name of not wanting to rock the boat and cause conflict.

I would love to be able to say that this behavior was all in the past. That I learned from the disintegration of my marriage how to not give up pieces of me, to stand up for myself, to honor my own wants and needs. 

I’d love to be able to say that.

But I’ve realized over this past few weeks, that I can’t. The pattern is still there, it’s just a different layer now.

I noticed over the last couple months how I was falling into this same pattern again with the person I’m currently dating. It looks different this time, of course. With my ex I wouldn’t state my needs or wants until I was completely overwhelmed and triggered, which always lead to a huge fight. I would bottle and suppress and try to convince myself things didn’t matter when they did, and there always came a point when I couldn’t hold it in anymore and would basically explode.

That hasn’t happened with the person I’m currently dating. And to that I say thank the gods and goddesses for therapy and growth. What has happened however, is that my own insecure anxious attachment has been triggered, more than once. Each time I have taken a step back, analyzed the situation, and then decided if it made sense for me to say something or not.

Good so far, right?

The problem became apparent when I constantly and consistently decided that it was all on me. That is was just my anxious attachment, my childhood trauma, the wounding from the betrayal of my ex. For a long time I didn’t say anything to the person I’m dating. I didn’t mention how much certain behaviors were hurting me.

And that wasn’t fair to him, just as it wasn’t fair to me.

Over the last couple months I have begun to speak up. I have begun to say how certain behaviors were hurting me, I’ve asked that he tell me before he’s going to do certain things. I’ve stated my needs and wants. 

I haven’t demanded he change. I haven’t told him he’s a horrible person or blamed him for my wounding. 

I have told him clearly what my needs and wants are.

There, with all relationships, of course, needs to be some compromise. There needs to be understanding of circumstances. There needs to acceptance that sometimes we just don’t have enough spoons to be the person our partners or friends or family may want or need us to be and sometimes they don’t have enough spoons either. This is life. 

And.

It is also true that we cannot be the only one being “understanding” or making concessions. Just as we know those close to us have their own struggles, they too need to understand we have ours. This doesn’t mean anyone accepts abuse. It does mean we all recognize that we all can’t be our Very Best Selves 24/7. And if we can look at the whole and see how the hurtful or stressful behaviors are the exception and not the rule, then that is when it makes sense for us to compromise. But again, only when we can look at the whole and see those behaviors as the exception.

We also need to look at our own patterns and determine if we have expressed our needs in a way and at a time that they can be heard and acknowledged. I found myself in a variation of my old pattern of not speaking up, and this wasn’t fair to the person I’m dating. It also wouldn’t have been fair to yell at them or tell them they were a bad person for doing the things that were triggering (because they are not a bad person, they are actually a pretty great person!). What was fair and appropriate was realizing my pattern, and then stating my needs and why I need them. Not demanding. No threatening. Asking if he could do what I needed.

This is all a bit of a challenge. We get to own our own wants and needs. We get to express them. That doesn’t make us “high maintenance” or “high drama”. It makes us humans who have a right to having our needs and wants honored, by ourselves and others. 

It means that we are human and do not have to sell ourselves short or shrink ourselves or give away pieces of our Self so that we aren’t a bother or a burden. 

It means that we have as much right and deserving to be respected, heard, and regarded as any other person. 

It also means we need to do the same for those in our lives. To hear their asks and decide if it’s something we can do. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. That’s true both ways. And when those we care about can’t meet our needs and wants, we need to then decide what our own next courses of action are; be that getting some of those needs met by friends or family or ourselves or if we need to examine the relationship as a whole and decide how we want to go from there.

Another person not meeting a specific need or want at a specific time doesn’t need to be a deal breaker. A consistent pattern of a person not meeting our needs or wants perhaps should be. When looking at the pattern, consider the circumstances, the context. If there are legitimate reasons for a behavior, not that it makes the behavior okay, but to understand it more. When we are able to learn to do this for others we can also learn to do this for ourselves.

We are all human. We all make mistakes. 

And.

For each of us, it is important to be able to state our needs and wants, to not shrink ourselves or give away pieces of who we are. To not try mold ourselves into someone we aren’t. Rather, we need to be our whole selves, the messy, the not messy, and the complex, both with ourselves and with those we are in relationship with.

/../

This essay was originally published in my newsletter on July 29, 2019 and has been edited for publication here. If you’d like to read my most recent essays and learn about my current offerings, you can subscribe to my weekly(ish) newsletter here.

Filed Under: anxiety, Complex Trauma, Cultural Relational Trauma, insecure anxious preoccupied attachment, Relating with trauma, Relationships, wants

The pursuit of pleasure while living with Complex Trauma

June 5, 2019 By gwynn

Pleasure is the point. Feeling good is not frivolous, it is freedom.  ~Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good

There is no way to repress pleasure and expect liberation, satisfaction, or joy.  ~Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good

Trauma victims cannot recover until they become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies. Being frightened means that you live in a body that is always on guard. Angry people live in angry bodies. The bodies of child-abuse victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe. In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.  ~Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Living with complex trauma in our bodies is not an easy or fun experience.  Many of us dissociate from our bodies entirely, not feeling the various sensations that are part of every day life.  Some of us dissociate and live with chronic pain or anxiety (or both) and only are able to feel painful and uncomfortable sensations.  Living in a state of constant pain and anxiety, or not being present at all in our bodies, is a cage many of us have felt, or still do feel, trapped  in.  We can feel there is no escape from the discomfort and so will find even more ways to numb, to escape.

And those other ways of numbing may work for a while.  I’m all for pain relief.  I’m also fully aware that some pain is more about trapped trauma than anything else and no amount of medication is going to help in the short or long runs.

When our only experience with our body and its sensations is that of discomfort or pain or not feeling it at all, it’s challenging to imagine what pleasure is, what it could possibly feel like.

We also assume that pleasure should actually be pleasurable.  It’s a relatively reasonable expectation, right?  Except when we’ve lived a good portion of our lives outside our bodies, feeling any type of body sensation is strange and uncomfortable at first.  This includes pleasure.  

So, if pleasure initially is uncomfortable, why bother?  

Well, because with patience, intention, and practice, pleasure can become pleasurable – and a life without pleasure is not us living our best lives, it is not thriving, it is merely surviving.  

To feel pleasure we need to come back home into our bodies.  Or for some of us be in our bodies for essentially the first time in our lives.  And this means feeling all the sensations of our body – pain, anxiety, discomfort and pleasure, peace, and comfort.  We can’t experience one without the other.  We can’t pick and choose which sensations we are going to allow ourselves to feel and which we aren’t.  It’s an all or nothing type of deal.

And in order to really feel pleasure, peace, and comfort in our bodies, we need to first go through the initial discomfort of beginning to feel them.  This may seem like an oxymoron, and yet it is part of the process.  

Complex trauma impacts our whole body.  It impacts our nervous systems; our brain and the neuro pathways within it; our sensory receptors and how we notice sensations.  When trauma occurs at a young age it sets our minds and bodies on a course of constant survival.  Being aware of pain is an important part of our survival as a species.  

Feeling pleasure on the other hand, is not necessary for our survival as a species nor as individuals.

I would argue however that feeling pleasure is necessary for us to thrive in our lives, to find joy, to live and enjoy our lives to fullest.  I’m not only talking about sexual pleasure here.  I’m also talking about the pleasure of eating certain foods, of wearing certain fabrics, of being hugged by and hugging those we love, of appreciating art in its many forms, listening to and feeling music and how it lights us up.

Moving from a place of surviving, where many of us have lived most of our lives, to a place of thriving, a place that is wholly unknown and foreign, is a process in an of itself.  It is a part of our trauma processing work, in fact I believe it is the entire point of our trauma processing work. 

Of course it takes time, patience, intention, and most importantly practice.  

And as I have said many a time before, and will say many more times in the future, I believe all the work involved to move from surviving to thriving is totally worth it.

Filed Under: body love, boundaries, breaking cycles, breaking patterns, Complex Trauma, Consent, cPTSD, Cultural Relational Trauma, Desire, inter-generational trauma, intergenerational trauma, pleasure, pleasure activism, trauma, trauma informed care, Trauma Informed Embodiment, wanting, wants

Not settling & discovering our wants

June 3, 2019 By gwynn

As a child you received messages from your family to keep your mouth shut and remain invisible. You also learned to become invisible in order to protect yourself. You no longer need to be invisible to survive. If people do not notice you, they may not abuse you, but they also will not love you or attend to your needs. Make yourself and your needs known. ~Beverly Engel, The Right to Innocence

I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don’t want. ~Stanley Kubrick

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves. ~Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves. ~Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma

Be you, love you. All ways, always. ~Alexandra Elle

There is a truth, that often in life we settle.  We settle for things that don’t fill our souls, that don’t make us feel alive, that don’t spark in us a sense of joy or wonder or peace.  We settle for things that are mediocre, okay, fine (we guess).  And sometimes, even worse, we settle for things that make us unhappy, that break our hearts in a thousand different ways, that make us sacrifice our own values, wants, our very Self.

We may do this for any number of reasons, and I know for me in the past I have often done it because it was just easier.

It was easier to settle for less than to actually admit I was settling for less and doing something about it.

Hindsight is almost always 20/20.  We can look back at choices, at relationships, at events, and see all the things we did “wrong”.  We can see clearly how we would have, could have, should have, done things differently from the perspective of being on the other side of it all.  

With this hindsight and clarity we have the opportunity to do one of three things: spiral into shame or regret; nothing; or learn and grow. 

I have been looking back over the twenty plus years I spent with my ex-husband.  There was a time when looking back on it all filled me with regret or overwhelming grief or deep seated rage.  I could only see all the bad choices.  I could only see all the ways I sold myself short, I sold myself out.  I could only see the harm that came from that relationship.

With time, I’ve been able to see the good times too.  And the truth that without those twenty plus years with him, I would not be the woman I am today.  And for better or worse, I really like the woman I am and the woman I am becoming now.

And with all that I can also say that while I no longer regret in any way that relationship or our twenty plus years together,  and actually in many ways am grateful and glad for it, I can also very clearly see how we never should have been together in the first place.

Both and.  

Looking back at the beginning of that relationship, I rushed.  I didn’t slow down and take the time to determine what I actually wanted.  I mean, I knew what I wanted: I wanted to get married and have babies and have that fairytale romance with my soulmate that everyone was envious of.

The first two things, totally doable.  That last one though… tricky.  Because I didn’t know what I actually meant.  I didn’t actually know what I wanted out of an intimate relationship beyond the exterior appearance.  I never stopped to think about how I wanted to feel within the relationship.  I never slowed down enough to consider if I could be fully myself with this person, if I would feel at home within myself and within the relationship at once; if he would grow and shift and change with me or we would grow, shift, and change in the same general direction.  

My clock was ticking, I wanted babies, he wanted babies eventually and bam, that was was good enough; he was it.  I stopped looking, not only for other partners, but I also stopped looking within to determine if I was happy, if I was fulfilled, if my own wants and desires were being met, if I was still connected to me as our relationship grew.

It wasn’t just in that relationship that I stopped looking or questioning.  I also fell into a career that in many ways I loved, but in so many other ways was soul crushing.  I rarely questioned my career choice, I stayed with that job because it was easier than trying to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up.  Until it wasn’t anymore. 

There have also been friendships over the years that I stayed in because it was easier.  Because I was lonely.  Because I would tell myself that they didn’t really mean this thing or that no one is perfect.  And while no one is perfect, it is also true that I settled for people in my life who’s values and life choices were in direct opposition to mine, and at the end of the day it simply wasn’t good for my own mental health.  So I settled until I couldn’t anymore.

When we look back we can see all the ways we settled, because frankly it was just easier.  We were doing the best we could at the time to get through our days relatively unscathed.

And there often comes a point in our lives when we do awaken a bit, when we suddenly (or very slowly) stop, look around, and see how unhappy we actually are.  We feel how unsatisfied and unfulfilled we are.  We notice all the overwhelm, all the frustration, all the non-right in our lives, within ourselves.  

In those moments we see all was don’t want. And sometimes we then want to take a torch to it all, to break all the relationships, to throw out all the things, be they people or stuff or jobs.

But the problem is that while it is very clear what we don’t want, we still perhaps aren’t clear on what we do actually want.  What we actually desire.  What would actually fulfill us.

We know what we don’t want, but we have no clarity around what we do want.

This is not to say that there aren’t times when we do need to burn it all down; to make swift and dramatic change in our relationships and surroundings.  It is absolutely true that this is sometimes a necessary part of our own shifting and growth and frankly discovering of what we do want.

And it is also true, that perhaps slowing down and truly examining the not-wants and then taking the time to discover our true wants and to consciously choose what to keep in our lives and what to set free may sometimes be better for us in the long run.  Not always. But sometimes.  

I am in a space of unearthing my own wants, my own desires, and even some of my needs.  I am in a space of learning that pleasure has so many forms, and that acknowledging and embracing my true wants in my life is a form of intense and radical self care.  That pleasure, enjoyment, satisfaction, are not selfish or wrong or unnecessary, but in fact are loving, right, and absolutely necessary and important parts of thriving in this life.

To be in a space of not settling, or learning not to settle, has it’s own ups and downs.  This is an unknown space, an in-between space. These liminal spaces are often full of discomfort, sometimes fear, and a lot of two steps forward, two steps back cha-cha movements before we are able to make that third step forward and then only two, or maybe only one, back, making progress with our own shifting and transformation.

It is also a space of noticing, of learning, of curiosity, of discovery.  It is a time of not only discovering what I actually want – in my relationships, work, life – but also learning to speak up and have those wants and desires met.  Learning to become vulnerable and open in the asking, instead of demanding.  Learning to allow for the reality that the response from others may be a “no” for any number of reasons, and that those reasons often have nothing to actually do with me.  

This is all new territory.  Exciting and terrifying.  And a truth is, that it has taken a lot of work, intentional mindful work, to get here.  Work that wasn’t fun or easy by any means, experiences that shook me to my core and also put me in the crucible of change and transformation whether I wanted it or not.

I believe it is true that most of us, in parts of our lives, settle because it’s simply the path of least resistance.  That we continue to settle until, for whatever reasons, we can’t anymore.   When we come to this crossroads, I hope that we all have people, or meet people, who are willing to go on this wild ride of discovery and transformation with us, people who want to push outside their own comfort zones, who also want to explore and examine all life has to offer.  

We don’t need to carpe diem every day.  Sometimes what we want is quiet and peaceful and still.  It is important to recognize this too.  To allow for the both and, the multitudes of our own Self.  

/../

In Embodied Writing :: Pleasure Edition we will spend some time unearthing our own wants and desires and looking at how to shift in our own ways from settling into a way of being that is more fulfilling.   We begin in two weeks, on June 10.  To learn more click here. 

If you’d like to subscribe to my weekly newsletter, you can do that here.

Filed Under: boundaries, breaking cycles, breaking patterns, Connection, Consent, Cultural Relational Trauma, Desire, discomfort, intergenerational trauma, Internalized Misogyny, trauma informed care, Trauma Informed Embodiment, wanting, wants

Desire, pleasure, & trauma

May 16, 2019 By gwynn

The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect. ~Peter A. Levine 

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. ~Eleonora Duse

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. ~Washington Irving

Earlier this week was Mother’s Day here in the United States.  It’s a day that is mixed with many emotions for me personally, and there are few Mother’s Days I can look back on as 100% good or precious memories.  Mother’s Day, for me, is a day of grief, a day of frustration, as well as a day of love.

I know for many this day can be a mixed a bag.  Perhaps our mothers weren’t the mothers we needed them to be.  Perhaps they have died.  Perhaps we longed to be a mother and aren’t.  Perhaps we never wanted to be a mother and are.  Perhaps we desperately wanted to be mothers, are now, but are filled with frustration or regret.  Perhaps this day brings other emotions up for us.

I know without a doubt, that Mother’s Day has never been about pleasure for me.  It has historically not been a day just for or about me, as a mother.  It has never been a day of rest or doing what I wanted.  Last year was a particularly hard Mother’s Day filled with grief, heartbreak, anger, and frustration.

It is funny sometimes how much our lives, how much we, can change in a year. Twelve short months and we look back and wonder at the person we were, are in awe of the changes and shifts we’ve made, are surprised to see where we are now.

A truth is that I didn’t do a very good job of receiving on this day.  Another truth is, I rarely spoke up and stated what exactly I wanted.  I didn’t do a very good job of advocating for my own pleasure, for my own joy, for my own enjoyment.

I know why this is, of course.  There was my own ingrained messages of how asking for what I want isn’t acceptable, that pleasure is bad, and then all the stories about whether or not I “deserved” or was “worth of” doing what pleased me.

The why I didn’t advocate for my own pleasure is a tangled web of complex trauma, fear, and shame.  There is also a heavy dose of the narratives about wanting, about desire, about pleasure, saying they are all bad and only “bad people” want or desire any thing beyond what they have.  Or more specifically that a woman should want, should desire, should seek pleasure in any form.  

Desire, in an of itself, is a complex notion. We are all taught on so many levels to be thankful for what we have and that wanting more or different is not a good or healthy thing. I’ve written in the past about how the whole gratitude movement makes me want to scream, because at its roots can be shame around wanting more than what we have, in wanting different.

We can both appreciate all that we have and want something more, something different. It is possible to hold both, for both to be 1000% true.

Learning to explore our wants, our desires, has so many levels to it.  Unraveling the indoctrination by our culture is one level.  Looking at the ways our families approached desire and wanting is another.  Examining the shame we carry from our childhood traumas is yet another layer.  

We have learned from so many places that wanting is bad.  That desire is bad.  That we aren’t deserving or worthy of pleasure, of peace, of feeling full, nourished, complete.

We learn to strive, yes.  To keep reaching for that carrot.  But we aren’t taught to examine if that is the carrot we even want.  We are sold an idea of what success looks like and if we don’t meet that standard then we are failures and that is even more proof of how unworthy and undeserving we are.  

Slowing down and taking the time to unravel, explore, examine, and experiment with what we actually want,  what we truly desire, what brings us undeniable pleasure is no easy feat in and of itself.  Learning to allow ourselves to experience pleasure, joy, fun – takes practice, time, intention.  And yes, coming home into our bodies.

Learning to be at home in our own skin, to tolerate both discomfort and pleasure, is an important part of the work.  And it is not the whole of it all.  We also need to consciously examine the stories we hold in our minds (and yes bodies), and practicing new ways of thinking, to do the work of growing new neuropaths and allow the old ones, where all these old stories live, to atrophy.

It is not easy work.  And, as I have said many times before, I do believe it is deeply worth it.  

/../

Embodied Writing :: Pleasure Edition is a seven week program where we will explore different aspects of pleasure, our internalized narratives about pleasure, and learning to reclaim pleasure as a part of our lives through stream of conscious writing and embodiment practices.  To learn more click here. 

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Filed Under: collective trauma, Complex Trauma, Cultural Relational Trauma, Desire, inter-generational trauma, intergenerational trauma, personal trauma, pleasure, pleasure activism, Self Awareness, sexual trauma, trauma, trauma informed care, Trauma Informed Embodiment, wanting, wants

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