Trauma & Psychedelic Integration Therapist, Writer
I was blessed to have the opportunity to connect with the amazing Julia of Jules Dolly Art last week in her new Afternoon Tea with Jules series. Why don’t you make yourself a lovely pot of tea, curl up in your favorite spot and listen in? You can view our conversation by clicking here.
The first couple of weeks after I came home from my week at school were a bit rough on my girl and me. We kept trying to reconnect and not quite making it. There were a lot of tears, from both of us, feelings of rejection and being misunderstood.
I felt frustrated because she would say she wanted to do this or that with me, state that we just weren’t getting enough time together, and then when I would try to play whatever game she requested, or the do the thing she wanted, she would get angry if I asked too many questions or didn’t do something or the other exactly as she wanted.
Or so, that’s how it looked on the outside.
My feelings were hurt yes, and yes I was frustrated because I too wanted desperately to reconnect with my daughter. I wanted to play and be silly and have fun. I put off doing housework and business work so that we could have time together.
I knew how her heart was hurting. I knew that her lashing out both had everything and nothing to do with me. I knew that her survival mechanisms were trying to protect her from further separation, further hurt. I knew that in oh-so-many ways she wasn’t really in control of her reactions–they were primal, coming up from her reptilian brain.
I persevered. It was hard at times. There were moments when I started to slip back into my reptilian brain also, times when my feelings were hurt so deeply, times when my frustration would start to get the best of me and I would start to spiral into anger.
In those hard moments I would find my breath, find myself. I would remind myself all I know of attachment. I would remind myself all I know of development. I would remind myself how her “rejection” was stirring up my own childhood wounds of rejection and abandonment and while my response was triggered by her it really had little to do with her. I would remind myself I was the parent, the adult.
Most of the time this worked. Not every time. There was repair work I did over the last couple weeks too, apologizing after cruel words slipped out of my mouth, giving lots of hugs and snuggles, listening to heartbeats, tickling and playing and finding ways to get us both back into the present moment.
Today my girl and I played a game she made up. It was something like hockey, but somewhat different. We played in the garage with a ball and some tree branches, she led the play and I followed, adding in questions and comments and saying “I’m open” or “I need to pass” on queue. It was fun and I felt like we deeply connected while playing. My girl’s eyes were so lit up and I could see how excited she was that here we were playing a game of her own creation.
This parenting thing changes us, fundamentally. I’ve shifted and adapted and grown to love play, something I once avoided at all costs. I had read Lawrence Cohen’s Playful Parenting (which I highly recommend to all parents) and I intellectually understood the value and power of play, and yet my body had so much resistance. I have used a timer to help me move past my anxiety, to put limits that my brain and body could handle, to ease play into my experience, into my body, into my heart.
As time has moved forward I’ve found myself enjoying play more and more. I’ve left the timer behind. I’ve opened myself to the deep connection my daughter and I have. More importantly I have come to accept her beautiful unconditional love.
Accepting unconditional love from another person is terrifying, overwhelming and powerful. When we are able to accept the love of another we are opening ourselves to healing our past hurts as well as opening ourselves to the possibility of future hurts. It is the fear of the the potential future hurts that blocks so many of us from accepting love and kindness from others. Fear stops us from deeply feeling the love each and every one of us is meant to feel from another or to experience the profound joy that comes with the experience of that love.
These last two weeks I have shed tears and held my girl while she shed hers. I have examined my own reactions, repaired when appropriate, owned my own shit, and understood and empathized with where my girl is in each moment. And while we didn’t play Barbies yesterday due to her own frustrations and primal defense mechanisms, we did play a rousing game of something like hockey, but not quite, today, where we both laughed and played, where we felt connected and understood. I accepted my girl’s love and she accepted mine.
This is where my growth and transformation is. In the accepting. In the acknowledging. In releasing my deeply internalized myths of not being worthy or good enough. In moving through the fear. In loving another and deeply breathing her love for me, finding joy and peace in her love.
We find our transformation in our relationships. We find love, peace and joy through our connections. We heal and repair our broken hearts by moving into vulnerability and allowing others in. We love and accept love as though our very lives depended upon it. Because quite frankly, they do.
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May we find peace, calm and presence within the chaos of life.
May we savor this moment, right now.
May we feel the sand gently cutting into the bottoms of our feet as the salt water washes the tops.
May we find our community, our village, our tribe. May our lives be filled with Our People, connecting deeply, finding both support and loving challenge, for growth, for blossoming.
May we each have lots of ink on our skin, declaring who we were and who we are.
May the Softness envelope us, wrapping us each in our own cocoon of security and love.
May we be overfilled with the softness, so that it pours out of us, into the world, rounding the rough edges of all we meet.
May we have candle light and slow, lingering kisses.
May we have bubbles and giggles and lit up eyes all around.
May we release and find sweet forgiveness.
May we express the Divine within.
May we hear the ocean waves crashing, feeling them pull us in deeper and surrounding our whole being, becoming one with the wave, surfing it, just our body, and the ocean.
May we each find good health and free our bodies of sickness.
May our families grow as we long them to, feeling the child growing within, holding the sweet newborn to our breast.
May we feel crazy good.
May we embrace this life, to have a smile spread across our whole body as we see the beauty surrounding us.
May we have sunlight and color filling our homes, our lives, right now.
May we have gorgeous beads around our necks, wrists, ankles and dangling from our ears, an expression of our creativity, our beauty.
May we embrace our femininity, the gentle softness that is our birthright, feeling it deep in our bones and know that we are Whole, Enough, Beautiful as we were born, as we are now.
May we be held and told it will all be okay, this rough spot isn’t forever, This Too Shall Pass.
May we feel passion, savor all of life, connect deeply and completely to our bodies and our souls.
May we release the trauma living within us, be brave and move into this deep healing.
May we dance the Sacred Dance, what that means to each of us, together and apart, in our time and space.
May our breath be taken away by the gorgeous beauty and generosity of others.
May we take other’s breath away, with our beauty and generosity.
May we blossom and open, release the tightness, the clenching, find our fluidity.
May we come together, individuals into the whole, growing and guiding and changing each other as the rebels we are, and in this coming together may we change the world.
Namaste.
Sitting on my deck, looking out into the green of the fairy forest and our yard, the sun starts to fade from view and the light behind my screen dims. I still hear the creek gurgling along its way and tonight my neighbors are on their deck enjoying the beauty that is our shared backyard. I hear her grandchildren giggle and laugh while the adults talk.
When they first came out onto their deck I felt annoyed. I had been enjoying the quiet gurgling of the creek and the last tweets and chirps of the birds who live in our little forest. I debated moving inside and being grumpy because now I couldn’t enjoy my deck and yard, now I couldn’t concentrate on my writing. My body felt out of sorts. My brain too full.
I did go inside, however I left the laptop and my books on the table. I got a glass of water and went pee. I grabbed a cup of cherries to nibble on. I put on a pair of cozy socks. I took a deep, slow breath and literally shook my body, releasing the annoyance, the tension that had been building up and opening the space for the Truth that my neighbor and I can both enjoy our decks, our shared yard at the same time.
When I came back to my chair outside I felt lighter. I smiled at the children giggling. I breathed in the night air and started to write.
Then she came.
Each night I’ve been out here writing, I get a visitor. A red-breasted robin hops and runs along our yard, pecking and digging for food. When I see her, I feel the smile that grows on my face fill my entire body. She’s my friend. I stay quiet and watch her and then I try to get a picture of her, to share her with you, but she flies away into the trees.
I smile and accept that today is not the day to share her. Today I get to savor her for myself.
Then my daughter yells down from her bedroom “MOM!!! I saw your robin!!!”
Okay, maybe I do get to share her a little.
This is how life goes isn’t it? When we start to get comfortable, something happens to force a shift, to move us into discomfort even if only momentarily, as my neighbors did. My neighbors had done nothing wrong, they had no malice towards me, they were simply enjoying the beauty that we live in. And yet I internalized some message, that was never spoken or meant, that now I couldn’t enjoy our yard. Taking those moments to get some water and take time to breathe opened back up the space for both of us to exist, to share in the beauty of our space, separately.
And my friend the robin. She makes me laugh with the reminder she gave of how quickly one moment moves into the next and when we think an opportunity is lost, it is found.
Adaptation. Opening the space for things not to be exactly as we had planned or hoped and allowing what is to be. Rejoicing and relishing the moments, even when they bring annoyance or frustration. Breathing into the beauty of the now, knowing it will soon pass into the next now-moment, and the next.
