Tag: shadow work

Catch Up, Before We Begin, Again

It has been so long since I have written here, so much has happened. There are parts of me that feel I am in the same place. Yet I am not. In less than two weeks I will be fifty…50?!

I am told this is a big birthday, I feel this is a big birthday- but I am not entirely sure what this means. Do I start playing bingo? Is this the time to be acquiring sweatshirts with cute cats on them? Do I become louder? More staunch in my opinions? Do I loose my sexuality? Do I get taken less seriously because of my age, too old to matter? Do I begin to wear obnoxiously bright clothing and large chunky jewelry? Do I start fighting the aging process with all the science at my disposal? Do I give in and let gravity melt me into a doughy Shar Pei version of myself?

Was I supposed to prepare more for this landmark moment in my life? I have made some changes in the last couple of years, not consciously because the five-oh was on the horizon, but because it felt natural and right.

I took a deep dive examination of self. Fifteen months of weekly therapy to try to figure out all the WTF in my life. Is everything all better, no more anxiety, no more chains of CPTSD? Do I know all now? No, if anything I have created a few more of those WTF questions, but what I have learned, has changed how I deal with them. I have a deeper understanding of myself. Better control, if you will, of the negative self protective mechanisms that I have built up since childhood. There has been some loss because of this, that will be touched on in other missives, the loss of a ‘best’ friend, other long time friends as well. New boundaries and the exploration (all be it nervously) of my own voice in real life, not just on the page.

I am more dedicated to healthier measures. A switch in physical goals, the primary no longer being weight loss, but maintaining/improving movement and strength. For the most part, eating healthier, but not restrictive or denying of foods. I need more work in this area, damn tasty chocolate and soft doughy carbs! There has been a massive shift in alcohol consumption, given my family history, I am surprised that my drinking never caused huge problems, but it was heavy and binged often. Now, once in a while a glass or two of wine, the occasional gin. Not the same as when I would look so forward to Friday and opening a bottle or two, thinking of an excuse to have wine during the week, ordering the next glass before I was finished the first, eagerly awaiting the dull fuzzy warmth that will follow with glass 2, 3 and 4….

Therapy taught me to sit with the feelings, good or bad. To seek out the origin, to be compassionate with myself and to not allow it to carry me away. This takes time, it is hard and doesn’t always feel successful. However, the after effects are far less troublesome than the headache and sour stomach of too much wine and blank spots where I am not sure what was said or done.

I posed naked last year for an art project- that too will be its own missive, I suppose it was my way of making peace with this body that has been through so much. To allow myself some grace that it is not perfect, it is lumpy, soft and dimpled. But it has produced 2 beautiful children and carried me on all the good adventures I have. It has brought me as much pleasure as it has pain. I have settled into (and truthfully looking forward to) the greying of my hair. I stopped colouring about 3 months ago. On the flip side I have added much more colour to my body, it has become a canvas for tattoos of symbols, spells and markers of who I was, am and aspire to be.

One of my tattoos has two quotes, “I must write to empty my head or I go mad” (Byron) and “I create therefore I live” (a variation of a Misha Collins/GISH statement). Ready or not this is my story. Fifty feels like it is the doorway, leaving something behind and stepping into something new. Shall we…….

Rage ( Pt2, the Kicker)

The kicker

I’ve worked so hard from where this knocked me to the last time I was finding ‘self’.

I built hope

Hope that there was misinformation and miscommunication that could be healed

But I was so far down, buried in shame

Things I held true disintegrated like my hard fought ability to trust

But I resolved to build, trusting the vision I had would come, it feels like it is meant to be. The feelings of love in my heart would build a better foundation

Every baby step I make, a look or breath of a word can knock me down.

I resolve to lead by an example.

I resolve to lead without shame

I resolve to stay open to love and trust

I resolve to stop letting myself down and treasure the very humanness I am told is what shines ( not shame as the whispers say)

Rage -venting the feelings (pt 1)

Rage

Don’t pay me lip service

If you ask me what I need

That is not enough – not without action

If I ask you to come to my playground because I’m always at yours

Don’t decline because it ‘doesn’t suit you’

Raging about my gender will upset me

Raging with out room for learning and compassion will shut me down

Making it know that parts of me, things I care for and hold dear are ‘not your cup of tea’ so

you ignore them completely, shows me you do not accept me for who I am

Your rage breaks me apart. My shame can bury me. This time my rage will help me rise

Here we are again

You only listen when you like what I have to say

you only look when it suits you

you will talk and talk and talk and talk

and it doesn’t seem to matter

the parts of me that make you uncomfortable

the parts of me that frustrate you

the parts of me that are trying to grow and express

Are time and time again

told

too much

too much

too much

there are times I can carry this

use it to fuel me to keep growing

there are times when it guts me

and leaves me bleeding on the floor

unseen unheard unalive

Quiet quitting isn’t just for work

Do you know what the true quiet quitting is?

When you want the time, attention, effort and energy you put out to be appreciated and in some form returned and you come to the realization it is not.

When you yearn so much to be validated, seen, and heard, and when you recognize it doesn’t materialize and you just give up.

Quietly of course, your opinions get quieter and smaller, you begin to ask less, you begin to do less and you feel the shrinking taking place.

It happens in small ways at first, and not in every place in your life at the same time. It’s barely even noticeable because nothing was noticeable to begin with in that space.

Until finally the space that you took up is all but folded it on itself and winked out like a little fairy light.

That my friends is a quiet quitting,

everyone trying so hard to be heard and very few taking the time to listen. We eventually stop putting in the extra time and attention in the places we feel undervalued.

This happens in every place we inhibit, work, school, friend relationships, family relationships- our daily lives.

Nothing is ever truly balanced, that is one of life’s hard truths. Another, is that no one ( not even ourselves) can live up to the expectations we create. Compassion and understanding are needed for moments of unbalance, but should not have to be the space you always operate from.

Perhaps this is the truest form of self love? To often this disconnect is unnoticed, or blame shifted to the person receding. A reaction of fear that the person/place being receded from may need to be accountable.

What are/have you quietly quit? What was the outcome? Who has quietly quit from a work or personal relationship with you? Do you understand, will you admit your role in the dissolution? Have you ever noticed the places you quietly quit on yourself?

How Trauma Can Break the Nervous System (aka) Why (Good) Body Work is Important

I have anxiety and CPTSD.

I have spent the last 4 years digging deep trying to understand my mental health. To understand what has happened to me, what I can heal and what I need to learn to work with in a healthy way.

3 weeks ago we had a random event happen in our home that triggered a major anxiety CPTSD episode.

In the 3 weeks since I practiced all the things I have learned. Sleep, reduced sugar, no/reduced alcohol and caffeine, exercise, nature, massage and meditation. It has been slow going, some things more successful than others.

On the surface I believed I was systematically undoing the high alert that was tripped. My body had other ideas.

I have been with my massage therapist for about 5 years now. He is aware of the trauma I have experienced in life. He is mindful of the peaks and valleys of my mental health. I am grateful that he has compassion and understanding/intuition when to push and when not to.

Even when I am cavalier about wanting deeper work, he knows when to follow his intuition rather than my verbal cues. It has become an integral component to my health.

The last couple of massages it was noted my neck was resisting the attempts to soften it up. This week was by far being the worst my neck has been in a long time.

I did my home care right after the session ( a habit I’m working on building), gentle stretch, warm shower, lots of water. About an hour or so later I felt it ‘let go’. This can be very common after a treatment and one you want to make sure your clients are aware of.

It is a warm feeling like no other. It’s like the muscles get the message through to the nervous system that it doesn’t need to be so hyper vigilant. My shoulders dropped with a big sigh. There was a moment of peace, of deep relief. One I feel in various ways after almost every massage.

One of the other things the body can do when releasing a hyper vigilant state is become violently ill. The exhaustion from masking, fighting, and just trying to pull off day to day lands like brick. The chemicals that my body produces to keep me in that state are making hard for the happy calm chemicals to take hold.

This does not happen as often as it used to, like when I first started getting regular massage. But this time was different

It took about an hour and a half for the blinding migraine to take over, another 15 minutes before my body purged everything and dropped me into a dead sleep.

I felt a little better when I woke up. Ate lightly, medicated heavily ( THC candy and advil) and wrapped my head in ice as the pain once again crested.

Times being what they are ( and a friend I had been with recently testing positive) I took a Covid test the next day. It came back negative. But that is not to say in my crashed state I don’t have it. I’m vaxxed and boosted so maybe not enough to show up on the test, I am now on day 3 of the migraine but I’m quarantining like it’s Covid. Also because I don’t have the energy for interaction.

The pain has just become a lightening bolt between my eyes. I feel like I’ve been driven over, ridden down the rapids and hung to dry. This is much better than Wednesday afternoon. I had been deeper into that vigilant state than I realized.

Sleep has been my friend. Today I could tolerate light for more than a few minutes. So that’s a win.

I’m doing my best not to feel guilty for just lying in the dark for the last few days. There was tears, weird dreams and exhausted pain. My body needed to purge poison from long ago, poison that was kickstarted a few weeks ago. I could not push my body or mind to do more than basics, there was no way I could/should work.

I am horrified, intrigued and grateful all at the same time. I’ve been able to journal some today. I can feel something uncoiling still.

Often with trauma we loose connection with our bodies, but they store everything. A skilled therapist helps ground you and reconnect to the present. Also helping to release pain that is tied to mental monsters.

I am grateful for what the massage kick started. Even though I feel like shit. I feel connected to myself. I know that this is part of the healing and I must honour the process.

But most of all, I’m going to honour myself by sleeping a little more and treating myself gently over the next few days so I can get back to my life. A little freer, wiser and a little lighter.

Not an Inconsequential Slip (ATFS)

Learning  how to work with my nervous system is not an easy journey. Just when I think I might have the hang of understanding my triggers and feeling pretty secure in knowing what throws me and the tools I have to undo an anxiety attack I get reminders I don’t know shit and the damage I believed was scarred over enough to be considered healed is not. 

This past weekend we had a random act of violence directed at our home. The place where I should feel safest. 1:30 in the morning and some shit head decided kicking our front door and screaming fuck you before squealing off in their car was a good (fun) idea. 

The police, in-between informing us how weird it was, felt it was random or a case or a wrong address. Not that, that made me feel any better- my heart paused for the intended victim. For anyone this would be a nerve wracking experience, but my family seems relatively calm and went back to feeling pretty secure with in a day. It has almost been five days and I am feeling like I am on fire.

Let me tell you, that hard crack of the door frame breaking, woke up a long sleeping panic twitch in my head. 

I grew up in a house that was fraught with subtle and not so subtle violence, cycles that continually repeated in my early relationships. As a child/ young woman I was often in hiding or on the run until the dangerous moment passed. I spent almost a decade of my young life being stalked and ambushed. There were many times when that same door breaking crunch was followed by threats, screams and violations of my safety. 

It has been almost 30 years since I had to worry about being followed, watched and in danger. Have I  become complacent? In a way I suppose. I felt it was what normal is supposed to be. We lock our doors at night and when we aren’t home. We have taught our daughter to be vigilant about her safety. I have worked very hard to not ‘go overboard’ or be paranoid given the history I grew up with. There is always a shadow that follows me.

I have CPTSD and anxiety. I have managed reasonable well. I succeed and fail epically with equal measure. Understanding that most of my ‘triggers’ are modes of (lack of) communication, lack of sleep, burnout and financial triggers. My daily mental health struggles cause body pain, brain fog and lack of concentration, but for the most part I am managing. It is not perfect but it is a far cry from what it was years ago. I don’t mask anymore, I give myself grace on bad days and make use of the tools I have created.

CRACK- FUCK YOU

And I have done just that. 

Sleep has been tricky, falling asleep and staying there, not twitching at every noise, not dreaming about the past darkness that created this. Trying to keep my thoughts from running away. Not wanting to lock my daughter in her room and lay off my (over blown) fears on to her. Holding back tidal waves of tears that just come on. Feeling the phantom pain from every injury I sustained in that time of my life. I thought the pain I felt these last few years when ‘triggered’ was bad, but it ain’t nothing compared to the last few days. 

Every ancient bruise, cut, break is screaming at me in the moments I try to find quiet. 

I was doing so well working with silent moments in my head, a relief that I had started to become accustom to. But right now I have music screaming into my headphones (Thank the Gods for Dave Grohl howling the pain I am feeling for me) to counter the screaming monsters.

I am bouncing from project to project. Probably annoying the eff out of people with bombing them with memes or random bits of conversation, keeping myself distracted from the old fear sitting in my stomach.

Along with this horrible feeling of not having control I am so angry. I fight so hard to be well, to not let these things drag me to the pit of self destruction. One stupid prank or ‘wrong house’ and I am on an exceptionally slippery slope. I can’t explain the depths this has pierced. Fuck you, you asshole who thought this was relatively harmless, or funny even. At other points in my life this could have taken me to a much darker place that I am currently fighting my way out of. But this is bad enough.

I will do my best in the coming days to reset my system, to have grace with myself. I will keep expressing my needs. I will keep trying for positive distractions. I will just keep trying.

New beginnings old ghosts

Lately the anxiety is bubbling just under the surface. I have had a wild month. Slings, arrows, bricks, mortar, silence and a deafening cacophony.

I had a big slip- with some help I fought back most of the way.

I have been fighting hard to breath life into the amazing opportunities in front of me.

To not be crushed by feelings of doubt and inadequacies. To not rely on ample input from the outside. To believe the reasons I’ve been given about why I’m the one who can accomplish these tasks. To trust I’m making the right choices. To not build my hopes of success by the involvement or encouragement of others. To choose carefully how I build, what I build and with who.

Trust trust trust myself

Today is shaky. Today is overwhelming. Today is very isolating. I know this place. And today, in this glorious Solstice, I cant seem to find it in me to get the monsters to be quiet, I cant seem to shake the dark. I cant seem to find my way. I am tired. I am sore. I have no voice but the inside screaming isn’t stopping.

Yet…. I have to, and I will do what needs to be done today. Measured breath, clenched jaw, head down and do what I can. Ride it out.

So tonight when I am finished doing what I must, I’m going to go to my favourite places amongst the trees, maybe find a Fae door or two. Breathe, ground, and let this finally wash through me. To let the God(dess) hold me steady, this too shall pass.

Motherless Grief and Wound Healing

Today would have been your 81st birthday. 37 years since you were on this side of the veil. In years past I often would feel a sadness or longing on this day.

But this year feels different. There has been much mental health and trauma work done this year. Uncovering some wounds that had scarred over, the scars had created a choking trap, I’ve finally found the courage to start undoing, breaking patterns, healing.

This year feels different. Longing and sadness are marred by hurt and frustration. I still miss you, I will always love you and I’m trying to find some compassion and grace for the choices you made. The choices that had consequences for so many.

A moment of quiet, a breath, remembrance, questioning and love. Happy Birthday Mom.