words, heart and letters used to get from me to you around the work of therapy.
A couple of tips that I have heard recently about how to keep yourself more safe as you walk through the world physically and electronically are as follows:
Not sure why you are still getting messages from someone you tried to block on your multiple devices?? If you have a mac, head into Messages - go to preferences - then account- then the blocked section.
Knowledge is power. Hopefully these can be of help.
Knowing that Domestic Violence, addiction and homelessness so often go hand in hand, I am grateful for this addition of education put out by the Salvation Army.
What are the parts of your story that you have a hard time seeing for what they are? What emotions, what experiences do you distort, or refuse to acknowledge?
Where have you always wanted to go, but didn't think was possible?
What have you always wanted to do, but never let yourself even begin to explore?
Emerald Beach, Thailand 2014
This is a view from Emerald Beach in Thailand. This past summer, I was able to cross it off my list of places I want to experience. A place in time that was surreal with the amount of beauty that continued to unfurl around me everyday I was there. It was officially, the first vacation I was able to give myself since starting my own practice.
This post is all about addressing hesitations and victories of all sizes. If you were to make a list of the things that you wish you could do, no limitations, no boundaries, the universe is your oyster, what would be on it? Go on, find paper and a pen... (even if you are hesitating):
Now that you have made your list - at least 5 wonder filled experiences/wishes, what are you noticing? What is your "Censor" saying?
Julia Cameron uses this term as she writes about healing and the creative process in her remarkable work, The Artist's Way (public library). She says "We are victims of our own internalized perfectionist, a nasty internal and eternal critic, the Censor, who resides in our (left) brain and keeps up a constant stream of subversive remarks that are often disguised as the truth" (pg. 11).
Often we stop ourselves before we can even begin. Some of you might have even stopped yourself from thinking about the five things you might list, or even dismissed the activity all together.
So, what then? Within the city we are building within ourselves, are we installing more streets or dead ends when we stop ourselves from moving towards our deepest wants, desires and needs. What are the other options?
What if your compassionate, youthful, wishful parts of you were able to get in touch with the parts of you that you so often are found saying "NO," "NO WAY," and "Never gonna happen"? What if these narrowing-negative thoughts could be loosened, like a cement block that breaks down over time because water has slowly but surely made its way though.
What if...you, me, we all, were capable of so much more than we have previously given ourselves credit for?
What if...?
So, today will practice giving yourself the credit you are due for whatever brave steps you are taking towards yourselves, your dreams and those you want to be closer to?
Today, will you practice noticing when the censor pops up?
Today, will you flex your self-care muscles and get yourself more of what you need in small ways, big ways or anyways in between?
Oh the perpetual figuring out, juggling wants and needs to be able to say our "yes's," "no's," and "I hope so's." Are we wanting to need, needing to want or just mindlessly incorporating more chickens or eggs into our day to day?
What are some of the ways that you come to understand what the differences are between preference, desire and some of your more baseline needs?
One of the places that might help to begin the sorting process is to be able to ask questions about what helps you be able to get through a day. Some of these include the baseline of what diet works best for you, how much sleep you function well on, and what is essential for you to have in the different spaces you inhabit during the day. The reason it is important to start here, is because of our hierarchy of needs. To liken people parts to car parts, if we don't have gas in the engine, it won't run. If we don't keep an eye on the oil, the whole system could break down. Being more concerned with the color of the interior is not going to help you go anywhere if the tires are flat.
How often we become separated from considering our whole systems. We are often told by media that if we concern ourselves more with the colors and shine of ourselves will ultimately make everything "okay." It is far less glamorous, but far more rewarding to start from the fundamentals of functioning, with our basic baby-selves that need to eat, drink, sleep and find a bathroom.
When we begin with these types of questions, often you will notice the way you prioritize yourself can take on a completely different system than it did before.
From there, after outlining what some of the essentials of your functioning from day to day are, you can begin to work in and work towards more of what it is you want.
Often greater stability lies in growing your capacity to be able to continue a flexible adherence to the baseline of what you need (to be healthy, awake and alive) while integrating more and more of what it is that brings you to greater fullness/fulfillment of self.
(Please take care of yourself as you click through)
This is a brave account of some who have shared seconds, minutes, segments, seasons of their stories of sexual abuse and violence within all sorts of different kind of relationships.
What happens in you as you read? What do you notice? What were your assumptions? What were you surprised by? What did you want to keep close or far away?
This brings up what the question of what the process of restoring safety within oneself includes after experiences like these...
Within Judith Herman's book Trauma and Recovery, (public library) she writes:
The fundamental stages of recovery are:
“1. Establishing safety
2. Reconstructing the traumatic story
3. Restoring the connection between the survivor and his/her community.”
Keeping in mind that all of our ways of doing the three things above might look differently to each of us, some of the groundwork of safety in relationships (within ourselves and others) always includes availability (accessible vulnerability & presence) and consistency.
How have you restored safety within yourself after you have experienced harm?
Recently, I had a friend share this work with me by Nayyirah Waheed. It is the most honoring description of therapy that I have heard in a long time... Where do you see yourself in it? What seasons have "split you through?" and which have softened your rough and wearied edges?
“the hard season
will
split you through.
do not worry.
you will bleed water.
do not worry.
this is grief.
your face will fall out and down your skin
and
there will be scorching.
keep speaking the years from their hiding places.
keep coughing up smoke from all the deaths you
have died.
keep the rage tender.
because the soft season will come.
it will come.
loud.
ready.
gulping.
both hands in your chest.
up all night.
up all of the nights.
to drink all damage into love.
— therapy”
