Entering the Darkness

Winter Of The Heart

These pages have been frozen and this site unopened since June. I was hiding, hibernating, wintering, healing, surviving. Call it what you want but I am out of sync with the world. It was a strange feeling to be wintering in the summer, to be wintering for longer than the season, but no matter the season, this is where I have been residing.

It has taken all of my energy to just live. I know that most people feel that way because our society has created an unsustainable grind culture, and I feel that as well. My experience is deeper, though, and if you have ever done personal healing work, you will know the exhaustion of wintering as few others do.

Some, including me, have wondered if I’m just depressed. The answer is yes, I am depressed, and I am in treatment for that, but this is different. This is surgery. This is cutting down deep to the hidden things while you are awake and living and breathing. It is opening your chest cavity up and leaving it open for an extended period of time to extract the black cancer of trauma and pain that has lived and entangled itself in you for all of your life.

You show up at work with a heavy coat of armor covering your big open wound. You arrive to soccer practice and cheer even though every breath hurts. You cook the dinners, buy the things, smile, laugh, and love with your chest wide open. No one knows that just living and breathing takes great effort. It is a hidden wound.

The truth is, you don’t want people to know. What a tender, tender wound. How could you risk anyone knowing and taking advantage of your wide openness? Those who know have to be trusted with your very life. There are a few and what a relief to take off your armor and have someone gently embrace you knowing how to tenderly hold you, wounds and all.

I’m caring for myself, loving myself, learning myself. I’m navigating my way through this extraction of darkness as best I can. I’ve not been shy or quiet about my troubles and pain and my healing on here. Writing is a therapy for me and sharing is a hope for me. I hope that sharing brings light into the dark places that we are afraid to talk about. I certainly do not like when near or total strangers know my deep, dark, personal thoughts but I heard in recovery that secrets and sickness grow in dark places and that they heal in the light. My hope is that someone reading this will see light where before there was only darkness. My hope is also that you never feel sorry for me and this struggle or treat me with fragility because I shared. If you are not the one that sees me in person without my armor on, then we carry on as usual because I have a life to live.

I struggle so much with that paradox of sharing my heart and then protecting it at all costs. It is a strange place to be, but I also learned in recovery that it is possible to let down your walls and share your story in a safe place, then put on your armor to go out into the wild, terrible world. So while I sit in this chair, in front of this screen, I imagine a sacred space between me and you, were it is safe to share and believe that my sharing my experience may help you in this intimate energy I’m creating. I’m happy to talk about what I write in a planned intimate setting with someone, but it is hard when I am spilling my coffee carrying 7 bags into work and someone says they read my post. I feel exposed. I feel vulnerable. I feel like I did something wrong. I don’t know how to do both, share and then accept feedback in person, but I’ll continue because discomfort is part of vulnerability.

So I’m in eternal winter, and I’m resisting the urge to label it as wrong or unhealthy or something that needs to be fixed. I’m in the middle of transitioning therapists and it has been such a positive experience. I am reaching so far into the darkness and exposing it to the light. It is the deepest work I have done to date and I’m incredibly emotional about it. I am healing my heart. I am healing my inner child. I am healing my past. I am changing who I get to be. I know that my healing will send ripples out into the universe. It will change my children. It will change my family. It will change my friends and my sweet love. It will change my co-workers and students. It will change everything.

I’m eternally grateful for the fire keepers who have kept me warm in this harsh winter. I’m grateful for my Al-Anon program that feeds my soul and feeds my bravery, and is always a safe place to land. I am grateful for grace, forgiveness, grocery pick up and robot vacuums. I am beyond grateful for professional therapists who do no harm and guide me through this. And I’m grateful for an understanding partner who listens with an open heart full of love for me.

If this post has touched your heart and you want to talk to me about it, send me a message or a comment, and we can set up a time to connect. You can leave a heart in the comment section to let me know that the light is being shone in the the darkness. If you see me with 7 bags and spilling coffee or pulling in hot at the soccer game, keep it to yourself. I’m not bearing my soul in the wild world-no way-it’s not safe out there.

Yes, I Marched On the Anniversary of the Women's March

No, I don't need to explain to you why. 

On the anniversary of the Women's March, I was not in my home town. I was not able to march with my people and I was a little bummed about it. I happened to be in another state, and a relative reached out and asked me if I wanted to march at their state capitol. I wasn't sure if I would make it because I was unsure of my schedule, but it worked out that I was free. I packed up the kids and went. 

I haven't had a chance to post about it but I have been reading the online comments left by people responding to news articles in my hometown about our local march. Here is what I noticed...people are demanding to know why we are marching. They are demanding that we explain ourselves. They are attacking women for their language choices, their outfit choices, and for bringing their husbands or children along. And I also notice that people seem to think that their opinions and judgments matter to the women who marched. 

Here's the thing...we aren't asking for permission to march. We aren't asking for your approval, your opinion or your thoughts. I personally don't care what you think of my marching. I could care less if you like the words I choose or the sign I hold. I don't need your permission to have an opinion and I don't need your agreement with my views. 

Last year, I felt differently. It was my first march, my first protest or demonstration as an adult woman and I was nervous. I wan't so sure of myself. I wanted everyone to know why and I wanted their approval. I had just started letting some of my opinions be known. I had just started writing online. I had just started to wonder what it was I did and didn't agree with instead of just going with the flow to keep the peace all the time. 

A lot has happened in a year. I've come to realize that I don't have to please anyone but me. I don't have to explain my thoughts, feelings, or actions to anyone. The only person that I had to please and explain myself to was myself. So no, dude on twitter, I don't need your opinion on my views. You can give them, it is public, but I'm not going to take them to heart. You see, what I've learned this year is that I'm pretty good at judging what is good for me, what I need to do, when I need to fight, what I will allow, and what I will speak out against. And the kicker, I don't have to ask ANYONE else what they think of that. 

Now, some of you, especially the men reading this, will probably say "DUH!" of course you don't need permission from anyone. This is not the experience I have had growing up as a woman in my world. Everyone thought they could exert control over me, my thoughts, my decisions, my time, my beliefs, etc. That has been my experience. I was taught by experience to sacrifice what I wanted and needed to please others. I was taught to be small and quiet and agreeable to be liked and loved and accepted. Was it right? No. But it was my experience. 

So doing it differently is an act of courage and bravery for me. I am breaking an old pattern, I am forging a new path, and it feels amazing and freeing to say, "I don't care one bit what you think of my decisions, beliefs, and choices." and to mean it. I didn't ask and I don't need to know. As always, you can share, after all, this is public. Just know that I am a whole, strong, confident woman who decides for herself what is right for her. 

Driving myself, and my children downtown to a capitol of an unfamiliar city and joining a march for something I believe in was an act of bravery. I did share my beliefs and thoughts with my children in the most truthful way that they could understand. And truth be told, I didn't even have to do that. Because I know that what my children and I experienced that day was an act of love. It was an act of community and an act of bravery that one can feel without explanation. Walking peacefully among so many different types of people, singing, yelling words of love, compassion, acceptance, and empathy was an experience of relationship with others, strangers in fact. But it was intimate. It was powerful. It was truthful. My children saw so many different people, dressed differently or hardly dressed at all, different colors, religions, ethnic groups, sexual orientations, native American women in traditional dress, burning sage, singing, and banging a drum, and not once were they scared. Not once did they feel unsafe or uncomfortable. Bored, maybe (they wanted ice cream-they are six) but never uncomfortable. Accepted. Strangers in a strange town, marching among strangers and we felt loved. 

I am beyond grateful for the experience and for the woman who reached out to welcome me into this experience. I am beyond grateful that I don't need to justify my reasons or my beliefs or my opinions so that people will find me acceptable to them. I'm beyond grateful for my children to have experienced such an uplifting, brave, community event. I feel empowered and I feel powerful. If you have had a similar experience of community, or bravery, or self-empowerment, tell me about it in the comments, I'd love to know about it.