Only I Will Remain

 

One general theme of therapy (both in the past when I sought it professionally, and recently as I’m diving personally into my trauma) is that as humans we can (and do) hold several emotions and states of being at the same time. And also, that while it doesn't feel good to feel sad, or afraid, or negative emotions in general; it's okay to feel those things and that we need to allow ourselves to feel those things. In fact, recognizing those things and working through them is what is needed in those moments – instead of our general tendence to reject them.

I think from a logical perspective, I've always known that. But I think recently I've become better at integrating that. It's so easy for me to push down emotions that I don't like. Things I don't want to feel. And what does that get me? What has that always gotten me? Anxiety. Now, like those other emotions I don't want to feel, anxiety is also something I've tried very hard to tamp down. But I know, and what I've been working through this morning, is allowing myself to feel two things at once so that I can process it, let it pass through me, and then allow myself to move forward from there. 

This morning I'm realized that I'm catching another Fall virus, and I'm feeling a little sad as I'm trying to grieve and let go of the expectations I used to have for what I wanted my life to look like (more on this later). I'm also feeling extraordinarily grateful and joyful because I had another awesome break through yesterday.

So, about the breakthrough. One of my biggest reasons for working through my trauma, is that I know that I have triggers, and sometimes those triggers happen as a result of being a parent. Yesterday, I recognized two major triggers and didn't allow myself to react to them in the moment - writing that out makes it sound easy and trivial; however, for me it was a huge moment. I took my three- and five-year-old to a new playground, a huge playground. We stayed longer than we usually stay at playgrounds, but once my three-year-old started coughing in the chilly air and having a drink (or several) didn't help, I identified it was time to go. I gave the 10-minute warning. I allowed my thee-year-old told to climb just one more time before we left. We gave hugs to the friends we saw at the park. I did everything that I could to ensure a smooth transition (transitions can be hard at this age). So, when I said, "Okay, it's time to go now," my three year old bolted. I gave her a warning, and I was about to count to three when I realized she was purposing running out of ear shot. I walked calmly after her. She kept sprinting further and further away. So, I asked my five year old to hold my tea (literally, I had covered green tea because it's chill out), and I sprinted after my three year old. When I picked up my three-year-old, she began kicking me as hard as she could. Enter the triggers.

There were two triggers in this scenario that could have easily caused me to become angry. When I'm angry in public I tend to growl when speaking or otherwise just be super grumpy, and in private sometimes the triggers cause me to raise my voice (which I always feel super ashamed of and apologize for immediately following). The triggers in this scenario were being physically harmed (or the attempt at being physically harmed), and embarrassment - moms were looking at us, giving disapproving glances. Which like, side bar, what the actual fuck? Like, moms of the world, we need to support one another! I don't care if you're raising tiny humans that always listen to you and do what is asked of them, no tantrums or whatever it is that makes you feel superior - have some fucking empathy! Or maybe, I don't know, offer to help? I mean, maybe don't offer to help if the mom has the situation in hand, but don't shoot moms dirty looks. Either keep your looks to yourself or smile or anything other than grumpy judgmental looks. Now, I admit, with the embarrassment factor, I could have easily been just feeling judged and that's on me (but this one lady, I dunno, she did not look empathetic, she was rolling her eyes - at me). Ah well, but I digress.

Now for the breakthrough. I didn't get angry. Now, I don't suspect this will always be the case, and in the future if I get angry in a similar scenario, my hope is that I would recognize it, work through it (with deep breaths) and then react. But in this scenario, when I picked her up and she started kicking me repeatedly, I put her down gently, got down to her level and told her in a very calm yet direct tone that she was being very unkind to mommy and that it was time to go. Then she laughed and kicked me some more and attempted to run away. In this moment, I knew that I wasn't going to get her to listen to reason. So, I picked her up like a football, and walked her out of the park (que the additional dirty looks from judgy mom - at which point, I furled my eyebrows and gave her a judgy look in return. She looked away. That's right, ya judgy non-empathetic person, mind your business). 

Three-year-old was very upset that I was carrying her like a football. My five-year-old was being amazing, and completely helpful - I was so grateful because at times when my three-year-old is misbehaving, that's seems to be like a que for my five-year-old to also misbehave. Maybe she was ready to go too, maybe asking for her help gave her a task to focus on (holding my drink, standing close to me), but overall, I was so incredibly proud of her. Anyways, about half-way to the car (all the parking lots were across fields, which in my mind is not the best design choice for mom's trying to haul their squirmy toddlers out of a park) my three-year-old asked to be put down. I asked her if she was going to stay with me, and she said yes. So, we walked most of the way back to the car. But as I was trying to get my keys from my pocket, she attempted to bolt again. Once again, I asked my five-year-old to hold my drink, and I had to hold on to my three-year-old (this time it was a bit scarier as we were at the cusp of a very busy parking lot). But I still remained calm. I asked my five-year-old to wait for me on the grass in front of the car while I corralled my three-year-old into her car seat. My five-year-old did wander a little bit, but I asked her to come back towards the car, and she did so (amazing).

I'm super proud of myself because I behaved exactly how I always wanted to behave in these moments. I was so calm and collected during this whole exchange. Because what would yelling or losing my shit in that moment have accomplished? Nothing other than instilling a feeling of dysregulation in both myself and my kids. My three-year-old would have still misbehaved, and in reality, my five-year-old probably would have misbehaved too. I also made sure that as I was strapping in my five-year-old into her seat, I gave her so much praise, which also felt so good. "Thank you so much for helping me by holding my drink while I got (three-year-old) into the car. Thank you so much for following directions. I really appreciate you." And she beamed. So, I beamed. I was so proud of both me and my five-year-old in that moment. 

I feel so grateful and joyful for how far I've come. There's no "cured" from my anxiety, but achieving these moments feels so damn good. Now, don't get me wrong, I did get angry the day before when both kids were yelling at me, and I was trying to make dinner, and my five-year-old started screaming at the top of her lungs, and I got so overstimulated I couldn't even think straight... that's a work in progress. I certainly tried to breathe through that moment, but something about the screaming is so hard for me to overcome. That's probably another shadow self-waiting in the wings to evaluate. 

Now, circling back to the holding more than one emotion at a time. In addition to the joy holding on, and feeling pretty happy overall, I'm also a little sad this morning. Like, I feel super grateful and happy about yesterday, but there's something persistent in the back of my mind, completely unrelated to the grateful and joyful things I've been feeling lately. I think it's this sort of grief, this sense of letting go of expectations. My life isn't the life I always dreamed of. It's certainly close, but there's one aspect in particular that is sort of falling apart (that I will need to journal about privately I think). And that's something that is going to take time to process. So, for this morning, I'm letting myself feel a little bit of that sadness and grief too before I do some calming/processing exercises and affirmations. I’m not quite crying, but I took some deep breaths as if I was crying to try to let myself feel it.

So, about affirmations... I've kind of always hated and rejected that practice. There’s just something about it in the past that has felt cheesy to me. Now, I see the value. I'm trying to do some affirmations daily to sort of reprogram my brain a little bit. I think growing up I felt so worthless for so long, and even though as an adult I recognize that isn't true, there's still a bit of programming in the back of my mind that feels that way at times. It tends to come up when I'm not feeling my best self, or when I feel grief - a sneaky little secondary emotion waiting to pile on when I'm already feeling low.

Anyways, I think the affirmations are starting to help, and it got me thinking about little things I used to say to myself when I was attempting to tamp down emotions instead of letting them be felt and flow through me - it got me thinking about the Litany Against Fear (from Frank Herbert’s "Dune"). I think the Litany Against Fear is pretty bad ass, but I have some re-writes for the sake of both my attempt to geek out as I do, but also work into my affirmations for when I start to feel a negative emotion I would have previously tried to reject (fear, anxiety, sadness, grief). Overall I love it, but it just needs a few tweaks/additions for me to work it into my affirmations.

The original:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

 My rewrite:  

I will feel fear.
Yet, fear is not the mind-killer.
Fear will not bring total obliteration, but instead understanding.
I will face my fear. I will embrace my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be clarity. Only understanding will remain. Only I will remain. 

Maybe that still needs some work, but it feels good to me right now. I'm going to write it on one of my cool sticky note cards and put up next so some of my other affirmations. Affirmations like "What is the best that could happen" or "I am loyal, forgiving, and gentle to me." I've also been enjoying doodling the affirmations and just generally getting in touch with the things, big and small, that make me happy. Even as I finish this entry, I'm feeling a little bit lighter. As though I've taken a weight off my chest. Thank you journals, thank you blog, for giving me a way to work through these things, big and small, and consider one of the affirmations that I sometimes struggle to believe - "I am enough". 

The Shadow Knows

 

So I started doing some shadow work the last few weeks. No, I didn't buy the "shadow work journal", and I didn't allow myself to hyper-fixate to learn how it works exactly and to over-intellectualize it (as I'm so prone to do as an over thinker). I just learned some basics, recognized that I have a boat load of trauma to work through, and sort of dove in. That might not have been the best approach, I probably wouldn't recommend it to a friend if they asked me about it. That being said, I think I'm starting to have some break throughs with it.

I've also started to keep a physical journal (instead of randomly pouring my thoughts here every few months).  And I think overall that's helpful. Although, I'm also going to try to avoid re-reading everything from both the sessions and my daily afterthoughts and processing of it all. Mostly because I want to integrate these past (shadow) selves instead of re-processing, potentially re-traumatizing myself. I'm trying to get to this point where I allow myself to feel what I need to feel and to let it go. Which leads me to reoccurring themes.

One reoccurring theme is damnit, I'm still struggling to let things go. Let go of people, let go of feelings, let go of the past. It's a tough one. Another reoccurring theme is that when I was going through these times of trauma, I did not have a trusted adult in which to turn, which in a way is a form of trauma in of itself. Another theme is that I'm recognizing that I would never allow my children to go through these things. There are certain things that we cannot protect our children from; however, there's so much more we can be doing for them. I think that's my biggest motivation for doing this in general - because with trauma comes triggers, and my triggers are the things I need to really work on. I don't want to react in anger or any other knee jerk reactions. I want to be present, patient, understanding with my kids. While I don't anticipate I will turn into a saint overnight, and I'm still going to be human when all is said and done; I want to be the best version of myself as possible for my kids.

One thing that's rather difficult with my shadow work sessions is that I usually come away pretty depressed. I do some self-care, some journaling, some meditation; however, overall I feel super heavy in my chest afterwards. I recognize that it's a process, and it will probably be a long process as I'm uncovering more and more of my past moments in time where these traumatic things occurred, or past versions of myself that I'm not particularly proud of and need to recognize and forgive. But it is tough. I get why they recommend you do this work with a therapist. And if after I go through all of these things, I'm still not feeling like I'm making headway, I probably will seek out a new therapist. But for now, I guess my journal is my therapist. Also therapy can be kind of difficult when you’re hyper-self-aware. Often times, therapists can have a hard time directing someone like me.

I feel like yesterday I had this kind of breakthrough though. For the first time, I was able to tap into this former self and feel this kind of gratefulness and joy afterwards. When I was around 24 or 25 I was living away from home for a few years for the first time with my then boyfriend. The longer we were together, the worse our relationship became (we started dating when I was 20). I wasn't the best version of myself at the time (trying to give myself a bit of grace and forgiveness as that's also something I'm working on); however, I knew something at that time - I knew by that time that I wanted to have kids someday. I didn't know when or with whom, but I knew that's what I wanted. And the longer I was in that relationship, the more I realized that my boyfriend at the time did not want to have kids, and never would. And I realized that one of two things were going to happen if he and I stayed together - either I was going to wake up one day having never had the opportunity to have kids and completely resent him, or we were going to have kids and he was going to resent me and possibly them because he never wanted that.

So, as I was asking this former version of myself things like, what did you need at the time that you didn't get, what positive intent are you keeping us from? And forgiving myself and processing (all the things you do during shadow work), and... I got to tell her something before integrating her into our current self. I got to tell her that it was all worth it. I got to tell her that after years of being patient, making mistakes, and waiting for the right person, she got to have kids. I got to have kids. I got to have the kids I always wanted, and that they're wonderful. 

My life is so much stranger and so much more interesting than I could have ever imagined. And it's also so much better. I have so much joy. I'm so grateful to be where I'm at right now. Yes, I need work. My mental health will probably always be a work in progress. But I'm also so fucking lucky. I'm so fucking amazed to be living in a time where I have so many resources and so much I can learn. And I'm so fucking grateful for how far I've come. Everything that has ever happened to me has led to this point in time, and while life is an everchanging journey, right now I'm grateful to be me. Thank you, universe.

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Side note, not related to this post, I just edited this Blog in Word because for some reason spell check isn't working Chrome right now, and Word's suggestion just now is so funny to me. No one is reading this, but if you are reading this and you haven't come to accept that I'm a cursey little cursing person; well, you should probably move along. Haha.