TEND AS YOU MEND: CARING FOR YOURSELF AS YOU MEND THE HARD STORIES

8 anchors for self care, 3 poems for when you don't want to meditate, World Central Kitchen feeds Ukraine, Creative Pep Talk podcast and Meow Wolf Denver...

Apr 05, 2022

Hi Friends,

First of all, I wanted to say thank you for all the kind messages about last week’s newsletter. Thank you for your witness here. It makes such a difference to be able to do this work in community. In fact, my friend Emily says “ If you don’t do the work in community, it doesn’t count.“ There’s a whole blog post likely in my future just to explore that statement. Emily has a way of dropping gems like that all the time.

It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions kind of week, y’all. I dove into some difficult stories from my childhood. I was finally ready. But it was tough. Just ask the hubby who had to live with me.

Memoirist Mary Karr says that if you think you are ready to write your memoir, don’t avoid the hard story, the one you want to put off for last, the one you think you will build up to, and instead start with it. By beginning with the story you’d rather save for later, you will get you a clear sense of whether enough healing has occurred for you to be able to tell it. While I do think this approach is a great way to check in with yourself to see which stories you are ready to write, I will say that it took me a year ( or depending on how you look at it, my entire life up to now?) to find the courage to write one of the stories I wrote this week. I knew I wasn’t ready to feel that story until now.

The work of revisiting and writing our stories is not about re-traumatizing ourselves. We want to be able to tell our story from a place of wholeness. When we are revisiting painful memories, we have to have enough self awareness to know what inner resources we have available at any given moment. There must be a certain amount of recovery and/or distance from the pain before one can move through the next level of healing to be able to actually write the story.

I wrote a few difficult memories this week and it was, well, difficult. But it was doable. Immersing myself in those memories, using all my sense memory, I connected with those parts of me that lived through that pain. However, and this is key, I didn’t get lost there. I remained in contact with the Self - the one who resides in that inner chamber with the Divine Within that cannot be wounded, and at any time I knew I could stop and check in with her. It is a dance. A dance with our True Self and those parts of us that are still stuck in those painful, old stories.

I knew that She could bring my wounded parts to the present moment. She would keep up anchored safely in the present, where we were safe and had made it through. This is a way of writing that allows the Self to lead and hold the wounded parts. Truth-telling anchored to a core of Wholeness - your wholeness.

It’s like having the highest, most evolved version of yourself hold you as you go through unpacking these memories. Because She is. And She is You. This keeps us in a zone of health as we write and heal. This takes practice. This is practice.

Share Heart's Content

“TEND AS YOU MEND”

That phrase came through a meditation this week. Tend to yourself with extra gentleness when you are doing this mending, healing work. Whether you are in a 12- Step program, a counseling situation, writing and healing your difficult stories, or like me, doing all three - you’re gonna need to craft a major TLC situation or you WILL quit.

EIGHT ANCHORS FOR SELF CARE WHILE YOU WRITE THE HARD STORIES

Here are a few suggestions that I used this week :

Get support. Don’t revisit these memories without a support group, therapist or someone else who can listen with love to the aftershocks of opening up these memories. There ARE aftershocks. It’s easier if you anticipate them and are not surprised by their arrival. Set up your support system FIRST.
Show up for your meditation or centering prayer practice as consistently as you can manage. You need time without words in your head. It can be especially difficult to sit still and try to quiet your mind when your mind is saturated with memories and words words words. When I am doing this work, I have to spend a lot more time connecting to my body for the first part of my meditation / time in silence, before I even try to actually quiet my mind. The more you can reconnect to your body and feel yourself in the present moment, the more easily those racing thoughts will begin to slow down.
Pay extra attention to your nutrition, hydration and sleep hygiene. I know. I know. You’ve heard it so many times before. But it’s important. And I don’t always get this right. But every day is another chance to practice strengthening these habits.
Substitute a simple, healthier practice when you find yourself checking out or numbing out by grabbing your phone to scroll. I’ve started putting my hands over my heart and breathing deeply three times before I even let myself reach for my phone. It’s helping. This mostly happens when I am doing mindless tasks. For example, let’s say I am writing downstairs and I come up to warm a cup of coffee. I hit the button on the microwave and reach for my phone automatically because I still have so much swirling within me from my writing that I am unconsciously trying to check out from it. Now, hands on heart and breathing first.
Move your body. Weather permitting, I get outdoors for long walks a few times a week. The deeper I delve into healing my story, the more time I need to spend in the quiet company of the land. Nature heals. The end.
Pace yourself. Listen to your nervous system. You do not have to write all the hard stories at once. I was finally ready to write some of mine but it’s been a long road to get there. Write a less emotional or a funny memory to bring some balance to the hard ones. This week, I wrote about a very sweet, easy memory of my dad that helped balance the other two difficult memories from childhood.
Co-regulation with a beloved or a beloved furry family member. My dog Java will often sense my emotions and literally snuggle up and lay his chest on mine, paws on my shoulders and hug me. (I’m not kidding. Yes, he’s special.) And Ron gives great hugs, too. It’s one of his superpowers.
Let’s hear it for watching a lightweight television series. Yep, I said it. Sometimes its the ideal solution to too much dwelling on my own story. When you are too tired to read, what I call “lightweight tv” fits the bill by helping me think about another story that isn’t mine. Currently I’m watching the soapy series Nashville. (I love me some Connie Britton). This is not the time for me to watch some brilliant but emotionally heavy series. You’ve heard of easy listening? This is easy viewing. Also, humor is a plus.

Obviously we hope to have these self care habits in our lives most of the time, but when you are doing this work you need to pay extra special attention to making sure you are caring for yourself.

Refer a friend

BIRD BY BIRD, STORY BY STORY

It’s easy to start feeling overwhelmed by this process.

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott’s book on writing and life, she shares this story:

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said. 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

This week, I heard myself tell both Ron and a friend that every time I write a story, every time I move one story OUT of my body and ONTO the page - whether it’s a detailed, embodied , fleshed out, descriptive story or what I call a “JTFM “( Just the facts, Ma’am) version, I feel less weighed down. I feel lighter. I feel as if there is actually more room inside of me. It’s worth every tear, feeling every wave of fear, to reclaim this internal landscape. To reclaim these inner parts of me and set them free. Bird by bird. Story by story. We heal.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I SAY YES TO YOU

I don't want to sit down and be still

I know when I do

I will feel what I don’t want to feel

I’ve been running from it and You for days.

I am sometimes frightened of the weight of your healing

although you have never given me reason to fear

can’t we just skip to the part where I can feel how much you love me?

You smile.

Sweetheart, it’s because you feel my love that you can release that pain.

My love is your liberation

Let it go. This is how it works.

—-

This is what happens when I say yes to you -

You cup your hands and hold me

You breathe your love into my lungs

and I inhale as deeply as I can.

You ask, just a little more, can you hold just a little more?

And I think, how much more can I take in?

and then, when I do, I don’t want to exhale.

You smile

Let it go. This is how it works.

I LIKE IT WHEN YOU CALL ME SWEETHEART

Amma

Your love rattles my bones

My body heaves with silent cries

Your presence pours in

And presses out the pain

You love me

It is almost too much for this body to bear

Riots arise

But I allow

And I accept the love you offer

Even if all I can hold is dime’s worth

You breathe into me

Through cupped hands

Gently, like a feather breath through a straw

You know my limits

You send an image of a mother owl

Wrapping her wings around me

I disappear and am held by love

You remind me

When I am frightened even of the good

Feet on earth

Willingness

I accept I accept

Stored pain slides down my cheeks and

Just like that

You smile

and call me sweetheart.

3 THINGS WORTH SHARING THIS WEEK:

World Central Kitchen is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises. They build resilient food systems with locally led solutions. Currently feeding the people of Ukraine.
Need a Creative Pep Talk? Check out Andy J. Pizza’s podcast
Can’t wait to visit Meow Wolf Denver Convergence Station is unforgettable, transformational, and immersive psychedelic, mind-bending art experiences with an underlying rich narrative as you take a journey of discovery into a surreal, science-fictional epic.