Leaning into My In-Betweens

I was ranting at my therapist yesterday about this in-between place in my healing. I want a framework for this next piece of my healing - just like I wanted a framework for the pieces that came before. Between workbooks and several 12 step groups, I found those frameworks and was able to adapt them to be the guide I was looking for in my processing. Now I'm gearing up for a new phase. And just like every other phase of my life this far, I'm complaining that it's not getting here fast enough, that I don't have the right tools for this next piece. My therapist ever so gently called me out that once again I was getting ahead of myself. He reminded me that we're still mapping out what I'm working on, and until that is laid out, I don't even know what tools I need.

How often though is this my pattern, not just in healing by in how I approach life? I have a dream and a general idea of how I'm going to get there. I can see the step I'm on, and maybe even the next several down the road. Because I can see it, I get impatient. I start to push myself into places that I'm not quite ready to step into. Sometimes that push is exactly what I need and while I might flounder around for a little while, I do end up catching my feet under me. But then there are the times when no matter what I do, I can't get my footing. I drown. I claw my way back onto the step I'd been on before my great leap. Too often I back down at that point, decide that nope this wasn't the step for me to take and not only that but my entire dream was just that, a dream. I camp out on that step, making a home in a place that was meant to be temporary.

The contradiction of it all is I'm anxious to get to where I'm going. To prove that I can do what my parents didn't and heal from my woundedness without passing it on to others. I don't want to stand still and wait in this space for the next step to become clear and firm. I kick and scream, muddying the waters until I can't see even this step. I lose myself in my frustration of what comes next and forget to breathe in the space I am in.

I have these next six weeks, while my therapist is out of the country to allow this next piece to continue to form. I could spend them kicking and screaming at how I don't have tools and how this is unfair. I've definitely made that choice in the past. I would still eventually get to my next step, exhausted, needing rest, defiant.

I have another choice here. One born out of what this year of become has taught me. I can sit in this space, quiet my racing desperate need to not still be entangled in my past, and see. I can see into this place. See the next step that is still forming in front of me without having to jump on it. I can see deeper into myself, dig deeper into my own why.  I can choose to live this process in a way that brings life to my heart.

I can choose to stay in this moment even though it's uncomfortable. Even though I know that I have this new piece, this shift in my focus that is just brushing against my outstretched fingertips, I don't have to DO anything with it yet. My entire psyche is tuned to function in the tension between two opposing truths. It allowed me to survive, and now, it can help me to thrive. I can hold the truth that this space I'm in doesn't fit me any more and that the next space where I need to go isn't ready for me yet. I can lean into my in-between with intention, with purpose, allowing it to shape me, prepare me for this next shift.

Rhythms and Cycles

This post brought you to courtesy of reading The Artist's Rule by Christine Valters Paintner as part of Story Session's Story 201 e-course. 

I've spent years searching for balance. That one magic point where my house stays clean, I stay sane, the budget is honoured, and my creativity flourishes. I've yet to find it and now I'm becoming grateful that I never found balance. If I had, I would have tried to turn it into a performance metric, one more thing to unsuccessfully strive towards. One more way to feed the lies of not being enough, of being a drain on my husband.

There isn't one point of balance. There are many. It's not this mystic magical place where I make it all happen, but rather it's slowing down to sink deep into the season, to honour the cycle of my life, my season, my month, my week, my day. The idea has been creeping into my awareness through nature walks. My spirit sensing the truth, seeing that everything around us was created with a rhythm and each piece is necessary for nature to thrive.

I've been reading Paintner's The Artist's Rule and soaking in the ideas of not searching for a balance point, but instead of honouring the season that I am in. I recognize that right now that's hard because my inner artist and my inner monk are in two different seasons. I'm not sure yet how to bridge the two. My Artist is in Spring - coming fully alive, bubbling with new ideas and new life. My Monk is in late Autumn, shedding beliefs and lies that keep us from the rest and faith that nourishes us. I'm not certain how to live in two season at the same time.

Recognition though is the first step. I'm choosing to sink deep into the awareness of my seasons, to honour them and not force Spring to be Summer before it's time, or to run back to Summer because Autumn is painful.

As a monk and artist, I want to rise and fall like the ebb and flow of the ocean. I want to shed parts of myself in autumn, to go deeply inward in winter, to blossom into spring, and to shine forth and be radiant in summer. I want to live my life in healing rhythms that honor the lmits of my body, the pleasures of rest, and the delights of play. +Christine Valters Paintner, The Artist's Rule

Interfaith Marriage: Stepping Beyond Just The Two of Us

Once more the uncertainty of my husband's spiritual journey is coming front and centre for me. It's that time of year when community groups and Bible studies and activities that we haven't had since he came out to me this summer resume. I want to support him. For him to know he has the freedom to choose what is right for where he is at and require him to hide his de-conversion.

Selfishly I hate that this is going to be one more thing that I do alone now. In reading some of the experiences of other spouses whose partners have de-converted, they often express that it gave them the freedom to explore their own faith in ways they hadn't previously. I love that for them. I'm the opposite. I was already exploring. I was the one who started, who gave him permission. While my journey has led me closer to my own spirituality, his has led him further away. I feel lonely in my faith. I'm still searching for what community could look like for me in my own walk and doing it alone is both liberating and terrifying.

As we walk out into this more public season of sharing what has changed over the summer, I'm afraid of the responses that we'll get. I'm afraid people will tell me that they are praying for him. Which, hey I'm all for prayer, but if that's the only support you are willing to give him or I, the only response that you have, then please keep it to yourself. Too often it feels like a dismissal of him as a person and my very real struggle. Ask how you can pray for us, listen to our feelings, or do non-religious things with us as couples.

I worry about the pressure, all the what if people say this or that. And yeah I'll deal with it, but I wish I could give people a primer on what not to say. Most Christians I know don't like to talk about what happens when someone's faith beliefs change. There's a lot of fear there. I get it. I grew up being terrified of hell with this angry Deity who killed people for making the wrong choices. There's much of this that I don't have answers for myself, so please don't feed my fear. Don't prey on it or pressure me to make him come back to church or God or faith. Don't ask me to explain his choices. Go talk to him. But when you do, please see him as a person, not a lost sheep that must be herded back into the fold. Or a child who's throwing a fit and needs to be tolerated, or punished depending on your parenting style.

In the same way, please don't be shocked when you hear that my prayer request is not for his salvation or his return to faith. I am not responsible to spend the next 20 years praying him back into the "family of God". I'm responsible to live my faith for myself. I need support and I need people willing to connect with my faith journey, because that's no longer built into my marriage. Sure we can talk about it, but he and I are reading from two completely different books these days, so common ground when it comes to faith is not something we have. I've said it before  and I'm going to keep saying it. This is lonely for me. It breaks my heart to show up by myself in faith circles where he used to attend with me. I have my own journey through this - and for right now, it doesn't involve re-converting him.

What it does involve is learning to be authentic with myself and with others. It means messy posts like this one and tears over coffee. It means ranting in my therapist's office. I have a tonne of questions. Don't we have enough challenges to overcome in this marriage without also navigating this? I don't expect people to have answers. I'm not even sure that I need answers as much as I need people who are willing to sit with me in the middle of the questions.

Up until now this has been easier. I've had time and space to begin to adjust to not sharing faith beliefs with my husband, to being on separate pages, to no longer assuming that we are approaching spirituality from the same relative starting point. Now it's time to wade out a little deeper, to share this journey with my community. I'm nervous. I'm counting down the weeks until we start up again. I figure knowing what I don't want is a stepping stone to being able to articulate what I do want.

Ugly Truths: The Aftermath of an Abusive Parent

What would another layer of forgiveness look like? It's 2 am and the world is quiet enough, the dark a welcomed comfort for deep thoughts. I finished reading L'Engle's A House Like A Lotus. It was one of the books that we weren't allowed to read growing up. Mom deemed it as having too many adult themes.

I'm struck though by Poly's journey towards forgiveness - not only of Max but of herself. I wonder what it would look like to forgive my father. To stop carrying the hot and cold rage towards him. To no longer cower in fear at the thought of what he could do, might do even now.

I have this illusion that it would be easier to forgive him, easier to let go of all the injustices, if he was no longer part of my life, whether through choice or death. It's not an easy thing for me to admit, that I still wish my father dead. He's proven that he's not going to change. Every time I start to hope that it's going to be different now, something happens to prove that while it's milder than it was when I lived under his roof, he will never stop seeing me as his possession. It's part of why I hate those teachings that children are a blessing from the Lord. Children are people, not things, not possessions to be handed out like fucking trophies to those who magically got it right. And I'm side tracking here, avoiding talking about this the way that I need to. I do that too often. I wander. I don't like to admit that about myself.

I have this illusion, this fantasy really that if only he was dead, gone, that it would allow me to finally grieve and would provide some kind of closure. My therapist suggested today that maybe I'm still wanting that relationship I never had with my father - there's truth to that, much as I don't want to admit to it, I want that relationship, the one I read about in books, or see in the lives of friends - that relationship where I am seen and celebrated for who I am, where love no longer means control or perfection. But I'm realistic enough to recognize that I'm not going to get that from my father. And while yes God can be that in a person's life, He's not that in mine, nor do I want Him to be that. My associations with the very idea of a parent is a painful one. There is nothing redemptive about seeing God as a parent. In fact it's that idea that makes me struggle with what a healthy relationship with the Divine could mean in my own life.

At the same time though, I'm drawn to the idea of a father. Someone who has got my back, who loves me, champions me, invests in me. I have that with women, which in and of itself is a miracle. I think I will always want what I never had.

I'm not holding onto relationship with my father in hopes that he'll change, so why am I hanging on? A piece of it is that right now it's less fearful to deal with him on the rare occasions that I have to, than to deal with the fallout from complete removal of him from my life. I'm terrified to let go, to disown this man who has brought me nothing but pain. I'm exhausted from being the "bad" daughter and frankly I wish one of my siblings would disown him first so that I don't have to be the one that breaks this new trail.

Removing him from my life however doesn't remove the lies he taught me or heal the wounds he inflicted. A sincere amends from him wouldn't be everything that I need either. This leaves me back in the place of wondering what would another layer of forgiveness look like here and now. I want freedom from all the threads of him that keep me tangled up and stuck. Therapy is helping with that, all the reading that I do helps, writing my truth - I have a toolbox full of tools that I'm using.

And I'm wondering how forgiveness plays into the mix. Because I think for me it needs to be a piece of it. All I know to do is to continue to walk in the direction of my healing. I can't make myself stop hating him. I don't act on my hatred, but it's still there. I've read the clichés and the books. I've heard that I need to let go and let God. But there is something mystical about forgiveness. Something of the Divine, of a Higher Power. Something more than just a formula to follow, an exercise to complete. This something else is going to have to kick in because in and of myself I cannot let go of my hatred. I no longer seek vengeance but that's no longer enough for me.

I know the right Christian answers here. They fall flat. I'm not wanting to dissect the mystical, yet I feel like there's something I need to do to help me continue to move forward. I just don't know what it is.

Allowing The Process or Living Life Without Boxes

In healing and recovery we talk often about how this is a journey, a process. There isn't a final "I have arrived" point. Living one day at a time is a mantra in living life without addiction. I only have today, this moment, this choice - medicate or feel.

It came up today in my writing group that this creative journey doesn't have a one and done. There isn't a way to pass. It infuriates me. It digs deep into mix of my perfectionism. I want to have a tantrum because I want for something, anything in my life that I can point to, that is tangible and real, that society says has value. Mother's Day brought up all of the feelings - that I'm not doing anything worthwhile with my life. It's crap. I know it's crap. On my saner days, I can value myself and the choices that I continue to make to walk forward in healing, in becoming human.

This digging into the heart of why I don't/won't/can't value my process circles back around to childhood. To a world where the only degrees that counted were in Math, Science, and Engineering. (or if we chose full time music). It was a world where there wasn't room for my creativity, for my way of seeing the world. There wasn't room for me. What counted, what mattered were the grades I got, the tangible accomplishments that I could point at and say "there, see I have value".

There's still his metric in my head, this way of measuring what counts. Yeah society and culture don't help, but they aren't the root of my insanity around this. The root is that I still want, maybe even need my father's approval of my life, my choices. I want to be as valued as my sibling who is parenting children and working part time from home in an acceptable profession. I want to be seen damn it. I want him to see me. I strove all my life to get his approval or to convince myself that his approval didn't matter to me. My comfort with being the black sheep of the family, the "bad" daughter came from allowing his view to still define my worth.

Now I'm finding me for myself. I'm lost. I want a metric to tell me that I've arrived, or at least what arrival could look like. I want a different box, one with windows in the sides, but still a box because there has always been one. Even though I've left his box behind, I only searched to find a box less constrictive than the one I left behind. My box is getting soggy and crumpled. It's got holes in it now. I'm holding onto my tantrum because that allows me to clutch the failing walls tighter around my heart. This tantrum is the only thing holding my box together now.

I want the world outside my box - and I'm scared. Scared of what it would be like to live without a box, without needing something external to point towards that proves my value. Scared that letting go of this box is simply embracing a slightly bigger box. Scared that I'm not ready to live in a world bigger than the one that I've learned to inhabit these past 8 years. It's time. Time to let his rules and his values go just a little bit more. Time to stop clutching my box walls. Time to open my hands to receive something new.

Unrealistic Expectations and Perfectionism

{It feels like I spend a lot of time talking around my past, or referring to it in a general way. I was reminded yet again that talking about the specifics matter. It's a struggle, because there are so many specifics that either I don't remember or else I don't have access to those memories yet. I have ALL THE FEELINGS, but very few specifics.  It's frustrating for me and feels very backwards in my healing to not have the facts and details that seem to be there for everyone else.}

I learned perfectionism as a way of life. The expectation of my as a child and especially as a teenager was that I would be perfect.  I would have perfect grades, keep my room perfectly neat, and would do everything in my life to the point of perfection - and until I reached that point, I would keep trying and improving. This meant that a 98% wasn't good enough.  The focus was on what had I gotten wrong. I rarely heard good job, or well done. When I did, there was also a but attached.  Good Job but you still need to work on.... or Well done except for... My best was never good enough.

Of course in the middle of this, the standard for what was perfection from my behaviour constantly shifted.  One day it was enough that I had tried and given it my whole heart.  The next day, doing the exact same thing with the same effort and focus, I was told that trying didn't count.  What counted was results.  Effort without results was worthless. It was crazy-making to live in that world.

I was naive when I left to start life on my own.  I thought that I would be free of that perfectionism and unrealistic expectations now that I was no longer under my father's thumb. I didn't realize that after 22 years, it was engrained into every fibre of my being.  It goes with me wherever I go.

This learning to let go of being perfect and embracing my humanity is a process. There are places now where I don't expect perfection of myself {yes housework and cooking I'm looking at you right now}. I don't expect myself to be perfect in my writing.  I can accept that I am flawed and loved.  That's huge.

I was surprised this week when another unrealistic expectation reared it's ugly head.  I still expect that one day I will be fully healed - that I can be the person I was "supposed to be" if all the abuse hadn't have happened, and my personality hadn't split into hundreds of pieces.  Ouch. I'm still holding this expectation, this idea, this false hope that one day I won't have the scars, visible and invisible from what all happened.  This false hope keeps me from the grief work.  It creates a barrier in my healing. I know there's redemption and I'm counting on it.  But my idea of what that looks like is going to need to shift.

This side of death, there won't be a day when my past won't be part of my story. Really that's what this is about. I don't want to have lived what I lived.  I don't want to be this strong because I survived hell. I don't want to be able to empathize with every type of trauma because I experienced it all.  I don't want to be stuck in this label of "the woman formerly known as a victim". Yes I'm aware that there is a balance that has to happen here.  But I'm realizing that I've been holding onto a faulty picture of what healing looks like.

My therapist pointed out to me multiple places where I currently have influence in people's lives because of the abuses. I get it, I do get it. I just don't want it. I don't want for this to be my life. I look around and wonder if this was always God's plan or if we're on plan M by now. My unrealistic expectation is that in doing the healing work I will get a do-over. That somehow, I'll magically catch up to my peers, that I'll stop being so unique with such a difficult life story.

There will be more balance - every May I mark my Freedom Day and that number is only going to go up, not down. One day the years that I've been free from abuse will be greater than the number of years I spent being abused. I don't want to pin everything in my life on that though. I need a new idea, a different idea of what healed looks like for me. One that isn't just theory. It's all part of my word for the year still. To become, there must be these shifts in my thoughts and attitudes. Here's to shedding one more layer of flawed expectation and learning to embrace what is, even though it hurts.

Fragmented Fridays

Today was one of those days where by the time I got up, I was already behind.  I ran from one thing to the next.  Good things, things I love, and yet for most they got at best half my attention and focus.

Days like today remind me of the girl I used to be and the life I used to live.  I ran from school, to work, to relationship, to homework, to healing work with barely any sleep and never any rest.  I survived on caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, sugar, and self-harm.  I was a mess.  Everyone told me to slow down, that it was okay to take things off my plate.  I couldn't hear them.  I couldn't imagine a world where I wasn't constantly busy. I was the girl who lived her life always running, running from herself - her past and her pain.

Life now is rather different.  Between living with an inner ear condition that causes vertigo episodes and recovery, I don't live my life at a dead run. I have to be vigilant, to practice mindfulness and balance. I'm learning to live my life in the present, to honour my need to not live at a dead run.

Today I felt those shadows of that old way of life.  It was there in the way I didn't feel fully present.  There in the running to the next thing because I had finished the last.  There in the frenzied, frazzle that was my brain all day long.

For tonight I'm setting down my unfinished to do list.  I'm remembering the woman I am now.  The one who honours her need for rest, even when it feels like she's wasting time she doesn't have to spare.  I am the woman who knows she doesn't have to do it all.  The one who knows there is grace and that tomorrow has more than enough time for the things that I didn't finish from today.