Healing Can Be Destabilizing, Too
In the beginning, healing can be so destabilizing. It can exacerbate symptoms, heighten anxiety, make space for big overwhelming emotions.
So if you feel like you’re going backwards, know that this can be part of the process.
Childhood, Caretaking, & Feelings
If you were a child who expressed feelings in proportion to those around you. If you contorted your emotions into the shape and size that could be held. If you disappeared and squeezed and repressed what couldn’t.
If your role as a young person was to take care of other people’s feelings, to hold them in your small hands, to weave them into the fabric of your family, to make the unokay acceptable.
You might struggle to believe your feelings are worthy of care.
I honor your survival
I honor your survival.
I believe your survival.
I am in awe of your survival.
I support your survival.
Somatic & Emotional Flashbacks
If you have ever opened a book on trauma, or clicked on an IG post, and read about flashbacks - you might have seen a common narrative that equates flashbacks to memories.
And if you have memories of your traumatic experience/s, perhaps this parallel resonated with you.
But if you are one of many people who remember traumatic experiences somatically, if you don’t have all of the "who, what, when, where" puzzle pieces, you might have felt left out or invalidated.
If This is Resilience, I Want No Part
Can we stop glamorizing dandelions growing through concrete and glorifying resilience?
Yes, it’s amazing what humans can survive.
And: there should be less to survive.
Dandelions thrive in earth, not concrete. It might seem incredible when dandelions grow through concrete, but imagine how much more incredible it would be if they could grow in an environment meant for them, with the things they need to flourish?
Touch is a Relationship
it’s not nothing, to receive bodywork. especially from new hands and a new practitioner. especially if we have a history that includes harm and violation via touch. especially if our nervous system is keyed up, our muscles guarded.
✧