I’ve been working on and through so many things in the last few years. Doing 6 units of Clinical Pastoral Education back to back (a year of residency followed by a year of fellowship) led me down many personal paths of trauma processing, grief work, growth, and integration. Going through my ordination process and a divorce at the same time led to additional depths of pain and healing. There was a time where everything that was coming up for me felt so private and so specific to me and my story that I wasn’t inclined to write it. Things are possibly shifting.
The most profound reflection I had of 2023 as I looked back at the end of the year was how I showed up for myself more than I had in my entire life. I did not abandon myself emotionally, spiritually, or physically. Recognizing that growth and the gratitude that rose within me as I saw it, caused me to weep. Because no matter what happens in my life, I am learning to be with myself in it. I am so proud of this growth and so grateful. What a treasured gift! Building this kind of self-trust creates a foundation in my life from which to exist that feels safe, strong, and calm.
I have more compassion for me. I am feeling my feelings rather than taking action to make them go away. I am creating a life where what I feel is relevant and important. I used to feel impatient when I couldn’t manage my feelings. That is what I tried to do with them - manage them, manage me. Because before I even learned to identify my feelings and tie them to unmet needs, I knew that there wasn’t room for them in the life I had created. They didn’t really matter. Which is so sad to me now.
I’m living in my body (more) rather than pushing through in order to keep functioning, which had become chronic over-functioning. I am actually slowing down. I know. It’s wild.
This led to the awakening of so much desire. I am a dreamer, an artist, an activist, a lover. I have huge feelings and desires. I lived with so much repressed longing for so long. I think I was afraid of how big I am. How big I’ve always been. I remember telling my therapist when I was in my residency “more” when she asked me what I wanted in my life.
That is what I have now. More. It took awhile to realize that more also includes heartache. Opening up to the depths of joy and longing also opens up the possibility for attachment, loss, and crushing disappointment. Joy and grief…same coin, two sides. I want both though. They’re both mine.
I’m learning to stop when I feel pain, overwhelm, anger. These are moments to step back, regulate, reevaluate my plan without shame when I’m unexpectedly unwell, tired, not in the mood. What my body registers as an emergency, like when my child is upset, is most often, not an actual emergency. I can create room in my relationships for me to self-regulate rather than automatically responded to the needs of others with no regard for what’s going on with me in that moment. I am rewriting neurology that came from unaddressed PTSD. Thank God I got to work at the VA for a year and learned that you can actually rewrite your neurology!
I lived in my head for a really long time. And I know at least most of the reasons why. (I always assume there are things in my subconscious waiting for me to be able to hold in time and that’s cool. I trust her too). When I stayed in my head, I could meet people there who couldn’t meet me in other places - like the spiritual or emotional or physical realm. I actually think a lot of my spiritual training was done in a mostly cerebral environment. Feelings or spirituality were harder to control because they are actually more expansive than reason and logic. (Also, this is where the patriarchy thrives).
I remember having a goal in the early days of my CPE. I wanted to take what felt like a firehose of compassion that I had for others and to just turn it slightly so it could include me. Not in an either/or kind of way (splitting), but just so that I could love myself as well as I have always loved others. This seemed simply conceptually but has taken a ton of work and I am not done.
I used to think that what I contributed to relationships was my love, which often looked like action. I learned to see that was codependency and over-functioning. What I am learning is that my biggest gift is actually me. My presence. My me-ness. Not what I can contribute in a concrete way, but what I can be with, witness, participate in, and hold alongside rather than on behalf of others. That’s not something I have to do or earn. It’s something I am. I am becoming.
What a fucking huge relief.