“That thing you are most afraid to write. Write that.” ~ Nayyirah Weed

An interesting thing happened to me last week. And by interesting I mean fucking horrible. I am not necessarily ready to write about it yet, but here I am anyway. Last week I had a lot of ugly and completely repressed childhood memories present themselves to me rather suddenly. I say this was suddenly, but maybe it wasn’t so sudden at all. I have been back in therapy for the past four months working through a lot of things, including childhood trauma. I began to process these new memories with my therapist last week. So many of you have reached out to me to talk about EMDR and how helpful it has been for you or a loved one. I am thrilled to hear your success stories. That has not been my experience with it. I just don’t process that way. Fortunately, the therapist I have isn’t Hell bent on continuing with something that’s not working for me. We are talking through a lot of things and I take it to my journals and my meditation. Sometimes things come out on my yoga mat. I process slowly but I am thorough. It seems to be working. It’s always helpful for me to share here because there will always be someone who will send me a “me too” message to help me through and remind me that I am not alone in this. Whatever this is. I’ve had a hard time with theses images coming back to me and honestly, it made me feel a bit crazy. I have a wonderful and wise friend who pointed out that I know these things happen to other people, I just didn’t think it would happen to ME. She was so right and so helpful to me in that moment. When I opened up to my therapist about this she had the sweetest smile on her face and she looked genuinely happy. It is her opinion that it’s time. I am strong enough and I finally feel safe enough to deal with this. This was somewhat comforting, but I’m not quite there in sharing in her happiness. And, because I am who I am, I questioned if maybe she was the crazy one. I called a friend of mine who is also a psychologist and opened up to him. I value his friendship and his opinion. Imagine my surprise when he seemed genuinely happy about this too. I began to feel a bit better about it and the way I’m thinking of it is starting to shift. It actually is interesting to find more pieces of my puzzle. Maybe this didn’t happen to me as much as it happened FOR me. I am trying to get into the space of feeling empowered by this. It might take a minute, but I’ll get there. Last week’s full moon was so powerful that I can’t help but think she was shining the light of awareness on this for me. Clearly it’s time for me to know these things so I can begin to let go of them. I know that when I let go I create space for better things to flow into my life. I asked The Universe to help me be open and I think this is how the Universe has responded. I’m creating space. None of this feels good to me and it’s not particularly fun to deal with. But, I’m doing it. Never once did it cross my mind to numb myself with alcohol or any other substance for that matter. There’s beauty in learning how to stay. I am not sleeping well because along with this came nightmares. I know they can’t last forever. In the meantime, I’m napping when I need to. I’m participating in immersive experiences that nourish my soul. I’m eating the things that make my body feel good and I’m journaling my way through this. And it’s working. I am learning so much more about myself through this process. My word of the year is “Learn.” I even got it tattooed on my arm. Just WOW. I keep coming back to “be careful what you ask for or you just might get it” statement. I feel connected and I feel heard. I don’t feel crazy. I feel healthy. If my mind wanders to that weird place that tries to tell me otherwise, I have a family to remind me that I am so loved and I have a host of amazing people to remind me that I’m a bad ass warrior. I’ll get through this and I’ll help others as I do. THAT is everything to me.