The Writing Shed

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http://jessicamaggiebrophy.com

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When You Fear Happiness

Have you ever had a fear of happiness that you could express? It is so brave to put language to these fears, essentially saying, “I see you fear” and “I am staring you down,” even if I have to look away some times. I imagine it’s good to scream at these fears sometimes or welcome them in like a house guest, pulling up a chair and offering it a cup of tea (this is what Rumi does in his “The Guest House” poem):

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

 

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

I too relate to lingering fears (perhaps unmet primal needs surfacing from my unconscious) that I “don’t deserve good things” or can’t “allow myself to trust” that goodness is the norm. Sometimes I would tell myself:

  • “Why do I deserve to have such happiness now?”
    • (based on survivor guilt that other siblings in my family were still not growing or in a healthy way with themselves).
  • Or “Do I deserve unconditional love from myself or others?”
    • (i.e., I didn’t get it as a girl; why should now be any different?)
  • Or “Can healing and love really grow and expand? That’s fairy talk!”
    • (e.g., Love I experienced with my family of origin diminished me, so how can I trust it to expand me now with my chosen family?)

These questions remind me of the wisdom of Buddhist psychology, especially of Mark Epstein’s The Trauma of Everyday Life. He uses a lot of Winnicott’s paradigm of the “good enough” mother to explain how those who have experienced developmental trauma as a child can use that relational dynamic with themselves (a lot like the ideal parenting techniques). I was struck by this quote from the book. His ideas have helped me feel more flexible with this ever-changing and holy healing journey:

While some people have it in a much more pronounced way than others, the unpredictable and unstable nature of things makes life inherently traumatic. What the Buddha revealed through his dreams was that, true as this may be, the mind, by its very nature, is capable of holding trauma much the way a mother naturally relates to a baby. One does not have to be helpless and fearful, nor does one have to be hostile and self-referential. The mind knows intuitively how to find a middle path. Its implicit relational capacity is hardwired.

As I’ve continued to heal and grow, I know that I will still experience “little ‘t'” traumas (of everyday life) and will still have my childhood developmental trauma triggered by little things (like going to the very crowded farmer’s market or hearing my son’s screaming). And with all of the re-wiring that my brain can do, I now have the tools to regulate. And my triggers become fewer and fewer. My goal isn’t to attach to the happy zone (although anchoring in it is a more normal experience now); It doesn’t last forever, and I’m okay with that. The sad or anxious states wake me up again to what my body needs, and it can feel good to relate to what wants to be seen (even if my past default was to ignore, suppress).

Now, we can invite it in, and say “I see you.” I may not answer the door at the first few knocks, and I may even keep it “out in the cold” on my doorstep for a day or two. But eventually, I now say, “Come in. Let’s talk. Let’s cry. Let’s see each other.” Maybe this is the middle way?

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Waking Up

Because we have recently adjusted to “summer time” here in Albuquerque, NM, I have been more aware of my circadian rhythm being in synch with nature’s rhythm. “Summer time” is when the days get longer in the warmer months so that darkness falls at a later clock time. I am watering my urban garden at sundown, adjusting my sleep pattern with the sunset times, and sitting on the porch before I go to bed. 
 
 
 
But I’ve also been thinking of sunrises, dawns, and early morning rising because the birds are back on the electrical wires outside of my apartment. They wake me gently up with their chirping. Dr. Linnea frequently recommends getting enough sunlight in the early morning to improve our sleep. She writes in her blog on ways to heal a dysregulated nervous system that: “We can improve our sleep by exposing our eyes to the sun in the morning. . . .” (“47 Practices to Heal a Dysregulated Nervous System”). She also notes the power of journaling and books to help heal us. 
 
 
 
I have found that reading poetry has been one of the most healing modalities of my journey thus far. This is because I will memorize poems that I want to comfort me in distressing times or reach out to poets that I know have a similar experiences as me. This makes me feel less alone. 
 
 
 
I’d like to share one of my favorite poems, “Dawn Revisited” by Rita Dove, with you. The speaker wants us to think about those early mornings:
 
Imagine you wake up
with a second chance: The blue jay
hawks his pretty wares
and the oak still stands, spreading
glorious shade. If you don’t look back,
 
the future never happens.
How good to rise in sunlight,
in the prodigal smell of biscuits –
eggs and sausage on the grill.
The whole sky is yours
 
to write on, blown open
to a blank page. Come on,
shake a leg! You’ll never know
who’s down there, frying those eggs,
if you don’t get up and see.
 
 
I love how the poem points to the interconnected relationship many of us have with our past lives, our present struggles and glimmers of green, and our hope to one day live into a future that is, to use Dr. Linnea’s terms— restored, connected, and expanded. “The whole sky is . . . blown open.” And how hopeful the speaker sounds when she tells us to wake up, be disciplined, be curious—“You’ll never know / who’s down there, frying those eggs, / if you don’t get up and see”!
 
 
 
What do mornings mean to you on your healing journey?
 
How does “summer time” connect you to something?
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Dear Inner Wisdom,

The Inner Wisdom journaling tool comes from the Journal to the Self course created by Kathleen Adams. You can use the three questions I pose here as sentence starters to activating your own inner wisdom. As Adams reminds us, “Your answers are within. They are as close as your fingertips.”

Dear Inner Wisdom,

Question 1: What do I now need to know about leaving home?

Answer 1: Starting at the age of 37, I made concerted efforts to leave home. I am now 44 and, despite some false starts, have been successful at leaving both my family of origin and, not surprisingly in hindsight, my first marriage. Both were toxic, dysfunctional, and predicated on co-dependency. For example, It was considered a moral obligation to try to be named in the will (One of the mantras I remember hearing a lot was “You know, you’ll be left out of the will if . . .”). Moreover, one elder relative once told me that if she tried to call me 3 times, and I didn’t call back, she wouldn’t ever try again. Both values—following fixed rules to gain a financial inheritance (i.e., wearing a certain Irish wool sweater on Christmas; bringing lilies on Easter; showing up at all marriages and funerals) and not crossing an elder in the family who didn’t have the patience to see you live your independent life—kept me anchored to the family bubble. It was a culture of loyalty at all costs.

And, no longer feeling guilt or like I need to defend this family that I left, because I am happy with my choice, what does leaving home have to teach me now?

David Celani in Leaving Home: The Art of Separating from Your Difficult Family (2005) writes, “There are no ‘family police’ to come and arrest us if we decide to separate and move on in life. The only police we have to fear are our defenses against seeing how bad life in the family has been” (128).

Now my defenses are down, I have learned that I lacked the support during my childhood that I needed, and I am not afraid to admit it or feel the need to frame my childhood with: But my parents were doing the best they could. Of course they were, and I know their behavior towards me wasn’t intentionally harmful (most of the time). I also know they didn’t have the capacity to meet my needs. Fine. Sounds simple. 

But, as part of my own desire to sustain healing, I need to remind myself that the upbringing was destructive to me. I received inconsistent feedback, resulting in confusion about my self, thus lacking confidence in how I perceived and judged myself. This is considered an emotional delay. I was also emotionally neglected. I felt invisible or unimportant or only important as I could help my family or parents. I subsumed my authenticity in order to receive 1-2 attachment needs, such as safety and protection and sometimes soothing comfort. But I did not consistently experience a sense of expressed delight from my parents, attunement, or a sense of support in becoming the best version of myself. I was also physically and emotionally abused, which now, seems like the lesser of the deficiencies.

Leaving home has taught me that: 

        • only I am going to acknowledge the truth about how bad my life was in this family 
        • only I know that I don’t have to defend my parents as good to be validated
        • only I can practice this birthright called expression 
        • I will probably be the only one who celebrates this act of so-called defiance, the act of leaving home (excepting those who are now part of my new family who are happy for me); 
        • celebrating is better than getting revenge or trying to reform who can never accept my authenticity

Question 2: How can I now learn from my former split self?

Answer 2: Celani reminds those who leave home about their underdeveloped identities:

“Often, healthy solutions are out of the reach of adults who were not reared in loving families, because these families were not supportive enough to allow their children to develop new and healthy identities. Rather, these young adults are left with a vast inner emptiness inhabited by the two opposite and unstable wounded and hopeful selves [known as splitting or our defensive selves] (instead of a complex personality structure), and their relationships with others are marred by both the splitting and moral defense [defending parents as good]” (90). 

Maybe this is what is called the stilted self. I was called this once by a very near and dear surrogate mother. At the time being termed stilted was very painful to hear, but I now see it as a seed that my surrogate mother was planting in me. It was a seed of an idea that I had to face. Would I look away from what she saw in me? Or would I approach it, love it, move towards the fearsome paralysis of  my own freezing default I learned as a girl in order to survive? 

I’m a lucky one because I was able to move towards this split self and try to understand her. I saw that I wouldn’t always embody the story of the wounded daughter. I would for a time, but not forever. I wouldn’t always carry a toxic optimism in my friendships and romantic relationships because I thought this was the only way others would accept me (as I learned to behave in my family). I did for a time, but not any more. 

I now know that I don’t have to anchor myself in the illusion that my upbringing was okay or to cling onto some hope that my family will someday have the capacity to meet my needs. And that is because I have left the family. 

I no longer need to be split—a simplistic shell of a self. I know that sometimes I embody and experience 10 different emotions in any one moment, and I can name them: steady, vulnerable, curious, annoyed, regulated, debased, controlled, sad, trustworthy, admired, creative, excited, anticipatory.

I thank my split suffering self for existing so that I can now feel the immense joy of a mature emotional life! I am in my forties and am so grateful that I am finally truly alive. 

Question 3: What is my revised personal meaning of hope?

Answer 3: When I listen to others talk about hope, I am jealous. I imagine them having secure attachments throughout childhood and genuinely believing that “tomorrow will be better than today,” as my partner shared with me when I asked him what hope meant to him. He also said that faith is the belief that some higher power will help make tomorrow better. So, he’s got hope and faith! Because I associate hope with my split self, I feel sort of cheated out of this healthy worldview—that things are always getting better. Like love always expanding. Like I love you more today than I loved you yesterday. Maybe I can differentiate between the split self hope, which is really a tool to control one’s offspring into providing unlimited support and service to the parents, and authentic hope, a tool that encourages offspring to continue to add to their “sense of self” (Celani 31) so that it is stronger today than it was yesterday. This tool encourages authenticity, experimentation, leaving home because it is predicated on “an abundance of memories of affection and feelings of success” in the emotionally supported child (31). I have reason to experience this authentic hope as I continue to parent myself and co-regulate and heal in beautiful ways with my blaze of fire, my son, Remi.

The healthy today that I co-create with my son, my mothers, my new friends, my New Mexico family, my partner, my allies in community, will take care of tomorrow. That is the hope I have. By living in this beautiful moment, my faith shows up.

That is an inheritance for which I will gladly open my arms.

 

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The Magical Dialogue Tool

Join me next Thursday on April 20th from 12:00 to 1:00 for a journaling workshop on Zoom. We will learn the very magical dialogue tool. 

After I reflected on the dialogue I had with my heart, I realized a few things: my heart seems to fiercely defend my true self. I love her for this! At the end of the conversation with my heart, I also realized internally I was open to conversations. In other words, I didn’t need to have a hard and fast resolution right then, which has been a hard fought win for me. I don’t like loose ends! 

My reflection write also noted that by dialoguing with my heart, I was able to easily distinguish between multiple parts of me, the ego part, the Superwoman syndrome part, the little girl part just wanting to be seen and heard and affirmed, and that immutable part of me that is so tied to my nervous system health and transformation. 

Like most journaling sessions, just doing a reflection write on the learned tool can be the most rewarding part! 

Register for the journaling workshop at www.jessica maggiebrophy.com/registration

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First Place Contest Winner!

Celebrating a small win today. This personal web site (home of The Writing Shed) won first prize in the New Mexico Press Women Communications Contest 2022!

I celebrated with a mango yuzu chantilly cream cupcake. 🎉

The New Mexico Press Women (NMPW) was “organized in 1950, as an affiliate of the National Federation of Press Women. It is an organization of professional journalists and communicators that promotes the highest ethical standards while looking to the future in professional development, networking and protecting First Amendment rights” (“About”). 

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What Are Your Birthmarks?

Women! What are your birthmarks? What are you trying to hide from the world that God made perfect and beautiful? Where do all of these emotions go when you don’t have the language to talk to your birthmarks? Emotions like confusion or sadness or anger or hate?

They get buried in our bodies and they harm our immune systems and we live in states of freeze or depression, as was the case for most of my teenage and 20 something years. Gabor Mate in The Myth of Normal gives study upon study that shows the relationship between stuffing emotions (especially in women who aren’t supposed to express “bad” or interrupting emotions) and cancer or auto-immune diseases.

When I began using my journal as a sounding board and as a really cheap therapist, I realized I could say on the page what I couldn’t say out loud in the home. Poetry was my human voice and I became of interest to myself (idea adapted from Elizabeth Alexander’s poetry). I could take a compassionate gaze at a girl becoming woman who hated herself 💕

I pulled out old school photos and wrote self-portrait poems. I looked closely at my face in the photos, at my posture, where my hands were resting. I imagined what she must have been feeling, what she was holding back, what she was too choked up to speak about. 

This helped me love her, even when she couldn’t love herself in those moments of fear and self-loathing. 

This helped me see her, even when she hadn’t been seen or validated before.

These poems began my journey of learning how to mother myself as an adult. 

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What Are the Images of Your Life?

Join me this Saturday December 17th at 9:30 a.m. MT to also learn the guided art making tool (in a Zoom journaling session). This tool is all about being the heroine of your own life and not being satisfied with the stories of others. Rumi tells us “unfold your own myth, without complicated explanation, so everyone will understand the passage.” After a journey, “then comes a moment of feeling the wings you’ve grown, lifting.” The images of our lives have a lot of messages and symbols to teach us. It is going to be a fun journaling session with drawing and coloring. Bring your own art supplies!

Register for the journaling session at: www.jessicamaggiebrophy.com/registration

 

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Expressive Writing in College Classroom

Sometimes I just want to check in with my students and feel their heartbeats. I want to know if the writing process for them has been a healthy one or if they have some unresolved emotions.

I recently heard that when students are confronted with a lot of information, it can be a type of trauma. “In a twisted sort of way a lecture is like a trauma for the audience. People are passively confronted by a bewildering amount of information over which they have little control” (Pennebaker and Smyth Opening Up by Writing it Down).

I had never thought that lecturing was a type of trauma, but I think the bigger point here is that students need to be given opportunities to confront and control what is happening in their own learning experiences and not constantly be confronted by the lecturer’s ideas. Expressive writing is one of those confronting strategies to put the power back in the hands of students.

An unexpected outcome of the journaling session was the immense outpouring of support, compassion, and love that the students shared with one another in the chat box after someone was brave enough to read their journal entry. I couldn’t have prepared or constructed this result in a million years with just me lecturing to the students. When I let go, and let the students explore their own lives, they wanted to be present for one another and they felt a deeper bond as a result. 

What other confronting strategies do you use to have students reflect on the connections between the subject matter and their own personal lives?

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