Day 5: Sustain. To retreat means to step back in a quiet and “out of the way” place. But, I don’t aim to recreate the energy of this place when I return to my life in Albuquerque. Instead, I want to continue to find practices that sustain the energy I need to continue to take risks as an artist. What does it mean to sustain a life as an artist? I chat with my diary about this in this my final retreat day. . . Watch on . . .
Day 4 writing retreat: Free spirit. I needed to find some play within the schedule on Day 4. I was feeling antsy, a little tired in my body-mind, and wanted to shake things up a little bit. So, I mixed in other activities with the writing ones to keep me engaged and to resolve some internal conflict I felt. I wrote in a new place at a different time and “out of order” (the order I had scheduled to complete the work) to make it feel new. I also expressed my inner free spirit by journaling about joy, playing with Oso (my German Shepard companion), and setting up some of the interiors of my Writing Shed. I also set three intentions to help see me through to the end–I will feel pride, I will allow time for reflection after the retreat, and I will express gratitude.
Day 3: Settling. I was ready to make a schedule today because I was craving the structure and the feelings of accomplishment. So much of a writing project can feel like a “no-place” or a place of very open possibilities, so I knew it would be good for my spirit to set and meet goals today. Also, some loneliness crept in (the retreat site is pretty remote), but also the feeling that I was ready to “get to work.”
Day 2 of writing retreat: Sense. Today was all about “feeling into” what my body-mind wanted, listening to meaningful synchronizations that had occurred recently, and trusting that even though I had one plan for the writing retreat, my muses assured me I could trust my instincts. Marianne Boruch, one of my favorite poets who writes about poetry says, “The main thing is to give yourself time, a good steady empty block of it. And be there, show up.” I think that’s what I did today . . .
I’m an artist-mother who self-organized a writing retreat in the mountains of New Mexico. For 5 days, I’ll have uninterrupted time to think, write, plan, and feel into the peace and quiet of my own heart. Join me as I “check in” at the end of each day about how the day went and what I learned. I will be having a conversation with “M”–the nickname of my “Merry Memoir”–a work in progress that I have personified because I believe she supports my creative process. As Marianne Boruch tells us: “make the occasion for it” and the writing will come.
How do I let in the light?
I give myself the benefit of the doubt. I give my partner and my son the benefit of the doubt. I know they are doing the best they can, and I also express when I am emotionally unsafe or vulnerable and I take the steps I need to return to safety. When my partner is having an emotional moment because he measured the door frame wrong, it’s OK if I take space from that and find what feels good.
I treat life like a learning experience. I treat it like a labor of love. I try new things, even when they are hard and uncomfortable. I am patient with myself and give myself plenty of time. I assume the creative process is a lot like the creative life. I am in a spiral of constantly birthing and destroying. This weekend, I learned how to use spray foam to keep the mice from crawling into the writer’s shed. It wasn’t my favorite thing to do and it got all over my new winter coat, but with more time, I will be finished with it and ready for the next moment.
I hold the positive in a way that is intentional and mindful. I make sensory maps to really hold in the positive experience. I tasted my turkey leftovers and immediately stop talking! Journaling helps with these sensory maps. I write poems. The alpha poem is a beautiful way to synthesize what is good
L oving what
I s
G rafted and
H ollow helps me see
Telescopic—to the stars and back to my favorite thinking trunk.
After all the trauma, there is light. I still look at what is hurting, but the conflict with the self is a lot less jarring.
Landscape Stepping Stones is a journaling tool created by Dr. Progoff. It is a list of 8-12 places that have been important, including residences, environments, places visited, and other significant landscapes. I chose to write a landscape of stepping stones that led to the current drafting of my memoir. When choosing what stones should be on the list, I asked myself: 1) if this place influenced or even altered the trajectory of my work and 2) if I am still living with the result/impact of this place.
Here is my list:
Reflection on landscape stepping stones related to my drive to complete my current memoir manuscript:
I am aware that some of the most difficult places have been some of the most fruitful (e.g., the steps of a former house where I slipped and injured hip is seared in my memory as the beginning of the end of an emotionally violent marriage). I am aware that some of these beginnings took a while to develop and that the beginnings and endings frequently overlapped. So while I was starting on a path to writing the story of becoming a mother, I was saying goodbye to the ideal of a perfect family, the perfect job, the perfect interracial couple identity. I notice that I am a complex woman who is more open with her emotions now than at any other time in her life, and with this openness, comes love and support from those who care for me. I am surprised by the continued tone of forgiveness and healing when my mother pops into my journal. There is a continued softening, tenderness towards her. My body wants to smile at this list of landscape stepping stones and pay homage to its path and to giggle at some of the everyday pleasures I experienced, the orange globe mallow weed I saw on my walks that were re-enchanting my life at the same time that I was mythless and looking for new stories to fortify my life. I feel determined to continue to create a life that is pleasing to me, to seek out places that cultivate aliveness, and to embody this pleasure and aliveness in me so that it oozes into the stories I put on the page.
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:
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.
Do you have a moment in your life that you want to return to? Are the details so vivid that they haunt you at night? Are you craving to understand this moment in your life? This moment that could teach you everything? This moment that could show you your bravery or your resilience or your capacity to do everything in your power to protect yourself and your kin?
In this captured moment that I experienced in April 2021 (and wrote about in Nov 2021), I can see now how strong I was to leave a violent home. I can see now how I went into Mama Protector mode. I can see now, that it was the first time I woke up from a very bad dream. I can see now that I had the clarity of thought and wherewithal to get the hell out and to save myself and my son.
Join me for the next free journaling session on Saturday January 21st at 9:30 a.m. Mountain Time. You will learn to write your own captured moment. The captured moment does not have to be a response to trauma, but I just wanted to share how powerful this tool can really be by sharing my own traumatic memory.
Register for the journaling session at: www.jessicamaggiebrophy.com/registration.
What moment in your life needs recounting? I and The Writing Shed members are here to be your witnesses 💕🖋️
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