Some times you'll get derailed. Off course. Something will tip your steady boat and you'll wonder if any of it matters, if you'll always feel like this, if you'll ever feel how you want to feel, get what you want, be how you want it to be.
You'll read something that breaks your heart. Someone will do or say something that activates the youngest parts of you, the wounded parts, the tenderest parts. You'll get some news thats hard to bear. Your fear will get kicked up or your emotions sweep you up like a wave.
As you are healing, the work will include learning to notice when this is happening, to recognize the signs and to respond to the moment with gentleness, care and intention.
To steady your boat.
When that happens to me now I have practices and resources in easy reach so that I don't spiral or have to extract from myself to find good ground again, the steady path, the middle of the boat.
A ritual that tells my body, “you are safe. you are healing. your feelings matter. you are held.” When I have the physical sensation, the felt sense of steadiness, of balance in my body, it disrupts the terror, upset, fear or negative thinking looping in my mind and then settles my thoughts to make way for peace again. From there I can choose what actions to take or take no further action at all. Being in choice is an empowered place.
Yesterday something rocked my boat. It hit the tenderest nerve of my being. The one where the echo of substance use in my family lives. The emotional memory held in my brain and body of what it feels like to not be considered. To be in the shade of obliviousness. To have my needs go unmet until I finally disappear my needs altogether. It's harkens all the way back to my earliest days in a household where alcohol use was present. When the pain of disconnection was felt but not understood.
When this happens I have learned I need three things.
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