Let your wounds be portals
Stop scraping + disrupt the loop.
❤️🩹Next Sober From Bullshit Recovery Club: Storytelling Edition is THIS Wednesday, February 2nd. Register here.
✍🏽Writing Workshops are now the third Sunday of the month. February workshop is live - register in advance here (Sunday, February 20, 10am - 12pm PST).
Questions? Ask. I’m here and I’d love to hear from you.
Today’s post was born out of this past Sunday’s writing workshop 💫 It’s also a day late. This one - well, I needed some additional time to sit with it. Hope you enjoy (?).
No Friday post this week, as I’m going on writing retreat (!) with a dear friend.
Thank you for your eyes, and your big beautiful hearts.
For many years, weekends were my kryptonite. Sure, if I were to have a terrific binge, more often than not it would be a Friday or Saturday night. But the thing that sent me there, the actual challenge, was anytime I had an abundance of open time to myself.
I did not know how to be with myself. I did not know how to be with my mind, the looping thoughts that would send me into an anxiety spiral that kept me pressed to my bed, waiting for day to be over and evening to arrive, and I could go out with friends—anything could happen—at which point I could finally let myself unspool.
Anything to help me unspool.
One of the great and grand inner shifts I’ve experienced in sobriety, and that has only deepened in Pandemia by dint of having no choice but to pass oh-so-much-time alone, is that I’ve made friends with myself. What I mean by this: my inner dialogue is much quicker to offer me quiet words of grace, kindness and compassion than it is to berate me with shame, judgement or criticism. I know how to pump myself up rather than drag myself down. And now, when a weekend rolls around, and I have an entire unstructured afternoon to myself, I relish in putzing around my apartment, going on long walks, working out, reading, working on creative projects, and of course, napping (more like dozing for this hypervigilant person, but still), and so on. What a reframe: I’m not alone, I’m hanging out with myself.
Except for when all this goes out the window and I have a Saturday like this past Saturday.
*
Here’s what I rarely hear: sometimes, healing feels like backsliding.
In the game of self-improvement, there is an expectation of forward motion. We leave the past in our past, shift our gazes to the future. We advance in our careers (we have careers). We speak our boundaries out loud, we uphold them. Our speech is clear, we say what we mean, we know what we want. We vanquish all messes, slay all the dragons of drama that would have us stirring all the old pots. We are shiny-eyed and zit-free, we sleep flat on our backs like we’re supposed to, we would never even consider texting our sad-eyed exes, and frozen pizzas are a once-in-a-while last minute treat, no longer a front-and-center just-get-some-food-in-this-face coping strategy.
If forward is the game we are playing, then when there’s the inevitable stumble or slip—when old ghosts come back to haunt us (which, sorry, but this is guaranteed)—suddenly there we are, pinned back to our beds, caught in the loop of an old story. There we are, not only dealing with the ghosts, which, good lord, ghosts are challenging enough, but also, we’re dealing with the story we smear on top of the old one: I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t supposed to happen anymore. I thought I’d moved past this.
Tattoo idea: etched on the insides of my eyelids, the following phrase: none of this is linear.
*
Long ago, in a yoga training, my then-beloved teacher shared the archetype of the wounded healer. The idea that the fucked-up parts of myself could be gateways to all that I might eventually offer into the world, instead of something I would always be straining to hide from the world, was a concept I held close even as I continued to struggle and stress and spin. It was the first time I considered that the wounds might be signals from the parts of myself that needed my care and attention; that it was possible for the wounds to become scars, even.
That was fifteen years ago. I hold this interpretation close today, mulling over the work I do in the world now, how I tend to people inside of their own slips and slides. I am learning to tend to myself in a similar way.
Yes, the wounds are signals. When we catch ourselves in the loop of scrape scrape scrape; when we continue with—or return to—those behaviors or thought patterns that cause harm, we can begin a process of examination, learning, undoing, healing. And: this is not easy, or simple. It’s unsexy. It’s ugly and messy and confusing as hell. Backslides are frustrating because our minds insist that these moments are evidence that something is wrong, rather than assuring us that they are part of the process.
Healing takes as long as it takes. Maybe this is the most obvious statement ever, but I write it anyway, if only just for me. I’ll take every last reminder.
So I pull the line out in linear, I flick and lasso the line so that the shape becomes a spiral. Inside of the spiral, even as I return to the painful places, I practice trusting the trajectory; I trust that ultimately, the spiral is rising me up.
As my thinking around all this deepens and evolves, what I’ve come to believe is that we aren’t ready to do the work until we are ready to do the work. In my case, I now believe that my drinking was a self-protective mechanism of sorts, that kept me safe until I was ready to do the work that needed to be done. I don’t think I could have quit before I did. I believe I had to have every single last drink I did in order to finally lay it all down. I couldn’t have rushed the process, though god knows I tried. For years.
I worry that this sounds like permission for something, and maybe it is. Mostly, I hope it serves as a reminder to let grace walk alongside the trouble and the ache. You deserve grace. You are worthy of care, just as I am. Prematurely peeling back the layers on the onion of transformation is a recipe for re-traumatization. Part of this is learning to feel our way in rather than force or overthink.
This is some deep deprogramming shit.
What a gift it would be to allow ourselves the space to heal and evolve on our own sacred timeline, rather than pandering to the capitalist engine that would convince us to shove the miracle of changing our lives into the confines of yet another to-do list.
*
This past Saturday, the stars aligned in the most exquisitely specific way (I was tired from a lack of sleep! My stomach was upset from something I ate the night before! I had some disappointments on the dating app! I had eight full hours to myself before dinner plans with friends! I saw Sad Eyes walking his stupid dog! ), and yep, there I was, hooked in fast and deep into one of my oldest, most familiar loops. The one about being wanted. The one about self worth. The one that has me freaked out that there is something wrong with me, that has me worrying that the thing I want most is something for other people, not me.
The loop is dangerous because if I stay there long enough I do things I don’t want to do. The loop convinces me that bad ideas make sense.
The loop keeps me looped because I want to figure out the loop. Here’s a new thing I’m trying: when stuck in a loop, I’m forcing myself to think of ANYTHING else. I’m using distraction as my #1 tool. I’m putting that part of my brain so full of WORDS WORDS WORDS on the shelf as often as possible, busying my brain with podcasts, music, other peoples words. I’m busying my hands with carrot peeling, plant pruning, dog grooming, weightlifting.
One of my teachers refers to this “wound of neglect.” As long as I keep scratching this thing that is already so painful, I stay in the loop. Inside of the loop, the wound has no chance to stitch itself up, or for even a scab to form, let alone a scar.
My knowing asks: Where are you neglecting yourself, my love? How might we nourish these parts, instead of weaponizing them against us?
*
Sometimes, the portal is a blown-out airplane-door, air sucking you out, no choice but to be whisked and carried away. Sometimes the portal is a window cracked open, a cool breeze on the back of your neck. Sometimes, the portal is invisible, until one day it’s not and suddenly it’s all you see. There it is, crowding up your retina, blocking out everything else.
Portals are scary because who the fuck knows what’s on the other side. It takes courage, and readiness, and so much more time than we think, than we want. It requires trust. It requires listening. But what’s the other choice? These damn loops are terrifying, too.
Our task to is heal so that all of us can heal so that we can create a new world. This is the game. This is the why. This is what we hold onto when the ghosts shiver and whisper, when the loops sink their talons in our tenderest bits.
We are healing not to buy more shit, or to further excuse ourselves from the reality of systems of oppression. We are healing so that we all can heal. We are healing so that as the systems continue to break down, we can care for people who need care. We are healing so that we may fortify our minds and bodies so that when the time comes (the time has come) we are ready to get to work.
Disrupt the loop. Stop scraping. Do the opposite of what your looped out brain would have you do: cold washcloth on the back of your neck; a sprig of rose geranium shoved up your nose; pump-me-up break-up playlist blasting until you’re back to that middle finger’s up, BOY BYE vibe; move until you sweat, scream until you’re spent; take the dog on another walk, he’s SO stoked EVERY time; tend to your demons: offer them a croissant instead of a twinkie. Give over to the spiral, become an anthropologist of your own holy process. Have a say. You have a say.
You have a say in the story. You are beholden to no one, except for everyone.
From the archives ~ this time last year:
⭐️Your Mind is More Fit Than Its Ever Been
SELF MADE is a newsletter for fellow 🌺late bloomers🌺 with a focus on recovery, creativity and community. It's written by me, Dani, a writer, coach, and recovery advocate in San Francisco, CA.
SELF MADE is reader-funded. The small percentage of readers who pay make the entire publication possible.
You can also support me for free by pressing the little heart button on these posts, sharing this newsletter with others and letting me know how this newsletter helps you. Thank you.
If you have a question for the advice portion of this newsletter (whether you’re a paid subscriber or not!), reply to this email, or send your own to urbansagesf@gmail.com.
Beautiful, resonant essay. So much of my own healing has come because I started to see my wounds, my spasms of shame, all the times when ugly things would threaten to overflow in me... all of these are teachers. They have all taught me about the path I have been on, the path forward, the steps I will need to take. And NONE of it is straightforward or linear. The detours from the path, the shortcuts that turn out to be dead ends, the obstacles we trip over -- these are not detours or dead ends or obstacles, they ARE the path.
"But I write anyway, if only just for me"
So much resonation with all of this. So many good things to pull out in order to remember.
The concept of "Busying our Brains" ... I am so relieved to see this idea in someone else. This past week I came to the realization that we consume so much in social media, that we don't tun into ourselves. Or maybe its just me. Thus leading me to the thing that brings out my authenticity, expressive writing. And taking a step away from social media so that I may step closer to myself. So "I write anyway, if only just for me"