Let Your Wounds Be Portals

Disrupt the loop

Hello everyone! Happy new year <3 Deadline to register into EVOLVE is January 6th (tomorrow!).

Lots of updates happening in our subscriber community that I wanted to aware you of in case you’ve been considering joining us.

First things first ~ Our January theme is ✨ BEGIN ANEW ✨ and I have a few thoughts on the matter:

You still get to feel awesome, and you are still worthy of care and forgiveness, even after making an error or failing.

Realizing you’ve messed up or gotten off track from what you intended to do creates a specific moment of awareness. This moment is beautiful! And is required when we're in a practice of learning/growing/changing.

Instead of stopping or giving up *when* we have a slip or failure, we collect data from the experience. We use our findings to cultivate awareness. Cultivating awareness is an extraordinary gift, because it's awareness—and the failures that can increase it—that provide a guide for how to proceed in the learning process.

Trying to be perfect so we might avoid failure is a sure fire way to hinder development. Instead we can:

💡 Build self esteem by choosing goals that are both achievable *and* require a bit of a stretch
💡 Rebound from going off track by returning to basics and tending to non-negotiables
💡 Join a community of like-minded individuals who can both reflect to us our goodness and buoy us through difficult moments (cough <ahem>)
💡 Emphasize building blocks and breaking things down into their smallest parts to practice
💡 Cultivate beginner's mind and a self image as a learner

Though it's so much easier said than done, I want to offer that messing up doesn’t require feeling bad, anger, embarrassment, frustration, or a withdrawal from wanting to take chances. Take it as part of the learning process, and then observe, adjust, move forward.

If you're looking for support...this month in SELF MADE, the community is devoted to all things BEGINNING ANEW.

Maybe it’s a commitment to your recovery. Perhaps it’s your health; a particular relationship; a prior hobby; maybe it’s a garden. What will you begin anew?

If you're curious about membership:
$30/month // $300/year subscription gets you:
✍🏽 Content!
📞 Calls!
📣 Slack community!
📆 Monthly workshops!
🔮 Creative Coworking Fridays (this year, we're Artist Way-ing together)
❣️Mucho amor y cariño

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🤘Last reminder:

Deadline for EVOLVE is *this* Friday, January 6th!

This is a 12-week online course, community, and coaching program for people in recovery who are ready to leverage the gifts of practice into designing a life that aligns—sustainably—with who they really are and what they really want. This is a hybrid group and individual coaching program that kicks off on January 9th, 2023. To learn more click here, and check out the application here.

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🤝 1:1 COACHING: Sign up for an Alignment Session.

“This work is about so much more than quitting drinking. It’s about learning how to live.”
— Janet S. - 1X1 Coaching Client

Three spots open for January! Schedule an Alignment Session with me or click the button to learn more:

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✍🏽 January Writing Workshop: Grab your spot here (Sunday, January 29, 10am - 12pm PST). This is our first workshop of 2023 and I hope to see you!

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❓Questions? Ask. I’m here and I’d love to hear from you.

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Photo by Mike Erskine on Unsplash

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, so 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 as a nondrinker, 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.

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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 tough conversations with someone I’m dating! I had eight full hours to myself before dinner plans with friends, which were then cancelled due to these biblical rains! ), 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.

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SELF MADE is a rebellious recovery community that empowers you to liberate yourself from societal programming and boldly step into a life of your design. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, founder, writer, Integral coach, and recovery guide based in San Francisco, CA. 

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