Word Therapy

Recovering With Wings

We've all heard of trauma-informed therapists, and I am very thankful for the work that they do. I've been in the season of life where I have greatly benefited from the work of trauma-informed people. As I go through life I'm finding that I want to be more trauma-informed in all of my interactions, especially with kids.

What I've been learning about trauma and what it does to our bodies and brains in the way that they interact with each other, is that often times it causes disembodiment. Where we regress solely to the confines of our mind in order to try to process the world in a way that can create safety amidst our lived experience. This can cause a great deal of anxiety, because our physical bodies were designed to work in tandem with our minds and spirits in order for us to flourish.

 

Getting back into our bodies can involve a variety of practices. Sometimes it includes exercise, sometimes it includes breathing work, sometimes it includes being more mindful of what we are eating and the things that we taste. It can often include things like art and exploring the natural world.

 

Our world as it is currently situated often makes these things more difficult than they have been for people in ages past, or even for people living in other cultures today. I am often finding myself envious of societies where there is a more communal aspect of living that is more integrated with the natural world. I have a hypothesis that so many of our mental health and relationship struggles could be healed if we got back to some of the ways of our ancestors and other cultures who remain living in ways that, day by day, embrace the full humanity of the people around them and the earth on which their feet rest.

 

A couple of years ago when the Covid pandemic first started and we all found ourselves staying home a lot more, suddenly I found myself with less to do which led me to looking out my windows more. I gradually ended up spending more time outside and suddenly realized that there are a lot of birds that live around our property. It is kind of sad that we have lived here for 16 years and much of the time I have felt this place to be a burden rather than a gift. It often just looks like a long list of work to be done, rather than a beautiful place to be enjoyed.

I suddenly found myself becoming somewhat of a bird nerd. People who run into me now who primarily know me through social media will often comment on how much I like birds because of how often I post about them and talk about them.

 

For a while this obsession with the birds seemed like just a fun new hobby or a way to expand my photography skills. But as I reflect back over the last two years I'm realizing that God led me to this new love of birds because he knew that I was going to need it in a way that could actually start to help heal my soul. He has been teaching me so many things through the birds, and I'm finding that it's one of my favorite ways to practice being back in my body and in the natural world.

This afternoon, after working all morning on laundry and cleaning out random stuff from our house I decided to take my lunch out on the deck. As I sat here I saw the cat crouched like a little lioness over by the creek bank, waiting eagerly for a mouse to emerge from the dead scraps of leaves and twigs that rest under the arborvitae. Next to me my dog lazily slept, only to be occasionally awakened by a bee buzzing by her head, which she would leap up and try to snap with her jaws. She does this every year when we have our beehives out in the orchard and there have been many occasions when she has needed a dose of Benadryl at night because she has eaten so many bees. As I sat here and ate my soup, I ducked a couple of times because the hummingbirds were in a mad dash to compete for the feeder that is at my 5 o'clock. I also heard the gentle pecking of the finches and sparrows behind me as they high-graded the best parts of the birdseed out of the feeder and scattered the rest to the ground to make a patch of unsightly grass that my husband will later complain about when he's trying to perfect the yard this summer.

As I sat out here, I noticed all of the activity and the diversity of life that is literally swirling around me in this moment. I felt the sun on my skin followed by a cool breeze as I looked to my right and saw gray clouds coming over the hill.

 

As I sat here observing all of this beauty around me, I was thinking about the concept of trauma informed therapy and how thankful I am for that, but then I wondered if God might have a different route for me to travel? Would it be the weirdest thing ever, if I thought that maybe my calling in life was to be a bird-informed spiritual Director? I have been seeing a spiritual Director for over a year now and I am strongly considering pursuing spiritual direction as my next aspiration. I love the idea of helping other people untangle what's going on inside of them as it relates to their relationship with God and people in the world. I'm wondering if these two areas of interest could somehow be woven together in a way that could help people like me who need to come back to nature as a way of truly finding communion with God. Jesus was a birdwatcher after all. He often talks about the world and stories with birds and agrarian society. I don't think it's a coincidence that I find myself surrounded by those two things every day.

 

So what do you think? Would you have a session with a bird-informed spiritual Director? Or maybe this is just one of many of my flights of fancy. Either way, it’s an idea I’m going to tuck into the nest :) 

It’s Not Too Late; Failure & Grace in the In-Between

 

This morning, I failed. I failed so hard.

 

It took me back to the scary years. The years when I was constantly plagued with anxiety, depression, and overwhelm. The outworking of the chaos of my interior would often come out in the saddest of ways; cycles of numbing out, freaking out, and then slipping into a tidal wave of despair.

When I say freaking out, let me be very clear: Yelling, even screaming, and behaving in a way that is damaging to the hearts and souls of my kids. My worst parenting moments have always come from some deep root of panic that I’ve lost all control and in an attempt to regain control, I’ve resorted to the very limited bundle of tools I have in my toolbox in times like those. 

 

Over the years, these episodes of yelling and acting like the Hulk have decreased in frequency, but this morning it all came roaring back. The fighting, the disrespectful talk, the feeling that somehow the idealized roles of parental authority & submissive kids have been completely turned on their head in a way that makes me feel “Oh no. It’s too late. They are ruined. I’ve failed”

 

Lack of Boundaries, Co-Dependency, emotional dysregulation, mental health struggles, all have taken turns manifesting in ways that have shown up in inconsistent patterns of relating in our family.

 

To be sure, there has been progress.

 

These mama freak-outs don’t happen nearly as often as they used to, but still, something has been amiss inside of me recently that has brought me back to this dark place of using my voice, my authority to harm rather than heal.

After acting like a full-fledged lunatic this morning and sending my kids off to school to try to tackle their day with hearts that were surely battered and bruised, everything inside of me wanted to retreat into a cave of despair, sure that I have ruined them forever.

 

Fortunately I went against everything in me, to keep a meeting this morning where I knew I’d be face to face with two other moms who would at least provide a window of time where I couldn’t fall entirely off the cliff. They were a safe place to land, because they too, are no strangers to the sheer insanity that can overtake a mom who is at her end with the kids who have been entrusted to our care. 

 

Before I left for that meeting, I wrote each of the kids a note telling them how much I love them, that my crazy reactions are not their fault, and that they deserve better because they are GOOD. I also emailed a new therapist because, despite my persistence in working on healing up my own stuff, I’m realizing that I’ve hit a wall and I need someone to help me right now.

 

Why am I sharing all of this with the world? I don’t relish in drama, and I certainly don’t enjoy airing my dirty laundry.

 

I’m writing this because I know I’m not the only one.

 

I’m writing this because I don’t want anyone reading this to believe the lie that it’s too late; that you’re too bad; that your family can’t heal and learn and chart a new path towards health, rather than continuing cycles of (sometimes generational) wounding and trauma.

 

There is forgiveness and grace available. 

 

Sometimes I have the hardest time believing this. I read the Bible and read of forgiveness and somehow create a loophole for MY sin that requires extra penance; extra punishment and ostracization from the love and mercy of God.

 

But that’s such a lie. In my own self-flagellation, I create a category of sinner that is somehow outside the bounds of God’s ability to forgive, heal and redeem, and that’s just not true.

 

Sure, it grieves me to my core that I may have “caused one of these little ones to stumble” and I am begging God to somehow repair what I have broken.

 

But continuing in the line of self-flagellation only sends me deeper into despair and emotional unhealth, which then makes me an even less loving and capable parent. So although when I see my own sin and grapple with the gravity of breaking the trust I’ve worked so hard to establish with my kids, it’s a further disservice to them for me to stay stuck there.

 

So, what now?

 

Well, accountability for starters. Confessing to those two friends this morning, and seeking out a therapist are a good start. Choosing to hold more loosely to my own priorities and ideals of what “should” be in order to practice gentleness and being slow to anger with my kids, are things I’m realizing I need to freshly commit to.

 

Aside from that, I’m reminded again that no parents are perfect, there is grace for times of failure, and I need to trust God in the in-between; those in-between times when we are trying our best and the kids don’t seem to be following the arc toward maturity, kindness, self-control, and self-giving love. If I can’t be this way 100% of the time, how fair is it of me to expect that they can?

 

In our world that demands that we push, push, push, and hold to extraordinary standards of excellence, I’m proposing that we be gentle. Gentle with others, and gentle with ourselves. It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.