Self-Centred in the Kin Keepers’ Haven is a space for us to Unlearn Capitalism & Soothe Our Nervous Systems
Capitalism and all systems of oppression rely on our disconnection for their survival.
Connection is the antidote.
When we slow down and listen to our bodies, to nature, and to each other, we remember our enoughness; We remember our needs, and can ask for them to be met; We are able to sustainably give from an overflowing cup; to support each other, and thrive, So we can return to a place where every living being has equal access to abundance, joy, justice, and liberation.
Becoming Self-Centred is a powerful healing power move for all versions of us that have been decentred by systems of harm.
Becoming Self-Centred creates space for others to thrive, because your boundaries are dynamic and healthy and clear
Becoming Self-Centred is a lifelong process of learning & unlearning
Self-Centred in the Kin Keepers’ Haven is a space for us to unlearn capitalism and soothe our nervous systems.
Join Self-Centred in the Kin Keepers’ Haven to explore:
🌳 the difference between Capitalism & Commerce 🌳 Nervous System Basics 🌳 You’ve got needs! 🌳 Dynamic Boundaries 🌳 Truth Aligned Leadership 🌳 Cultivating Rhythms of Care 🌳 Connecting to Joy & Pleasure 🌳 Essential Service – finding right time/size/pace/relationship 🌳 and more as we follow the breadcrumbs together
Each monthly live call will include a check-in, a lesson, and an essential practice that you can integrate into your day.
Calls will be recorded and posted in the private space, so you can take your time.
Self-Centred draws on the teachings of many world-changers whose work will be named and referenced in the call notes, so that you can dig deeper as your capacity allows.
We begin Saturday March 2 with our first live call at 1:30 pm Eastern Time.
When you join today as a Founding Member, you will have access to the Kin Keepers’ Mighty Networks space to connect with other members and join live calls such as:
🌿 Held: an intimate and brave space for reclaiming our lineage and honoring the land (hosted by Trevia)
🧙🏽♀️ the Caucus of Crones (hosted by Janine) a space for Culture Makers and Haven Members over the age of 50 to cackle, collaborate, and cultivate change.
✍🏾 Weekly Coworking Sessions
🌒 Moon Circles to set intentions for the month ahead and connect to nature
🧶Monthly Stitch n Bitch Sessions where members come together to craft and crab (no judgment)
🕯️Monthly Grief Circles to allow our grief to move & make room for more joy in our lives
Kin Keepers’ Haven is a consensual, collaborative, co-creative space for culture makers, caregivers, and world changing witches to unlearn systems of harm and support each other.
Our best classroom is each other. We welcome members’ feedback to add offerings, make adjustments, and course-correct as required.
Acknowledging my colonial settler privilege in living and working on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe People, in progress of learning right relationship with the land and its First People
Are we there yet?
In 2021, when the social media trend was to choose a word for the coming New Year (is that still a thing?) mine was ‘embody’.
2021 me had no idea.
I have always been astounded at the power of intention, of setting an idea/desire/concept/dream free into the universe and releasing attachment to an outcome (as best as this imperfect human is able).
So much wonderful has manifested in my life with a practice that I never really realized was a practice. It was just something I did.
I remember a past version of me as a cheerful warrior in high school in the 70’s, encouraging myself and my friends to embrace a PMI. That’s a positive mental attitude btw; a concept originally introduced in 1937 by Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich – a book I’ve never read, a person I hadn’t heard of back then, but somehow that phrase seeped into my consciousness and sparked my imagination and optimism for creating something better, for myself, my loved ones, my world.
Perhaps it was written into my DNA by one of my genealogical ancestors before I was born. Who knows? 1970’s me had no idea. In any case, when the troubles of living in a post-colonial late-stage capitalist world got to feel like too much for me and my capacity to bear, there was always something deep inside that called for a pause, for a retreat into myself and land in the stillness to try to imagine a better way.
When I practiced Nichiren Buddhism, the intention took the form of chanting for an hour a day each morning and evening for a couple of months.
In a space of six weeks, three transformative events happened two weeks apart from each other and changed my life utterly and completely, and set me on the path out of crippling debt, isolation and toxic work environments.
The chanting was a form of intention that cleared out resistance and cleared a path for the universe to deliver the joy and abundance that I believe is the birthright of every living creature.
When my partner and I were forced to move from the house we were renting in a time of unaffordable housing prices (it’s only gotten worse since then) and my manager brain was working overtime to find a place to leave, I remember calling for a moratorium on the search, and creating a cozy bed retreat for us to dream and write our desires for the perfect home as a way of inviting it in.
And a few days later, I saw a real estate ad for a house in the hills north of us, in a town I’d never heard of, and whose kitchen had the word “Cucina” stenciled in large letters, and I knew we’d found our home before any of us had stepped foot in it.
Late in 2019, when I was burned out and exhausted from years of fighting the good fight as a union activist turned political staffer, I took my retreat. This time it didn’t feel so much intentional as unavoidable. I had been running on empty for too long, trying to pour from an empty cup, extracting every ounce of life and love towards the cause, like a good capitalist should.
But there was somewhere deep inside of me that knew that the healing and transformation would come in the pause, as terrifying as it might be. This time the intention took the form of a pause.
When the Covid pandemic arrived a few months later and changed our lives, I remember feeling like I could deal because I’d been living in a sort of self-imposed shelter in place for months already. None of us expected it to last more than a few weeks. Right? 2019 me had no idea.
That retreat was an intention that created opportunities that would otherwise have been inaccessible to me because of geography, expense and time limitations. When the world moved online I was there. So, in the true nature of both/and, a most terrible time was (and is, because despite what economists want us to believe, Covid is not over) also enriching and transformative. An extended period of simultaneous expansion and contraction that now seems perpetual. Birth is a death wish. (I wrote that to myself a few months ago and sent it in a post-dated email. Does everyone do that or is it just me?)
And I’ve heard Buddhists say that death is a birth wish.
Wishes are intentions.
Protests are intentions.
Intentions can take as many forms as our bodies can imagine.
I look back at the one-word intention for 2021 – Embody – and marvel at the time traveling me that planted a seed. And as 2023 comes to a close, I know that seed has germinated and taken root, with the maturity of seasons still to come.
Have I arrived yet? Once again, I have no idea. Maybe it’s because ideas are manifestations of our brains, and our brains are only a small part of the sum total of us as fully embodied humans.
Maybe it’s time to change the question.
Because as cheesy as it may sound (as cheesy as a cheerful chant of PMI) the journey just might be the destination.
These words traveling from my laptop to your screen may be an intention of their own.
My wish for you and for all of us at the end of this calendar year, is for the days and weeks and years to move us all closer to peace, justice, joy, and community.
May it be so.
Hello!
I’m Janine. My pronouns are she/her.
I am an anti-capitalist crone, post-trauma growth coach, and consensual copywriter.
I strive daily to identify and unlearn the voices of white heteronormative patriarchy that are insidiously planted in our brains from an early age – voices that, without critical inquiry, we often confuse as our own.
I dream of a return to the Commons and a world where all living beings have equal access to the necessities of life, including laughter, rest, creativity, and joy.
Even though I didn’t always have the words, this dream has been the undercurrent of all of my pursuits from an early age.
Join the Caucus of Crones in the Kin Keepers’ Haven
Are you over the age of 50? Do you identify as femme or non-binary? Are you a culture maker, caregiver, kin keeper, world changing witch? Do you crave a space for cultivating leadership and authority around age & aging? the Caucus of Crones may be the space for you
We live in cultures that devalue & erase us as we age:
Cultures that prevent us from being accepted, valued, and seen for our authentic selves
Cultures that make us invisible & hyper-visible all at the same time.
Cultures that have robbed us of access to elders as it was available in pre-colonial, pre-capitalist and pre-individualist times
Where institutional memory is intentionally erased & buried to concentrate power in the capitalist patriarchy
Imagine creating a future landing space for generations to come
As elders, we hold an immense resource of wisdom & experience that should be documented, protected, cultivated, disseminated, and shared.
The Caucus of Crones is an online space hosted in the Kin Keepers’ Haven to:
step into our full power & agency as elders
reclaim our ancestral legacy
celebrate and honor who we are and how far we’ve come
resist ageism in all its destructive iterations
release strategizing, manipulating, conforming, bargaining, or diminishing ourselves in order to find acceptance
collaborate and create ways for doing it differently
support & encourage each other
What is the Caucus of Crones?
We gather online in the Kin Keepers’ Haven
Previously hosted in Kelly Diels‘ Gathering space, the Caucus of Crones is now open to members of the Kin Keepers’ Haven aged 50 and over.
Crone Calls are scheduled for the second Thursday of the month at Noon and 7 pm Eastern. These calls will include a brief check-in and somatic practice to land in the space, followed by a discussion focused on issues of age and aging in late-stage capitalism.
Group coaching calls are scheduled for the third Thursday of the month at noon and 7 pm Eastern. A time to receive and give mutual support. Bring something you’re grappling with to the wisdom of the collective cauldron.
You are welcome to attend one or both calls each day.
Recordings will be posted for you to view at a later time if you are not available to attend live.
I’m learning a lot these days, living an isometric life. Allow me to share a glossary of terms:
neu·ro·plas·tic·i·ty (no͝orōplaˈstisədē) Noun the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury.
i·so·met·ric (īsōˈmetrik,ˌīzəˈmetrik) adjective 1. of or having equal dimensions. 2. PHYSIOLOGY relating to or denoting muscular action in which tension is developed without contraction of the muscle.
Prehabilitation: the process of improving the functional capability of a patient prior to a surgical procedure so the patient can withstand any postoperative inactivity and associated decline. In other words, to get you to a betterplace physically before an operation. (American College of Physicians and Surgeons)
Isometric Life:
I’m waiting for knee replacements that may take up to a year and a half to happen, two years before rehab hopefully allows me to move freely in the world under my own steam. If it works…
Digesting and integrating that possibility has been, well, it’s been a lot.
Neuroplasticity:
My default brain* thinks things such as “I can’t wait two years to have my life back” “my body is broken” “my life is over because I can’t move the way I used to”
Bringing curious inquiry into those thoughts has been vital for my mental health.
Is this thought really true?
There’s a lot of internalized ableism embedded in that kind of thinking that could use some unpacking.
What are the ways of easing into kinder, gentler thoughts about my body, where it is, right here and now?
Where do I find life, right here, right now, in this body?
How can I bring myself to a better place?
Healing happens in community.
I believe this with all my heart, even if my head resists it.
It is so valuable to have someone to share my thoughts with, vulnerably and unedited. I am grateful for a partner who can be that someone for me, as well as beloved friends and practitioners. It takes a village.
Speaking my default thoughts into existence allows them to be transformed.
On the day that I got the news about the long wait for surgery, I sat on the treatment table with my physiotherapist and had a big snotty cry.
(Also want to speak to the value of big, snotty, public crying, whether it’s out of joy, or grief, hope, hopelessness, or because of a beautiful piece of music…. yes, I am a crier. Please pass the tissues.)
Prehab/Rehab:
The big snotty cry in question started when I voiced the idea of waiting two years for my life to begin.
(It’s interesting to watch people respond to big, snotty, public cries – the physio intern asked me if I needed to be alone, to which I replied, no, but if my big, snotty, cry makes you feel uncomfortable, feel free to move somewhere that feels more comfortable for you. He stuck around.)
My physiotherapist and the sweet intern helped me to begin unpacking that default thinking that surely does nothing to serve me, to look at the ways of living in my body, right here, right now.
And they introduced me to the concept of ‘prehab’
It’s a word I hadn’t heard before, and it’s so much more hopeful than the fatalistic ‘my life is over before it’s begun’ default voice in my head.
Living, stretching, strengthening, expanding, in the body I have now is prehab.
It’s paving the way to what comes next, whatever that may be. It makes what comes next easier to integrate.
Body Prehab
Then I thought “hey, maybe I’m in prehab for my brain too” but my physiotherapist explained that when referring to a chronic condition, the correct term to use is rehabilitation.
So, rewiring my brain is in fact rehab because it’s addressing an existing chronic condition. Ouch, and okay. I can live with that.
Thankfully, there’s neuroplasticity.
Easing into the thoughts and ideas around living, stretching, learning, expanding in the body I have now.
Brain Rehab.
Stocking my pantry:
I was introduced to the concept of a movement pantry by Hannah Husband, body liberation coach (I cannot recommend Hannah’s Seedling Strength program more)
The idea is to create an individual movement pantry with a wide variety of options, allowing you to plan movement meals and create spontaneous movement snacks during the day, choosing from bespoke variety of movements that work for your body after checking in
(that’s the liberation part – traditional strength training relies a lot on metrics and averages, rules that apply in general, but don’t really work for individual bodies, especially when that body is senior, fat, femme, disabled and experiencing chronic pain)
I love this concept.
I mean, really. Food and cooking are definitely two of my love languages, so this metaphor totally works.
(I bought a rainbow recipe box to create a personal little movement library but haven’t actually gotten to doing that yet. Hello perfectionist procrastinator. I love you.)
Hannah has the unique gift of describing strength training concepts in a relatable, non-jock (that’s me) kind of way. She combines nervous system science, strength training, and body liberation in a way that makes movement accessible for me, in this body, here and now.
(and p.s. – REST is a movement pantry staple as well. Thanks Hannah!)
Speaking of accessible:
Being able to recognize my needs, to ask for those needs to be met, to admit I don’t know something and ask for help (aka trauma healing) has allowed me to feel hope in what otherwise might feel like a hopeless situation, to add practices and movements and mobility aids into my life right here and now that allow for expansion in small (really the tiniest) but significant steps towards healing, in my mind, body, and soul, and regardless of where my body is now or where it will end up.
I now have a walker. I’m learning to make friends with it.
It’s kind of mortifying to be honest, because it makes my disability visible.
But also kind of cool, partially because I am a nerd and I love gadgets, but mostly because it meets my body where it’s at.
I can sit and rest after an embarrassingly small number of steps, that is actually three times the number of steps I can do without it, so win.
And I have been able to walk out of my driveway under my own steam for the first time since moving to this house four months ago. Liberation titrated.
I have a mini pedal exerciser that sits on the floor to use while sitting.
One of my favorite means of transport before the arthritis and pain prevented it was bicycling.
I currently do not have the range of flexion/extension in my knees to allow a full rotation of bike pedals, nor do I have the balance to stay upright on a bike.
I was horrified to discover that I can’t sit a full-size exercise bike with both feet on the pedals, I just don’t have the flexibility to do that anymore.
But I CAN put both feet in the stirrups of the little floor pedaler and move less than a quarter of the way round, forward and back.
It’s really hard to get my body in position to do that, but I’ve noticed that this less than a quarter round the pedal movement feels GOOD when I’m done, because it’s working the muscles without loading my knees.
The old and rigid ‘ride or die’ thinking is still strong in me, but most of the time I am able to look at this little machine as a friend and it definitely helps to think of the small movements as prehab rather than failure.
Isometrics have also become a staple in my movement pantry.
Strengthening by way of “tension developed without contraction of the muscle.”
Isometrics. It’s a metaphor for life in this body, here and now, just as it is.
It may look like not much is going on from the outside, but there’s a lot of movement happening. In my body, mind, and soul.
Thanks for allowing me to share what’s real and vulnerable and active in my life right now.
I hope that you are able to find ways of moving from a stuck place – whether that’s physical, emotional, or intellectual – to a place of spaciousness, more hope, and more joy in your life, right here and now.
And if there’s anything I can do to assist you with that, hit me up.
* the language of the “default brain” comes to me via the transformative and healing work of Sarah Peyton, neuroscience educator, constellations facilitator, certified Nonviolent Communication trainer and author who invites audiences into a compassionate understanding of the effects of relational trauma on the brain, and teaches about how to use resonance to change and heal.
The full moon arrives on August 11 at 9:36 p.m. in the Eastern time zone.
I always look forward to Sarah Kemp’s Moonlight and Manifesting full moon guided practices (via Patreon.com – you can follow without subscribing to read public posts). If you’re interested, you can find all of Sara’s offerings here.
It’s also Perseid season…. have you seen streaks of light in the night sky? You’re not imagining things! The meteor shower will reach its peak in the early morning August 13, but if you have clear skies, the brightness of the full moon might make viewing difficult.
Either way, there’s magical light falling on us this week.
I have such fond memories of discovering quite accidentally that meteor showers are a thing, one hot summer night in 1987 while on community retreat. After most were in bed, a few friends gathered on the lake shore to wind down and enjoy the summer evening. We counted over 200 shooting stars that night and I was forever hooked.
I love to think about the cyclical timing of the universe that carries us on our annual trip around the sun, through belts of cosmic debris that burn up on hitting the Earth’s atmosphere.
Scientific and magical all at the same time.
This month’s newsletter follows the format set by the 3 Questions with Kat & Val podcast, a weekly delight that asks, “What’s bringing you joy?” “What’s moving around for you?” and “What are you learning?”
I look forward to Tuesdays when Kat and Val release new episodes.
What’s bringing me joy? – Breakfast Bowls (lunch and dinner bowls – aka salads – too): I love vegetables. I love fresh. I love the abundance of fresh local and delicious produce available to us during the summer. And I love being able to* toss a random combination of things into a bowl for a healthy, nutritious and delicious meal. This morning’s breakfast bowl consisted of tomatoes grown by my partner in our yard (you can taste the sunshine in them!), sprouts, arugula, lettuce, green onion, avocado, fried eggs and cooked ham. So.fucking.delicious.
*Okay, more accurately, my lovely partner does the tossing, the shopping, the cooking, and the bowl assembly, not me. And this too brings me joy.
Being able to listen to your body’s needs and honour them; to be able to ask someone to source the ingredients and prepare them, is a sign of a healthy nervous system. I haven’t always been there, and having regained the capacity for this also brings me joy.
– Ms. Marvel is delight. It brings me joy, and if it doesn’t bring you joy, I don’t want to hear about it.
– Learning and creating new things – I created a guided practice for orienting to your space and cultivating safety. Learning to use the audio conversion and mixing software, searching for background music and integrating it was… well it was fun!
You can listen and download the new thing I made here.
What’s moving around for me? The non-binary nature of consent: and by this I mean recognizing that all-or-nothing perfectionist thinking has infiltrated my brain so that I deem any level of discomfort around something new as non-consensual.
This is simply not true and, more importantly, this internalized messaging keeps me in a state of freeze or stasis, unable to move or grow or expand, even when I desire it.
Without curious inquiry, this dynamic plays out in my life around chronic pain and mobility, around relationships, community-building and justice work. The discomfort of stretching into new places of learning and growing is not self-harm.
I am finding the work of Betty Martin and the Wheel of Consent very helpful in unpacking this. You can learn more about it here.
The concept of dirty pain versus clean pain described by Resmaa Menakem in this article also speaks to this idea, and is something that I am digesting and integrating:
“When people respond from their most wounded parts, become cruel or violent or run away, we experience dirty pain” (Menakem, R., 2017, pg. 20). When we avoid pain and discomfort, we also create more of it for ourselves and for others. To heal collectively, we must be willing to engage and feel clean pain.”
The most recent teachings explore self-worship as an act of radical permission, including developing decadence practices for ourselves.
There are some sticky bits around this for me.
In answer to a question about how to cultivate self-worship, adrienne marie brown suggested taking time to look at the moon the next time it’s full.
Notice that the surface of the moon is not smooth; it’s pockmarked by asteroids that have collided with it. The moon has a face because of those shadows; the moon has acne scars.
The moon never apologizes for its shadows because they are the story of its shaping, of its being.
The shadows tell the story of what’s shaped us, what we’ve overcome, what we have survived. Each of us is a miraculous being. The shadows shape us. They don’t have to be in charge.
Each of us is a luminous full moon, comprised of shadow and light, unique and precious and invaluable to the whole.
Taking this one to heart.
What am I learning? See above; it’s all in there.
Offered with love,
Janine
I am a post-traumatic growth and somatic coach who helps people heal & find ease from trauma that gets stuck in the body so they can live more fulfilled & authentic lives.
I create a safe, consensual, nurturing space for exploring, excavating, and healing, allowing what’s been stuck to move through and out.
I love to work with humans to transform individual and collective trauma that disconnects us from the wisdom of our bodies, and keeps us from living joyful, connected lives.
It’s been way more than a minute since I’ve written. And we’re back in retrograde season. Fasten your seatbelts! Or maybe even better, slow down.
I’ve been doing some pretty deep humaning since writing to you last, and HUMANING IS HARD.
So, with your indulgence I’m going to time travel back to March to share something I began to write then. Something that still feels relevant and potent for me today.
And maybe you can relate…
(this one is longish – you may want to grab a cup of tea)
There is a voice in my head calling the shots – my manager. She isn’t who am anymore. But her voice is still loud and bossy and dominant.
It makes sense that she feels that way. She was running the show up until three years ago, and that means she ran the show for 58 years.
She did the very best she could.
But she drew some illogical conclusions from the data that resulted in some pretty unhealthy and unsupportive strategies for living that go like this:
I can’t trust anyone, so I must do everything myself or it won’t be as good, or it won’t get done
Doing everything by myself makes me really angry; it’s a lot of work and I wish there was someone who could help carry the load
Suck it up, get ‘er done, pain is weakness, needing others is weakness
Moving cyclically through hypervigilance (trying to control all the variables) to freeze (total non-functional depression, eat, sleep, work, walk the dog, binge eat, binge watch, fall asleep, repeat)
Knowing that dismantling racism, colonialism, the patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism is the work I want to contribute to
Thinking the way to do that is by going to war, politically and energetically, fighting our way to peace, fighting my body, my nature, my blueprint essence
As you can imagine, navigating life according to those rules is a lot of work and extremely extractive. Three years ago, I reached the point where I had nothing left to give – to my work, my family, my partner, my self, my dreams.
My cup was bottomed out. Empty.
My self-centred intention for 2022 is to focus on chronic pain and mobility issues, to find more ease and capacity in my body. To put myself first and to let everything else fall into place from that centred ground.
So, I gifted myself with a series of Rolfing sessions, to massage the muscles and fascia not only where the pain happens, but all over the body. The goal is to fix and retrain posture and structure so that your body can correct any lingering imbalances causing the pain.
It is common for this treatment to bring up emotions and experiences that have become stuck in the body (aka trauma), so I also gifted myself a series of sessions with coach/therapist/magician/world changing witch to accompany through the process.
The week in question, my coaching session “homework” was to find ways of lightening up on myself by 4%. Because 3% seemed like not enough and 5% felt like too much. 4% felt doable.
The week following the time change to Daylight Savings, I decided it would be a good idea to:
Eliminate coffee from my diet AND dairy AND begin a bean protocol to expunge toxins from my body AND have a rolfing session AND it was the two year anniversary of the pandemic lockdown AND AND AND…
Go big or go home, right? If DST was going to mess me up, might as well make it worth the ride, said my manager.
It didn’t take too long before my body started screaming at me. It sounded pretty much like many variations on “WTF?!”
One morning, when my partner was planning to make himself a half pot of coffee and an oat milk matcha green latte for me, I decided to ditch the oat milk latte and return to coffee, all dressed with coconut milk, cacao, a splash of maple syrup and a cinnamon stick. Black coffee messes with my gut. Coffee with all the things doesn’t. It was delicious, and I felt more human than I had all week.
I’m Italian. Pretty sure coffee is an ancestral food. Going with that.
Navigating stairs often hurts and is always slow for me and I am blessed with a partner who happily uses his movement breaks to deliver snacks and tea throughout my workday.
That afternoon while I was working in my downstairs office, preparing for a client session, my loving partner up and decided to do some resourcing of his own and took off in the car for a hike in the woods near a beautiful waterfall. He texted from the car to say he was on the way.
Without asking me if he could deliver tea or snacks beforehand.
My manager kicked in:
“HOW DARE HE?!
This kind of inconsiderate behaviour just confirms everything I know to be true about people and how you can’t depend on them.”
I observed the feelings of abandonment that came up in the moment, and then I laughed.
The manager would have created a crisis, held on to the feelings of abandonment until they festered into bitterness, and armed herself for a big fight whenever the bastard decided to return.
But me? Me now? She LAUGHED!
The truth was that there was plenty of time before my client session to wander upstairs to make a cup of tea. So that’s what I did.
And guess what? Nothing blew up and the world did not end.
That night I had a revision of a recurring childhood dream:
I’m in the back seat on a road trip with my parents sitting up front when they disappear but the car keeps driving out of control with no driver, so I must climb over the front seat, take the wheel and steer the car to safety.
(How obvious, right?)
The feelings in this recurring dream were consistent in childhood: fear and panic and terror.
This new dream was the same but different:
My partner and I were on a road trip, but somehow I was sitting in the back seat. He decided he had to take care of something important and left the vehicle. No drama on his part but the car was still running. So, I climbed over the front seat, took the wheel, parked the car and explored the streets of a new and unknown place to find him and let him know where the car was so we could resume our adventure when he was done with whatever it was he’d needed to do.
No fear, no panic, no terror. I felt calm and in control and resourced.
Could it be that my brain and nervous system were processing the niggle of abandonment I’d felt the day before? Letting the feelings move through my body instead of getting stuck?
I’m thinking yes.
The new me has been calling the shots for three short years, just 5% of the time I’ve been circling the sun in this body.
The new me is a virtual toddler.
Maybe it’s time to cut her some slack already. 4% is what feels doable for my nervous system.
Starting with a delicious cup of morning coffee that doesn’t mess with my gut.
And here’s the thing: starting to work with what feels doable, with 4%, seems to have opened so much more than 4% capacity for nervous system regulation and healing.
Those old voices, while not completely silent, don’t run the show anymore. I love and respect my manager for taking care of me for so long.
She has some wisdom. She’s part of the family. We talk, reminisce about the old days; I soothe her, and offer her some rest.
She seems to be good with that, and life feels so much more than 4% easier.
What are the ways that you might be easier on yourself?
By 1%, 2%, 3% or 4…. Whatever feels doable for you.
I encourage you to give it a try, and see what opens up.
I would love to hear about it if you’d like to share.
Wishing you self-centred peace and love,
Janine
Thinking of working with me?
A Future Planning Session is a great way to discover how it feels.
Give yourself the gift of an hour, in safe supportive space, to land in your body and focus in on want you’d like to create for yourself.
I’ll offer that space, some grounding practices, insights and suggestions.
I know the power of setting intentions and getting out of my own way to allow them to manifest and would be honoured to hold that kind of space for you.
Sessions are delivered by Zoom, priced at the introductory rate of $250.
I have never been a friend of comfort, at least not as long as I can remember. But I have a feeling we might be able to get along.
I’ve internalized a voice that sings “Nothing comes easy.”
The complete soundtrack includes: “You have to struggle to get ahead.”
“You get what you pay for.”
“No pain, no gain.”
“You have to suffer to be beautiful”
and other hits.
I’m not saying there isn’t an element of truth in any of them, but somehow along the way my brain overgeneralized the concept and morphed it into the belief that I must be hard on myself, that it was somehow a noble thing, the way it should be done, the path to glory, and living your dreams. I embodied that belief with unequivocal convinction. I became a rock star at beating myself up.
Comfort might be an incidental side-effect, a reward for hard work and self-torment, but never ever something to be sought out.
That kind of internalized thinking takes its toll. It’s hard on the body, mind and soul.
(and now I’m rhymin’)
As I was typing this, an alarm went off to remind me to take some pain medication. I’ve had a flare up of acute pain over the last couple of days, a hat trick of dental chickens come home to roost as a result of procrastination and pandemic shut downs. The pain has been crippling, leaving me feeling like curling up in the fetal position and crying for my mom.
I have a deepened respect for people who live with chronic pain, and deep gratitude for my largely pain-free life.
I was able to see a dentist who assessed the situation and suggested a plan, including doubling the amount of pain medication I had been taking and timing doses regularly over a 24 hour cycle to keep it at steady levels in my system.
This strategy has been incredibly helpful. After two times, I am feeling little to no pain and able to function again. I was able to sleep deeply and through the night last night and woke up feeling like life might be okay after all.
But when the alarm went off just now, my first thought was “well it only hurts a little bit; maybe I should hold off on taking more drugs.”
It only hurts a little bit.
There is a difference between navigating pain as part of an intentional process, or because someone or something is causing you harm, and intentionally seeking it out as a reward for your efforts (also referred to as martyrdom).
Pain is a side-effect, not the goal, and it is most certainly not a reward.
I’m throwing off one of the remnants of growing up Catholic. Goodbye martyrdom. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I already know from experience that I can take any pain life has to throw me and I hope that I’m able to do it again when it inevitably revisits.
But I’m through throwing pain at myself.
I’m writing a new song; “Comfort is healing baby” The title might need work.
I’m unlearning self-combat and replacing it with self-compassion, gradually, and with a lot of support and input from people are writing real self-love songs. To give my body, soul, and even my mind, some ease. To give my nervous system a break from the fight/flight/freeze and downregulate, to give the ego a rest so my soul can regenerate. Maybe they can be friends some day? I bet there’s something valuable in that Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy book I’ve been longing to dig into.
What’s stopping me? Reading is comfort. Comfort is healing. Healing is my jam now.
It’s all part of the trauma-informed approach to healing. I am a shiny new student in the ReBloom trauma-informed coaching container kicking off this week with a 4 day workshop and continuing part time throughout the year.
As part of the preparation for spending 4 days online together (even a pandemic has a silver lining; this training would be much less accessible to me when offered in person on the other side of the continent in another country) it was suggested that we – gasp! – be intentional about creating ease for ourselves. This might include wearing comfortable clothes, eating healthy, nutritious and delicious food, drinking lots of water and comforting tea, and maybe having a hot water bottle on hand if you tend towards freeze as a response to trauma. (Hello, have we met? I’m Freeze’s Nonna)
I can’t remember if a weighted eye mask was suggested as well, but I’ve used them in spas and yoga classes before and love them. It just never occurred to me to buy one for myself because, well you know.
Remember that Bee Eye Are Dee my mom and dad were thinking about getting for me for my fifth birthday?
Well, it turns out bee eye are dee spells ‘bird’ and that’s what I got for a present. He was a green and white parakeet and I named him Charlie. He lived in a cage in the corner of our dining room, next to dad’s chair by the window. The cage had a pull out tray lined with newspaper to catch Charlie poop and seeds he scattered.
For breakfast most mornings, I’d fill my bowl with dry cereal in the kitchen and carry it to the dining room table to add milk and sugar and eat.
One morning, when I was feeling a little sleepy and not quite coordinated, I tripped, knocking the bird cage and my cereal bowl onto the floor.
I guess mom wasn’t in a very good mood. Maybe on second thought, she was in a mischievous sort of mood. Parents are humans too after all.
Whatever, she took the broom and dustpan and swiped everything up, cheerios, bird seed, bird poop, feathers. She dumped it all back into my cereal bowl, slapped the bowl on the table in front of me with a bang and said “eat it.”
Time stood still.
I remember staring at that cereal bowl, a tiny parakeet down feather stuck to one of the Cheerios, wafting gracefully in slow motion in the breeze from my breath. And the smells of bird poop, bird seed and Cheerios.
I don’t know how long I sat there. It felt like forever. I remember thinking, she’s not really serious is she? Was this some kind of joke?
I like to think that this was followed by a second edible breakfast, but I really have no recollection.
My mom lived with cyclical depression and mental health issues. I didn’t really understand that as a child. I just felt that something was not right and, as children often do, I blamed myself. I learned to silence myself, my needs, in order not to upset someone else’s equilibrium. Most of the time that someone else was my mom.
I learned to put others’ needs before my own, and I used this strategy for most of my adult life.
All I knew back then was that my mom wasn’t always there for me in the ways that I needed her to be. I got the silent message that my job was to be there for her, to take care of her, and I took on that role with fervour and skill.
I was reluctant to shed the role of parent and go back to being a daughter in the times when she was feeling stable and well. As you might imagine, that in itself was a source of conflict.
I have the greatest compassion for my mom and the life she lived without adequate mental health resources to support her. She was a brave, incredibly strong survivor who did the best with the circumstances she faced. She experienced discrimination and isolation and judgement and shame because of her mental health issues.
My mom brought a lot of joy and music and laughter into my life. She shared a fierce and loyal love with my father that I held as my standard, unwilling to settle for anything less.
I know how much my mom loved me. I cherish my memories of the smile that brightened her face every time I showed up to visit unexpected. She thought I was the most beautiful daughter in the world. I know this because she told me often, and I believe she believed it.
Whenever I’d complain about the behaviour of a male colleague or co-worker, she’d reply “Well it’s obvious isn’t it? He’s in love with you.” Every single time, and there were many. I suffer no delusions about her accuracy of assessment, but it says a lot about the way she loved me, and I cherish that.
I am proud of myself for entering into a personal journey that allowed some healing of our relationship over the years leading up to my mom’s death in 2019. A couple of years before, on her 80th birthday, I thanked her for teaching me the meaning of unconditional love. I wrote it in a card and watched her read it across the room. I know from the light in her eyes and the smile on her face that she heard me.
Mom and me at 10 in 1971
I have learned to forgive my mom. I’m learning to forgive myself as well. It’s a layered process. I get the sense that mom learned to forgive me too.
I am resourcing that incredible strength of character and unconditional love I’ve inherited from my mom, and I am grateful.
I’m learning that putting my own needs first allows me to have something to offer the world. I’m learning to reparent my inner child and to walk more gently in the world. I’m learning to redraw personal boundaries. It helps to feel less alone. I’m learning to love myself and love life.
I can tell you, though, that at the age of almost 60 years, I’ve never eaten another bowl of cheerios, and most likely never will.
One day a while after the Cheerios incident, Charlie caught a cold and got all puffy and didn’t live much longer. I’ve never really felt the urge to have another bee eye are dee either.
