Hey lovely

This week I have been ill enough with COVID to stop me in my tracks.  I was able to take it easy, after initially feeling anxious about an event I’d set up and who’d be let down by my unplanned absence.  I was fortunate that many colleagues reassured me and gave me permission to be sick as long as I needed.

I was slowly able to settle into the lower expectations and the tacit invitation to feel into what I wanted to do that would be gently satisfying and rewarding, rather than helpful and draining (sacred geometry drawing and booking a few future appointments ie, structure, as it turns out)

I experienced a distinct mindset shift from feeling stressed and  inadequate because ill and unable to perform to feeling spacious and capable because of the time expansion as expectations diminished.    This sounds a lot like “crip time”, a concept i was introduced to in Denise Adaway’s program Whiteness at Work

Crip time: A concept arising from disabled experience that addresses the ways that disabled/chronically ill and neurodivergent people experience time (and space) differently than able-bodyminded folk. In her essay on Crip Time, Ellen Samuels quotes her friends Alison Kafer, who says that crip time means: “rather than bend disabled bodies and minds to meet the clock, crip time bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds.”  Critical Disabilities Studies Collective

An essential part of accessing this gentler, kinder mindset was through permission to be where I am, ie unwell, rather than wishing to be in some other state, either before I was sick, or after I recover, ie healed.

It was a liberating experience.

I had time for the messenger chat below, which arose in spontaneous response to my story post from @feltsensewpg: “One of the best ways to start healing is to give yourself permission not to.”  

(Friend)

Oh lord, spot on. When I was going through recovery, so much emphasis was placed on “healing”, that it is only now that I am out this side that I realise the emphasis on “healing” was actually quite detrimental. There are things that happened that I will always be mad/hurt over, and I can accept those parts of myself. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk, lol. X

(Rachael)

No, thank you for sharing.  This is a profound truth and I might emphasise it more going forward in my own work.  So important!!!!!!!!!!

(Friend)

I think it is really important to unpack what has become a fairly asinine concept of what “healing” should be. Does that make sense?

(Rachael)

Yes.  There is a stereotypical concept of what healing and healed looks like – and for many of us, even the idea is overwhelming and discouraging – because it can look like a lot of hard work that experts/authority figures tell us we have to do, or else!   And when you’ve already tried some of that and failed (in quotation marks) it seems easier to ignore all the advice and instruction (that sounds like a very familiar place to me actually).  Ultimately hopefully we can find some kind of evolving middle ground where we can consider expert advice and make our own decisions about what is possible for us in any moment and adapt and blend internal and external inputs to create something deeply nurturing.

Because we know so much!!!  What is often needed is a little play space to unpack and rebuild and lose a few pieces …

(Friend)

Absolutely spot on. “You have to do DBT every week (useful)”  “until we know that you have stopped xyz and WE know you are healed, we will grind you down with threats about losing your family (not useful).

It has actually taken me talking (mostly with strangers tbh) about the situations that led up to the terrible, no good things that happened (and listening to theirs ofc) to realise that when the stories sound hollow, they are done. I can pack them away-ish, because they aren’t part of my present truth. That doesn’t need to mean that I will never see them again, but I am healed ENOUGH from them to be at one.

(Rachael)

I am really sorry to hear that awful things happened to you/yours.  And you definitely get to decide when you have done enough healing/recovery work for the minute.  In fact I would suggest that the ability to make that decision is the truest indicator of your competence.  Many healing type structures have their own (un)conscious agendas they move on to after a certain initial period of benefit anyway. You don’t owe them any performance of healing.  So when you’re done, you’re done.  You’ll feel the next thing to deal with when it arises. Hugs.

Hmmmm.  It might be like any new relationship – exciting and full of possibility until you find the limits and conflict zones.  At which point you can decide whether you’re in or out.

I can see I learned quite a lot by reading that polyamory series by @shrimpteeth

Because all relationships have healing/wholing potential.  We only heal through relationship and community and growing beyond ourselves.  But we can also fall back into old patterns of compliance if we’re not paying attention.  The moment of recognising enough and having capacity to act on that is gold.

(Friend)

The relationship with my psychologist had the big fizzle when I told them that even though they were learning EMDR as a modality I really was not jazzed at the thought of being her guinea pig. I didn’t enjoy our sessions after that. Diplomat.

And I am a thoroughly much better human these days than I have been in many decades. Thank you for your kind words.

I thought I had mentioned, but anyway 2021 was the year of lots of self assassination attempts. Lol. Didn’t get me, though! Sucked in to that me, hey? 😆

(Rachael)

I suspect you’ve always been a great human.  We get sucked into a lot of confusing spillover internal conflict through not understanding what is ours and what’s not.  Here’s the bit where I launch into my TED talk about how women and especially Neurodivergent women are so subject to oppressive social conditioning about acceptable behaviour, performance and expression.  There is a very narrow range of that.  And we are so much more!!!! 

Healing is helpful while it affirms our value no matter what, and part of the problem once it starts marking us on our conformity to the constriction that caused the grief in the first place.

Kindness, patience, laughter, curiosity and the ability to turn away from what does not feel right and true in any moment, and to change our minds about what all or any of that might look like for us are the goals of healing imho.

Inch by inch.  Day by day.

And back to kindness every time we fall down.

(Friend)

Beautifully said, and absolutely spot on. Thank you. ❤️

Thank you for showing up at the perfect minute. 🌹

Seriously, this is exactly what I needed for today.

It’s a gift to take any opportunity to slow down to connect with who and what you love most.   Starting with yourself and what you want.  

You don’t have to wait until you’re actually physically ill.