What would it mean to radically accept myself and all my parts? Ive said to myself before, I am not broken I can just feel all my parts. At the time, I did not understand depth of what it meant to “feel all my parts”. This was not a feeling of wholeness but the suffering of feeling that the parts are not in line with one another. The connective stitching, frayed as it is stretched further away from the center, my center.
What would it mean to radically accept all my emotions, all my wounds and fears and how they show up in my daily life, and in my parenting. Can I allow them, invite them to tea to ask them truly, what is this deep and painful feeling tell me about myself.
Whether or not I have allowed these painful feelings or not, I have felt them. I have felt them so deep in my bones and resisted until Ive burst. But there is an even deeper ugly under that I have kept in a box. I know the box is there, that rage filled box, that contains the power to make me a murderous animal, to make be able to destroy. I believe my sensitive, deep feeling nature gives me the capacity to identify this box. This box must not be opened. This is a bomb you must understand why it is there and keep great distance.
Accept this box as the siren sound it is. STOP REJECTING YOURSELF! ACCEPT THE MOTHER YOU ARE. Not the one you wish you were.
I have been trying to “fix” myself in a way, to try to be like “other moms”, instead of focusing on healing what is real. Healing and resting the torn connective tissues instead of trying to strengthen them and make them into a shape they were never meant to be. Instead of armoring up. Instead of putting up imaginary walls between me and really living, thinking Im too broken to have anything worthy to give. Im not broken, Im in a state of rearrangement. I fell apart in such a grand way that life has given me the opportunity to build it back up. From scratch.
This means to keep putting on my mask first everyday. This means I take two days a week without children so I can paint and write and sleep. This means I need to go to bed at 9pm. It is not lazy or silly or less then. My job is to be the mother I design. One that cares for themselves physically and mentally, showing up and communicating my needs. Living out a brand new role, a different type of mother I have never seen. One of a different self actualization, connected to her mind body and soul and still a fully loving mother. Perhaps only a fully loving mother because of the respect for herself and her needs for slow and silence and the spiritual. So when she returns she can be fully present. Because if I don’t respect myself and my boundaries….lets just say I have a grand scale of empathy for all those who have opened the box. Not because they wanted to, but because there was no other road out. I have designed myself roads out and now have the area caution taped, with big STOP signs and DANGER ahead.
Where I once attempted to override my needs, I will set up camp. This is where I stay, on my solid ground. I am a highly sensitive person. I am a women and a mother. I have ongoing c-ptsd issues, only diagnosed after my second daughter was born. I had severe post partum depression where I could have harmed my babies (I did not). I am a recovering codependent, rule following, culture abiding human, breaking free from the lies I have been told my whole life. By others, by religion, and then continued in my consciousness relentlessly. I woke up when I had my second. I woke up when I moved and changed my whole life. I woke up to myself and how much I was hurting myself and then spilling it all out onto the ones I love most.
I am not powerless in this wild and precious life against my own humanity. If I allow and accept all of my humanity, my sensitive and introverted nature and needs, the data becomes the design prompts. My feelings and physical experience are to be used to inform the design of my most true and beautiful motherhood. There is nothing to “fix” because I am not broken. I am aware of the breadth and depth of human self made suffering. Im bound to have some beautiful scars from along the way.
With kindness,
Rae
BOOK CORNER
I’ve just started Rewilding Motherhood by Shannon K Evans. I think it will be fortifying to what I am trying to do with my own motherhood. Here is my sketch page of reflections as I started to listen.
FROM THE SKETCHBOOK -
SPIRITUAL VISITOR
I have been reading(Rewilding Motherhood) about the meaning of the snake and its connection to the divine feminine. Only in the last 48 hours did I have an outward discussion of the meaning of the snake with my father, who is also deconstructing his religion at the moment. Never have I seen or spoken about a snake since I have lived here. This morning, I stepped outside to check the weather, not intending to do my full meditation out there. And there she was, right at my step. I spent time with her, although I was somewhat uncomfortable because….well, snake! I do believe I have more to learn from her and digest but what I do know, is that I accepted my discomfort because i knew I needed to pause in this experience. To notice and listen. So although simple and small, I know in this moment I was being taught to stay with my discomforts. To not run. And to perhaps shed this skin I have been wearing so that I can emerge new.
Radical Acceptance
Your snake story reminds me of my spider story. It is still ongoing. Like you, I've embraced being with it rather than running or ignoring it.
Nature always has something to teach us. After all, we are nature too.