Author Archives: Vania

Lean into Love: The Ultimate Ultimatum

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I’m not one for reality TV shows. I think they sometimes feel too close to my work life and I want to be able to get a break by immersing myself in fantasy with a fictional TV show. I also sometimes just don’t want to be reminded of the messiness of humanity. My body can’t relax when I’m watching so much cringe behaviour.
And yet when I saw not even a trailer, but just the title cover on Netflix of the new show The Ultimatum: Queer Love, I knew that I was going to be hooked. I feel like you can’t go wrong when a show about real love and relationship also highlights (and in fact centres) queer love and lesbian relationships specifically. A show like this is necessary to portray not only the diversity of relationships but also what healthy relationships can look like. And to be clear, we can all learn a lot about love from lesbian relationships. For anyone who doesn’t know the story, the show is about couples where one person who gives their partner of some time the ultimatum to propose to be married or the relationship is over. Over the course of 2 months, they then can “date” other participants on the show to see if other (better) fish are out there.

Okay, i feel called to say that it’s not lost on me that i’m about to therapize people on a show. I am by no means an expert or have any direct knowledge. While queer myself, i also cannot claim to be an expert of all relationships. These are just my reflections. I also don’t know how these couples were picked, and at times their gender pronouns and relationships styles were not clear. Thanks to the streaming network i’m sure, they kept things a bit too ‘easy’ to fit into boxes. It was queer love with a for-TV attractiveness lens.

Oh to be a fly on the wall….

Having said that, there is still so much to say about the show, but some of the themes that really stood up for me are a) attachment styles and how they get in the way, b) we need to lean into love, c) communication is the key ingredient to a good relationship, and d) our conflict styles can really wreak havoc on relationships.These are themes that i can get aligned with. In fact, these are hot topics in my work life and personal life both.

Attachment
One key theme in the show is the impact of attachment styles on relationships, and how they play out. In fact, if you want a quick study of attachment styles in action, this is a show to watch. If you need to get a summary of attachment styles, go to my previous article. The whole point of the show is a bit of a mind field for insecure attachment styles. For someone who has an avoidant attachment style, or more so disorganized attachment style, being given an ultimatum – forced into a relationship – is a huge red flag, or a trigger at times. At the opposite end of this continuum, anyone who has ambivalence in a relationship needs this certainty. So they’re kind of coming at it from both sides of a messy, and yet entertaining, coin.

On the attachment scale, there was clearly a most avoidant of commitment winner: Vanessa. They clearly wanted to create a villain of the show. Why do shows need them in the first place? I think that Vanessa wasn’t a villain at all, but rather someone with an avoidant attachment style who didn’t want to be tied down and was struggling with commitment issues. She also is a human having a human experience, and was clearly nervous about the experience, so a way she defended herself against vulnerability was to armour up with sass and bravado.

Knowing what our attachment style is can really make a relationship last. It allows space for context and understanding. We don’t necessarily have 1 staple attachment style for all our relationships, but there can be one that plays a default time and time again. Knowing our attachment histories and love languages together can be the missing ingredient for many a failed relationships.

Choose Love
Speaking of love languages, we need to “lean into love” as Tiff would say. It’s not always easy but it is needed to do the work. It helps partners remember what the whole point of the work is. It gets them to a shared goal and value – love is under all the mess. When we choose each other again and again, it deepens our commitment to do the work. Or at least it is supposed to. The act of love is a continued commitment, as love is a verb. In some of these relationships, that was the missing ingredient. I don’t think they knew what the work entailed or had the determination to do the hard and long journey of healing.

One thing that stood out was that some of the participants couldn’t see the person they were with, but rather the version they wanted them to be: I’m looking at you Yoli and Mal, Xander and Vanessa. Love bomb, much? These four, and Lexi, were quite entangled. This happens so much, and yet i think people get stuck in the feeling of limerance, that they get confused and hurt when the real relationship shows up.

Sometimes, you have to be uncomfortable to move through something. When we learn how to sit in the discomfort of allowing space, this is where the change happens. Otherwise, we stay stuck in the endless loop of stalemated relationships. Ha – We are threatened to become Stale Mates! This is what seemed to happen to Lexi and Rae. Or at least that’s my version of events. I’m not against Lexi knowing she wanted marriage at 24, but rather how much she dominated the energy of the room and didn’t allow space for others’ to shine.

Communication and Conflict
I have a lot of time for deep, meaningful chats. This is something i loved witnessing – the participants really shared with each other and the show what they were looking for in love and life. They really talked to each other, and especially in their quasi ‘living together’ experiments. Some have called this season boring because of all the talking, others wanted more sexual action. And this is what i found to be the gift of the show – people showing the intimacy of deep relating and attunement beyond the bed (for the most part!).

Of course, it wasn’t always sunshine and roses. A lot of arguments happened because folks would get stuck on the mantra “Live your truth”….but obviously not if it directly impacts me. I think it would help so much if folks could be more honest and direct with their non-negotiables like a dog or kid, or having a baby. This truth has to be with themselves first and foremost, but also with their partner.

Another great lesson was this: Sometimes we may be on the same side but still disagree. It’s how we hold space for ourselves and each other when we disagree that matters. We got to witness conflict between the couples, and the ways partners respond to it. I know this is where shows like this get their ‘drama,’ but in real life people would not sit on the sidelines watching people bicker. We either leave or intervene. As humans, we still have a long way to go to learn how to resolve conflict in a healthy and useful way. I so wish kids are taught this in school, as opposed to the messy real-life version on the schoolyard. Watching the couples argue on the show was at times heartbreaking, and other times i was right there with them because they were working through shit.

Sometimes a partner needs time away to cool off and self-regulate. What matters is that all parties understand this and the time needed gets shorter. The person needs to do things to self-soothe so they come back to the conversation or shared space more resourced. I am trained in Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples, so an occupational habit of mine is to track conflict styles and cycles. I did a lot of tracking while watching this show (and let me be clear, i binge-watched a few episodes and waited impatiently for the finale) was call out folks’ conflict styles. Attack – Lexi, withdraw – Aussie, compromise – Xander.

“Those butterflies in my stomach that I thought was meeting my love of my life are actually warning signs. It was my nervous system’s way of telling me to stay away.” vania sukola

Healed People Heal People
Sam and Aussie’s relationship is especially important to watch. At times, it is hard to watch, AND it acts as a reminder that we heal in relationships. We especially heal old attachment wounds when in healthy relationships in the present. I don’t want to give you any spoilers because this is MUST WATCH TV. And yet, I think it’s important to mention that this couple worked on their relationship needs, and not just the game. They worked on creating a solid foundation within themselves first, so that the relationship stood on solid ground. They started to heal together, and did some hard work. Aussie especially did some work to unpack their past traumas. Sam, to her credit, had obviously learned Aussie’s self-regulation needs as the cues they were. She more specifically did some of her own inner work to regain her voice and sense of self. When Sam shared that she was learning how to “listen to my own voice now” – that was TV gold for me. They are a good example of what trauma-informed relationships look like. This can be a whole article on its own – the makings of a trauma-informed intimate relationship.

They were able to hold both their needs at equal importance. I am so rooting for them.

Other relationships were not so lucky. Some of the participants seemed addicted to love, and became volatile. It’s a good reminder that love on its own is not enough. We need to have our reactions tempered. One couple in fact had so much conflict in their relationship that it lead to intimate partner violence. I don’t know if this outcome happens in previous versions of the show so I want to point out any relationship and community can experience intimate partner violence, lesbian/same sex couples are not exempt from this outcome. Abuse is not about gender but rather power dynamics and a need to feel in control. It is also connected to trauma bonding that stems from intergenerational trauma and the intersections of a person’s life.

Sternberg’s Love Triangle model reminds is that a healthy relationships displays all three of these pillars: commitment, passion, and intimacy. So, here is a summary of some other key lessons: Sex is a big part of healthy relationships and time is not enough to heal wounds. Love needs to be kind, and patience is a virtue. When we are committed to the relationship, we also agree to the ongoing work that it entails.

Remember, we can learn a lot from lesbians. Sure, the show is not perfect and as a genre, it is addicted to drama. Some parts were clearly staged. And yet, it showed how honest the people were about their needs and wants. It showed healthy communication, access to deep emotions, and a rich community of people in their lives. I loved meeting participants friends and family – they clearly had their loved ones’ best interest in mind. One concern I have is that either they don’t have therapists in the background or they don’t show it. I would love for shows to actually include even just one segment what a therapy session might look like, or just support for someone when they are leaving the stage or needing to take care of themselves. Netflix if you’re looking for a reader like this, or a consultant, i happily raise my hand here.

Unleash and Surrender. Healing the Mother Wound

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I’ve been sharing here about the loss of my mom this past year. I haven’t really described more about my actual relationship with my mom, and one thing I’ve left out is how complicated and strained it has been over the years. That might be something i explain more in time. For now, what feels important to offer is that i speak about the Mother Wound from my own first-hand experience.

For so long, i saw her as the villain or cause of my own suffering. And while that may be true to a degree, it is more than that. She wasn’t my enemy: in fact, all she wanted was the best for me. My mom was a product of a time, like we all are. Her time of mothering was very different from mine, both individually and collectively. I always tell folks that i have a plethora of books; shelves full of life guides, human development texts, and suggestions on how to be a good parent. My mom didn’t have those books (and not because she didn’t like to read – she read more books in a month than anyone else), it’s because the books didn’t exist.

It’s only now that I’m starting to see her in a new light. One with more clarity, grace and understanding.
For instance, she moved across the world at the young age of 20. I always took that for granted. Mainly because she was always an adult to me. And yet she was just a baby adult herself coming across the ocean, with no shared language to help her. English was a language she learned only after arriving to the country i now call home.

And that became a big part of her messy transition into life in Canada and adulthood, and it shaped her experience. To now realize just how alone she was makes my heart break for her: To have to do that all without family and her own mother, and then to become a mother herself without access to hers. She came here for good reasons, and yet no one should face major rites of passage alone. In fact, there is research that shows when we do go through this alone, it can lead to psychosis. She had no direct models of what a mother is, or at least ones that were the role models she needed. She had to mother and live without a village herself.

I don’t know all her stories and now I never will. I do know that she mothered her siblings and never really had the childhood i took for granted myself. She never got to be a care-free teen, so when i wanted that for myself, it really pushed her limits. She had several miscarriages before and after me. These were losses that metabolized in her body, mind and soul. She was alone in this experience as well.

And so, she carried the mother wound in her. It was absorbed in me as the seed I was.

WHAT IS THE MOTHER WOUND?
There is already a lot of literature on the mother wound, so I don’t want to re-invent the wheel. Bethany Webster shares so much wisdom. care of my time is in fact another way I heal my mother wound: I am enough as i am, and i don’t have to prove that to anyone else. Instead, I want to focus on what can heal. I share my first-hand experience having done some work.

The mother wound is an archetypal paradox where those of us who are socialized as women are taught that our innate gift and role in the world is to be a mother*. Since it is assumed to be innate, we are not taught this. And then we fail: We either don’t mother in a way that is aligned with our children’s needs OR we martyr ourselves and lose our self. We are forced to believe we are not good enough either way.

*Anyone who is not a mother to children whether it’s challenges/ infertility or choice are also put into this paradox. It is not just about our own relationship with our mom, and we don’t have to be mothers. And it’s also important to note that not all caregivers who mother identify as mothers or women. And the Mother Wound can impact men.

So, in short, patriarchy and capitalism created this wound in us.

Let me be clear: It is not about blaming your own mom, and not all wounds look the same.

It is a paradox or dilemma of choosing ourselves over our children. We are never good enough. We live vicariously or we are selfish. We are not good enough as mothers if we fail and not worthy enough as humans if we don’t become mothers. In this prescribed motherhood, we continue this internalized sexism story that tells us our mother part is the most important part.

The mother wound is a part of a complex intergenerational cycle of trauma inherited from one generation to the next. Dr. Oscar Serrallach is a doctor who supports families. He wrote a whole book on postpartum depletion so I’m glad he describes the mother wound as “the pain and grief that grows in a woman as she tries to explore and understand her power and potential in a society that doesn’t make room for either, forcing her to internalize the dysfunctional coping mechanisms learned by previous generations of women.”

This belief leads to oppressive and impossible standards that expects us to:
*Constantly prioritize others’ needs, at the expense of our own
*Be the primary default caretaker of the household
*Sacrifice our own dreams in preference for what is best for the family
*Do it all well and appear at at ease and attractive or ‘ladylike’
*Relinquish our needs and burnout by focusing on our children – being tired means we are doing the work

This paradox teaches us that we will never be good enough. Since it comes from a patriarchal model of worth, these standards for women are not sustainable because we were meant for more, but the male leaders 400 years ago felt intimidated and feared the power women, midwives, witches, and holy women had.

My mother died and my wound is still healing, but i have done the work to know what i need. That’s why it’s not just my mom, and our patriarchal society continues to keep the wound ‘alive’ vs scarred over. So, the problem is not mothers not being good enough, or not juggling the mental load of life well, but rather who created this social construct and who benefits from it most.

Some rules are meant to be broken. Especially when the pain that is caused can metabolize in our bodies for generations.

THE IMPACT OF THE MOTHER WOUND
Ultimately, the impact of this type of wound can lead to deeply embedded limiting beliefs about ourselves. The wound can manifest in many ways, mainly connected to feelings of shame, comparison, and an ever-present sense of guilt for wanting something different than we have. We may also feel the need to make ourselves small in order to feel any love at all. Here are some that i have noticed in my own journey:

Abandonment issues
I became Parentified and adultified as a teen because my mom learned some devastating news that was too much for her to handle and hold alone. And yet, she felt like she had no one to turn to, to trust, other than me. As the first-born daughter myself, this was a lot for me to take on. And i didn’t know how to say no. I couldn’t say no because i was afraid of her anger, and also because i was afraid of losing her attention. It led me to start chasing love and approval in my relationships, especially intimate ones. I also learned that my own feelings were not nearly as important as hers, and my needs were secondary. I then learned to bottle them up and luckily found poetry and journal writing as a place to unpack them. Not all of us with emotionally immature parents are this lucky. Clearly, this informed my path to become a psychotherapist in a big way.

For many, abandonment issues like this lead to attachment wounds, low self esteem, codependence, being or feeling too needy. We become avoidant in our attachment, or at times disorganized because of the polarizing needs at play – to feel cared for and to not be able to trust

Healing Balm: If this speaks to you, track what you need and give yourself it. You don’t have to be the one that meets your needs all the time by yourself – be a steward of your needs, ask for them to be heard and see who can meet them. Healing takes time, just like our physical wounds. We need to keep taking care of them, so that they scab over. Ask for help and get a felt sense of receiving it when you do. That means really feeling into the experience of having needs met. Doing this work moved mountains for me. I learned that my needs are valid and not too much, and that being human means we have needs.

Attachment Wound
I have talked about Attachment Theory a lot here. To get a better sense of it, go to my previous articles HERE or HERE. These wounds stem from emotional ruptures or wounds that come from a breakdown in trust. For instance, sometimes your parent shows up (be it after school, at a dance recital, or a community event). Often times, they don’t. This inconsistency leads to ambivalence or anxiety in the child – will they be here or not?

When we are ambivalent about our attachments to caregivers, we seek their attention as a form of connection. Sometimes, that means we intentionally (though subconsciously) self-sabotage things because it leads to attention. This perpetual loop keeps us stuck in insecure attachments with others. We say yes to people please, and then sabotage the plan when we worry that the person will leave us in the dust. We do the harm first because it hurts US less.

Healing Balm: Find people in your life that are Competent Protectors. These are folks (real or imagined) who you feel safe with because they have your back, and nourish you. They communicate and connect with you consistently. By doing this, we can heal our insecure attachment style and gain what is known as “Earned” Secure Attachment. It is not earned because we are now worthy – we were already worthy – but rather it is a testament that our attachment style is not static and can change, and heal. I have done this with my own intimate partner, and also with friends. I have created a composite Inner Guide who is a Part i turn to when i need to feel loved and seen.

Adult Relationships and Guidance
In Mother Hunger by Kelly McDaniel, she describes 3 pillars that are necessary to feeling loved: Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance. These pillars continue into adulthood. At times, we may be faced with the jarring reality that our mothers were present and nurturing when we were children. It is as adults that we are finding ourselves alone.

Maybe your mom was a great mom when you were a kid and now doesn’t know how to care for you as an adult – we still need to be cared for and eldered. Our needs have evolved but that does not mean we need our caregivers any less. Adult children still need a wise elder to guide the way. We need guideposts to help shine the light. Our needs have evolved from the physical care of providing us with clothing and food. Now what is needed for survival are the emotional and spiritual sources of vitamins for growth. The need for guidance does not stop.

For many, there is a rude awakening when we notice that the mom we had as a child is not the same person as the adult we have a relationship with now. Of course, we need to also recognize that our parents have also evolved into new archetypal stages of life too. My mom was no longer in her Mother stage, but rather a Crone. So that means she wasn’t actively caring for anyone else. That doesn’t make the need any less important.

Healing Balm: Find an Elder and have a healing corrective emotional experience. We are surrounded by other adults but not necessarily elders. One thing that can help is to have a reparative relationship with someone in your life now. They can’t change what happened to you before (i wish) but they can give you what you need now. Maybe they can sit with you as you have your hard feelings. Or they tell you how proud they are of you. Or they can give you wisdom when you are in a liminal space. This creates new neural pathways in our brain, and ultimately act like a fuse that seals an old wound.

Legacy Burdens
Some of the things that your mom carries on her emotional backpack are not even hers. They are older than her too and she inherits them. We don’t just inherit our parents good genes and hand-me-downs. Their emotional baggage backpacks also get passed down via procedural learning and Limiting Beliefs. Maybe you are a perfectionist like your mom, or competitive, or have a high tolerance for poor treatment by others. Maybe you become rigid or too controlling as a protective mechanism. If that sounds familiar, these are things you learned by witnessing your parents displaying it for you. It’s like the broken statue that still holds centre stage on the dust-filled cabinet.

Maybe you don’t want to repeat your mom’s mistakes and also don’t feel like you can betray her. This is another paradox that is deeply connected to the mother wound. As Bethany points out “we don’t just bond with our moms but also her trauma and limiting beliefs.”

Healing Balm: Practice setting Boundaries. We need to stop repeating the ruptures that have been passed down. Maladaptive coping strategies and unhealthy conflict styles perpetuate this type of wound, so much so that they feel inherited in our DNA. In fact, it is learned and therefore can be unlearned. One great resource is Nedra Glover Tawwab’s book Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships. Books like this are a testament that enough people have unhealthy and challenging relationships with their families, and that we deserve better.

Ancestral Trauma
Okay, this is a big one, and one that may feel daunting. It is not any less important. We can do this work in doable steps – to titrate the impact on us. Do you know that the egg that was first created in your grandmother? Think about that for a minute. Who was she, what time did she live in? What may have impacted her. This work is aligned with healing our Witch Wounds and legacy burdens. It’s important to share here because we are not that removed from the experiences of our ancestors. It an be the experience of war, poverty, enforced slavery, genocide.

Healing Balm: One way i do that is to first get to know the path that brought me here. Who were my ancestors, my foremothers? In Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book, she shares that we need to know who came before us. It’s not to hold them in reverence (especially if they sucked) but rather to honour them as the makers of the line that brought us into being. This has been a journey all on its own for me. I am intentionally learning more about my grandmothers and mother line. I learned the names of my great-grandmothers only recently. My mom talked about them before, but to be honest, i never truly listened. Knowing this information is healing: I am the daughter my ancestors needed. Now that i know that, it means i don’t have to agree with their choices but accept them for what they had to endure at the same time.

If this is hard for you, books like It Didn’t Start with You, or What Happened to You are great resources to help explain this legacy and concept of intergenerational trauma.

HOW TO START HEALING
We need to grieve for the mother or care we needed and didn’t get. Since grief is also something we are not literate about, this makes this healing work that much more challenging and necessary.

When we start tending to it, here are some things that heal: our sovereignty, our relationship to our body, Money literacy, the choice to have children and to parent with intention, and our relationship with Inner Child heals. There are many reasons to do this work, to actively address the wounds with loving care and attention. That ultimately heals our ancestral line, or internal parts (namely our Inner Child and Inner Critic), and it can shift the story of any future family we may have. Even if we do not become parents ourselves, as a community member in this world, our own healing has a domino effect on others.

Some of us may need to cut all ties with their mom, especially if they are toxic or continue to cause harm. Ultimately, we can’t expect others to change so even the individual work we do for ourselves can be just enough of a dose to create a ripple effect. There is alchemy in that.

Bethany Webster is at the forefront of leading this shift. She has been prolific in sharing her experience, by offering courses and community. From her, i learned of the 3 C’s concept to heal a mother wound trigger: Be calm compassionate curious to do something different now if you feel activated or stuck. For instance, let’s say you go home to see your parents. Your mom may try to show you that she loves you, but it is somewhat messy. It comes off as yet another judgement or critique. I find that learning new resources to address triggers to be very empowering. We may not always be able to challenge her directly, at times it may not be safe or productive. Instead, do something that helps you self-mother the part of you that is triggered.

*Be Calm as a foundation – learn ways to access your basic Universal needs to regulate your nervous system. What might you do that is self-soothing?
*Be Compassionate as a way of giving ourselves loving kindness, and honouring our needs
*Be Curious so that we can move forward with new options and capacity, having turned that wound into a scar

Ritual to Unleash and Surrender
I love rituals as they enhance a wish or intention. Let’s say you want to let go of an old limited belief, or maybe you want to commit to a new dream for yourself. What do you want to leave behind? One way to do this is to create a ceremony for yourself by bringing in the elements – Air, fire, water, and earth. This is a sacred way to either unleash yourself from a limiting belief or to surrender into a new way of being.

*Fire: Write a Dear John letter to an old internalized belief about yourself and burn it – cut that cord!
*Earth: Plant a seed (a real one) that symbolizes a new dream that is growing inside you
*Air: Scream into the air or whisper love notes to yourself when you tuck yourself into bed
*Water: Have a cleansing bath with essential oils and rose quartz – or lots of bubbles

Have you heard of Womb Healing Rituals? This is a beautiful way to tend to yourself. The practice helps you connect back to your own body and also release some emotional blockages and/or baggage. I love guided visualizations that lead me through a meditation. Here are two such ideas for inspiration if this speaks to you: Yoga for Womb Healing and a podcast episode from Herbal Womb.

Still wanting more inspiration and self-love?

I recently joined a new friend in an offering for Mother’s Day. It was called Unleash and Surrender: Healing your Mother Wound. We lead folks through some guided meditations, somatic and reiki exercises. Mostly, we shared space with others who also feel this wound in their life. Katelyn shares more about the Mother Wound on her website HERE. The replay is available if you want to give yourself a bit of self-love and mothering. The included playlist and journaling prompts are worth it alone.

When we combine the understanding of the Mother Wound and how it impacts us, that allows us room to do the work. This is the Unleashing. Only after this happens are we able to Surrender to this new version our ourselves, where our wounds have healed over and we are able to live a full life without being afraid of the scab breaking open again.

We do this for us, regardless if we are a mother or not. We deserve this.The Mother Wound is called that because the pain is something that continues into present day. So we need to heal it so that the wound can manifest into a scar.

My Lost Self

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“What must I give more death to today, in order to generate more life? What do I know should die, but am hesitant to allow to do so? What must die in me in order for me to love? What not-beauty do I fear? Of what use is the power of the not-beautiful to me today? What should die today? What should live? What life am I afraid to give birth to? If not now, when?” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

This is the ending and a new beginning: a death and new version of me. This is the end of my life with a mother of my own. This is me entering a new phase of life self-mothering myself more intentionally.

A Rite of Passage has three distinct stages – separation, transition and integration. In the story of my loss, i went through the separation and then a transition time. Now, i am in a new stage now as I integrate and incorporate the loss of my mom into my life. I think i didn’t experience what others have access to, namely because my mom didn’t want a funeral. This rite of passage wasn’t marked and it wasn’t witnessed in the way that needs to be. These markings are for the grievers, as a path to help them be held in their grief, and to know it leads to something else. There needs to be another side to grief, a threshold as opposed a place that feels stuck in a web.

I’ve been finding my Lost Self again; This is some of the soul work i’ve been doing. It’s been an intentional practice of checking in with my soul self, and asking her what she needs. I think i lost her for a while, years ago. When Prairie posted a reel about this concept on Instagram, my soul jumped in excitement. It so desperately wanted me to notice this was what i too have been feeling.

We banish in ourselves what we want and then resent other people for doing just that. This resentment is connected to jealousy, not anger. It is a messy reminder of what we also have wanted for ourselves but are afraid to ask. What is it you want? I appreciate Brené Brown’s reframe on resentment: Instead of seeing resentment as a form of anger, it is more helpful and accurate to see it as something someone has they were wanting for ourself. And yet on the other side of it I think it’s also this balance of making sure I live my life more fully in a way that my mom never could.

When i became a mom, i went full steam ahead into that identity. I didn’t know another way to enter this new phase of life. I started to notice jealousy or even resentment towards other mom friends who had a more full life. It was only when i noticed this pattern come up that i realized it is because i wanted this for me as well. It’s been a journey back to me and all of me these last few years. It’s been an intentional practice of soul work, where i’m re-connecting with the various aspects of what makes us whole as humans. For many of us, it is our soul self that has been lost, or kept in the shadows. If this concept resonates with you, read this article to get a better sense of how to practice it for you.

One way i did this soul work was to sign up for events that speak to my soul. This helps me do the work deliberately, as an apprentice to it (a term i learned from Francis Weller). For instance, i recently attended a day workshop, a retreat for myself. It was absolutely the treat and reset I needed. With the name of it actually being TEND, I knew that I was in the right place. I joined a few other women who also can relate to this feeling of caring for so many others, that we also need to receive this tender, loving care. There was also a photo session experience, where i was able to fully embody parts of myself that i have lost, that have become lost along the way. It’s been a cathartic practise to sit with the photos, and see my FULL self reflected in them.

Another way to dive into finding myself again is to reflect on where my heart has taken me. Jessie Harrold shared her concept of “Rites of the Heart” again recently. While the term is not new, when i saw it on her instagram page last week, it really resonated with me. These are the (not so) little things we do for ourselves that are on our own, in private but are just a meaningful. It can be quitting a job and starting a private practice, it can be starting a garden in your new home, or deciding to embrace your new sense of style. They are the change of heart that comes with deepening into our soul’s calling. This shift then trickles down into our everyday life: I honour them with rituals like like a candle when i take a bath, or play a special song when i cook, make a cup of a special tea when i am feeling a need for a hug. I love this as it makes sacred the small things we do to give our soul vitamins, by making them rituals and intentions, instead of things we start to take for granted.

I have been really coming into my own with my sense of style. I have embraced (literally) the boho feminine goddess that has always been in me. This lost self is finally free and so happy to be. And, she’s been seen in the best possible ways. Last week, a friendly stranger complimented my outfit and shared she’s been an admirer of my style for some time. Not only was i touched, especially when she said she sees me and notices me – i am also now noticing that she voiced something i was missing with the loss of my mom: the admiration, the noticing of details, being a witness to how i adorn myself.

I don’t want to lose that. This doesn’t have to be a lost self.

I can incorporate (see what i did there???) ways to feel connected to my mom in my life now.

I have a mom still – her teachings and stories are within me. What i don’t have now is the active involvement, guidance and love from her moving forward. And i have so many questions for her that i didn’t get to ask – like how was menopause for her, or what are my great-grandmother’s names? And i wont’ be able to get her appreciation of my outfit, or share pride in our knitting. I won’t get to say i’m sorry to her when i’ll be in the throws of raising teens.

Ugh – i’m not sure how to be a mom without a mom; a mom to teens without my mom.

I have been reading a lot about this transition. Books are a way that i find anchor in a messy storm of life. They help me know i am not alone, and also act as a guide. One book that i just finished ways Rachel Macy Stafford’s latest gift Soul Shift: The Weary Human’s Guide to Getting Unstuck and Reclaiming your Path to Joy. In it, she breaks down into doable steps how to just do that – get unstuck and find your path to joy. I appreciate it has a step-by-step guide like a map. And yes, it includes the necessary involvement of soul work. THIS article does a great job in unpacking the book.

I also have been reading Women who Run with the Wolves for the third time. It’s my bible, really and truly. I read it every Sunday evening, and especially when i take a ritual bath. It’s the first time since becoming a mother, and also in this transition phase I’m in. One thing that’s been amazing isn’t that I’ve been really resonated with this book because I have, but actually the things that I underlined over 25 years ago that are still resonating now. And when i read it now, i have both the capacity and place in my life to make sense of the words and guidance the book shares.

Another lost self of mine is one that chooses pleasure and treating myself to things that i enjoy. My mom didn’t always model that. Recently, I saw a woman going to a movie. It looked like she was there by herself and yet she was there to enjoy a movie. This is something my mom never did. Outings were not something she prioritized, whether it’s watching movies or going out to restaurants on a regular basis, or having date night with her husband. She claimed it was because she didn’t need to or want to, but i never truly believed that. Mind you, she did other things that were more home-based like painting, reading, and watching shows. And yet I’m not sure if I’m seeing her through the lens of my life (where I feel like that is lonely) when in fact, maybe it’s exactly what she wanted, and she’s a homebody or introvert. I will never get to know this now.

A part of me wants to create a version that helps me feel better towards the life she had. And yet another part feels more sure that my mom was a product of patriarchal motherhood that idealizes martyrdom. She didn’t know how to live her own life without being on the periphery of her family’s. She didn’t know how to do it because most moms didn’t back then. And if they did have their own life, they were shamed and judged for it; or worse, banished by the other moms who couldn’t fathom that for themselves.

If you are feeling lost, you are not alone. Life is full of transition, curve balls, and changes of the heart. Each need to go through a process in order to be integrated into our life. That can be after a break-up, adapting to life again after the pandemic, or maybe you are in a messy change of heart with your career path. If any of these is the case, start with where you are at – find your presence in the here and now moment. Orient to your surroundings, ground into your body, and from this place ask yourself these questions: 1) What is your want right now? 2) What did your 8-year old self dream for you? 3) What makes your mind body soul smile and relax? These prompts may be just the right dose of inspiration. If not, maybe one of these articles can serve as a starting point.
* How to Find Yourself Again
* 7 Tips to Help Find You When You’re Feeling Lost
* My Dream for Women

“[T]o be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves. It is a tormenting tension and it must be borne, but the choice is clear.” ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The Connection of Self-Compassion and Trauma Healing – Look for the Parallels

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I like finding patterns in things. I think i much prefer knitting a simple pattern to a complicated puzzle. I like collecting the same shells at a time, and all my flowers need to planted just so. I need patterns – the consistency, the ease, and the fulfilled expectation. I don’t think it’s because i need order, or that it’s a trauma response. I think it’s more that my body finds pleasure and peace in it.

So i couldn’t help but notice the pattern at play around the 3 Pillars of Self-Compassion that are mirrored with the 3 main stages of trauma healing work. Am i grabbing at straws? Maybe. But it still works. Let me explain:

Judith Herman introduced us to the phased model for trauma resolution work in her book Trauma and Recovery. The number of stages (usually between 3-5) vary based on the therapy modality and therapist. The three stages in a very basic summary are 1) Stabilization and Establishing a sense of Safety; 2) Reprocessing the Trauma and 3) Integration and Reconnection.

“Transformation doesn’t happen in a linear way, at least not one we can always track. It happens in cycles, convergences, explosions. If we release the framework of failure, we can realize that we are in iterative cycles, and we can keep asking ourselves — how do I learn from this?” adreinne maree brown

The stages are less steps in a linear order and more a dance of back and forth pattern to see what is needed and repeat. When we build our capacity, and don’t feel dysregulated by new events, we have healed old trauma. This is what self-regulation and knowing your window of tolerance or capacity is.

The healing journey as similar to climbing a mountain. It’s not that different from the hero’s journey concept from Joseph Campbell. It takes time, perseverance, and effort. It also takes a commitment to keep going, even when also needing to pause and rest, so that we feel resourced so that we can keep going. The heroic part is not experiencing and surviving the trauma itself, but rather going back in time and healing it, so that we come out of the experience having integrated all our parts.

Staci Haines shares that we know we are healed after trauma when we have a felt sense of safety, belonging and dignity. This is also very similar to accomplishing a hero’s journey.

The book Journey Through Trauma shares a more in-depth 5-phase cycle of healing repeated trauma. It’s by Gretchen Schmelzer and it’s one of my favourite books on this topic. It looks to stabilization and preparation first in a trauma-informed way to help people build their resources. This is an act of kindness.

Self-Kindness is Stage One: Stabilization
Stage One of trauma therapy is about learning new resources to help stabilize you before you embark on the inner and deeper work. It’s what is necessary to establish trust in our body and from our various parts. This kindness equals safety and stability because we learn emotion regulation resources that help us get to safety. We also learn more about the body and how to attune to its response. This is the time we build awareness about what resources work for us.

This might sound more akin to mindfulness – but in order to do something mindfully, we need first to understand what works for us. We also need to treat our SELF like a friend, to give our self-compassion. So, the first step is to know what are some kind acts of self-compassion.

We need to figure out what you want moving forward because this builds capacity for safety and agency. It is about going beyond meeting our foundational basic needs to decrease stress in body (sleep, nutrition, safe home, financial security) to build capacity. Ultimately, this helps us learn how to manage a bigger range of emotions.

This relates to stage one of healing because it is the preparation stage is entirely about attending to safety – building necessary skills and collecting resources both external and internal ones. It’s also about establishing meaningful activities to help balance the work of healing with the experience of joy.

Establishing trust is one of the first tasks of trauma therapy, both internally and also with someone else. If the trauma we are healing from is relational, a breech in connection and attachment needs to be repaired. Unless it does, it continues to get in the way of a felt sense of safety as it relates to connection.

Mindfulness and Reprocessing
This stage needs to be embodied to be transformed. We need to grieve what happened and also what didn’t get to happen because the trauma experience got in the way. We can’t think our way through it, only feel. The story of trauma doesn’t get stored just in our brain and memory processing centre, but also our body. It’s in our bones, our fascia, and hormones. The body has built-in systems to help us feel more present and scan for joy, not just threat. The Reticular Activating System is a set of neurons in the brain, used to bring on a glimmer moment. It helps to intentionally look for something good or soothing. This system is responsible for our wakefulness, our ability to focus, our fight-flight response, and how we ultimately perceive the world.

Mindfulness is recognizing what i need in a given moment and acting upon it. It is about listening to myself (interoception) and trusting it. It is about healing the parts that felt ignored and minimized for so long. You know the ones, they might say “i don’t want to go out tonight because it’s too much for me” or “I think i need to ask for a friend to come home with me to help me feel safe after the bar.”

The impact of trauma varies, and one way to assess the impact is to think of the ABC of trauma – the affect, behaviour, and cognition attached to it). Some common emotional responses are shame, sadness, fear, hopelessness and grief. We then may withdraw or avoid others and life generally, isolate ourselves or self-harm. We carry limited beliefs about ourself and have a negative view of possible healing. Mindfulness helps us start to notice what are our own ABCs and how they have become our preferred story, even whilst limiting us.

This middle stage is about helping folks start to track their symptoms and have a more mindful attunement and understanding of why they’re nervous system does what it does. These resources and examples expand our Window of Tolerance and help us remember and grieve, as well as piece the together story. This is key as it this means going back and re-authoring a hard story; speak them outloud in a safe new environment, and can be just a part of the story; we heal the part that may be stuck or stored. In THIS artcile, Staci Haine shares some helpful strategies to do just this. She offers individual practices to help build an embodied sense of resilience as well as more community-based ways to stay connected. Both are key and necessary to help heal trauma.

“Clients experience grief after every therapeutic gain. Grief is the Bridge between past, present and future.”~Onno van der Hart

Integration and Common Humanity
The last stage is about helping folks integrate all their parts into one as opposed to having a fragmented parts. It’s both a common humanity of an internal family system as well as being able to re-emerge after trauma and being part of community in right relationship. Group work is really great here as is volunteering as it highlights that stage of post traumatic growth.

Common Humanity is starting to come out of our trauma cave to see our full self, and being able to see other’s stories as similar. It is also a great complement to the stage of post-traumatic growth. Some examples of it are narrative justice writing groups, taking self-defense or wen-do classes, building new relationships. We have a new self-identity and integrated the trauma part into it. The trauma experience happened TO you so doesn’t get to define you. Who are you after trauma matters. This is where we create new healthy relationships and have more access to dreams and capacity

Reconnection and future possible templates with hope and joy, safety and connection happen in this stage. That’s why i wish clients stayed the course until this phase. Many clients stop after stage 2 because they feel better generally. It’s not unlike we we stop taking the prescribed medication prematurely.

One of the goals of trauma resolution work and integration is to change our affect. Looking for joy and being present is a way to move past trauma and find new life in our journey now. We need to bring in a sense of hope and resilience, as well as less fear. As social creatures, we seek support and thrive with connection. When we have a more attuned self-concept, we can shift from a negative self-image and see our worth more fully; we move from a limiting belief like “it was my fault” to “I am okay and what happened to me is not my doing.”

We are more than the trauma that happens to us.

We are the heroine in our own story.

Of course, as humans in a messy and imperfect world, we will still experience new trauma. So the work is to make sure we have resources that work so we can tend to our woundedness.

Let me take it a step further and also notice the connection between 3 types of self – physical, emotional and spiritual and how they tie in to mind body soul, or even the triple goddess. Or maybe i should wait for another post…but you see the parallels here too, right?

Gates of Grief Work

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Last fall, l I devoured the show From Scratch. It was supposed to be eye candy, and a guilty pleasure show to watch. Does this ever happen to you – when you want to read a book or watch a show to get an escape from life only to find that story exactly reflects what you’re wanting to run away from or need a break from? This happens to me a lot as a therapist, as a mom, a woman. There are times when I just want to watch a show and it ends up being about sexual violence or intimate partner violence, or something about postpartum psychosis. If you are new to my website, these are all things i support people to heal from as a therapist.

This happened also with the beautiful show From Scratch, which is based on a memoir. Spoiler alert: expect to cry and witness grieving in action as well as a helpful depiction of how people should plan for their inevitable end. The show did such a great job giving us more literacy when it comes to grief – planning for our end as well supporting others in theirs.

We can’t think our way through grief, we can only feel it. We feel it in our lungs, or in heartbreak. It feels like a messy ball of yarn that is messy, and full of knots. The only way to clean it up is to tend to it directly. It’s ever present with me when I’m going to bed. That seems to be the only time that I can sit with my mom‘s presence and not get interrupted by life. Sometimes I think I’m a glutton for punishment when I do this to myself. In fact, it’s my way of honouring my healing journey because I know that the grief work gets interrupted by life time.

Is it ironic, how honouring death gets interrupted by living in the present?

We have moved away from seeing grief as a linear step-by-step process. Instead, i love the visual reference of water and a Whirlpool of grief. Water is one of the 4 elements and it represents grief, flow, and change. As a knitter, i also love how pulling yarn also symbolizes for us a tender, messy, and at times hard process of grief work.

One thing I took from the show From Scratch and in my own learning about loss is that we need to have grief literacy and embrace the concept to “die wise”. This is the intentional practice or plan for it. We need to plan ahead and tell her loved ones how to create ceremony for it, talk about it.

To die wise is from the work of Stephen Jenkinson, and his book of the same name. I first learned of his work through Kimberly Ann Johnson when she invited him to her podcast. I introduced both of their work to my partner and we now gather together around grief work.

Stephen Jenkinson shares that unclaimed ancestors show up as ghosts, especially when there is no ritual for ancestors or ways to honour them. We need to honour endings. This is where ritual comes in. His work isn’t geared at grievers, but actually at the person dying. How do they want to be mourned, or laid to rest, for instance.

We can’t be afraid to talk about death. Our own or our loved one’s.

This is why i loved the series From Scratch. They intentionally talk about death. They plan for it. I won’t give any spoilers away and yet there is one scene at the end that will stay with me. The matriarch of the extended family has an outfit put aside for when she dies. This is what she wants to be buried in. She shows that to her daughter-in-law.

My mom did this for me. She had a note about her requests. She showed me where she put it. I always wanted to bypass the conversation, being so unready and unskilled in seeing the importance of these questions.

Grief is the price you pay for love. No matter the size or what others may deem as proportional. Martín Prechtel shares in his beautiful book The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise: “the inability that many of us have to grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living….When you have two centuries of people who have not properly grieved the things that they have lost, the grief shows up as ghosts that inhabit their grandchildren.”

I recently took part in a 2-month long weekly grief group. It was important to me to be a participant, as a way to walk through a gate of grief. I am not on the other side of grief, but rather a more intentional apprentice of it now. That is the threshold i stepped through. The facilitator, Syanna Wand, has experienced loss herself and as a trained somatic trauma coach, i knew that a group called Held would be a great community for me.

I do a lot of holding – of my children, my partner, my clients, my community. It was so comforting to be held here weekly. To know i was a key member and not have to talk too much about it. My place of belonging was not questioned. The final session was the most impactful as we had an extended grief ritual.

The group was part-book club as each week we read parts of Francis Weller’s book: The Wild Edge of Sorrow. He does such a beautiful job breaking down various gates into grief. As not all grief is experienced with the death of a loved one, his book allows for an expansive way to bear witness to many gates.

Gates of Grief
1 All that we love we will lose
2 The places that did not receive love
3 The sorrows of the world
4 What we expected but did not receive
5 Ancestral grief

Other optional gates are Trauma; the harm I have caused to myself and others (from Sophy Banks) and Anticipatory grief – fear of what is to come (a concept of Sarah Pletts). You can read more about these gates HERE.

“Grief is subversive, undermining the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviors of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life-force…. It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still. We move in jangled, unsettled, and riotous ways when grief takes hold of us. It is truly an emotion that rises from the soul.” ~ Francis Weller

Our last group meeting, Syanna led us through a grief ritual. It was a virtual group and we met on a Thursday evening. I embraced the ritual wholeheartedly. I cried through it. I wrapped myself up and blankets. I lit my candle and had my ceremony Florida water. Syanna guided us through writing as a way of honouring our journey. I wrote this poem that I share with you now:

Needing to be Held
Warm Belly
Soft heart
Tears flowing
Sadness throughout
Then a pause comes
It tethers me to now
I hear her urge me to live my life
It makes me miss her voice and all i couldn’t say
I miss her
I miss being mothered

One of the participants shared these powerful words and they really sat with me: “I want to be alive while i’m still living.” This is my mom’s legacy – to love and live my life. Because she couldn’t and only wanted that for me. One way i have found meaning in my life now is that i am more well-versed, prepared, and comfortable to talk about, feel fully, and sit with is grief. I an an apprentice to it, surely, and it’s a role i am surrendering myself into fully. This article is one psychotherapist’s personal account with the loss of her child, and how it shaped her life, and how her work has been transformed. She shares another gate into grief – attachment grief. She walks with people through their grief journey. I am so honoured to do the same.

I have learned a lot from this experience. I don’t always want to reckon with it. I don’t want to reconcile that i’m still not ready, to be here without her. I was just starting to embrace just how much i needed her all along. I am still looking for meaning and yet, i have also found what helps me hold my grief with love and care. I am not running from it. I am companioning myself through my own experience. I have learned to sit with the feeling that comes up, and give it love and care. At times, it is solitary work. At other times, it is quite lonely. It is never easy and yet it can be quite healing. I am coming up to a year since my mom died. As i get closer to the day, the month, i can’t claim to know how i will feel. What i do know, though is that i am resourced and more resilient. I am also soft and open.

The ache is always there as soon as i turn around. It’s like an old friend, a companion waiting in the sidelines. Fuck these sad songs that show up unannounced on radio, unwanted at the worst time. They unbound me, untether me. They also let me surrender to feeling. Of love.