wild spaces

I am known to be compassionate; someone who spends most of her time caring for people with a variety of health needs & traumatic memories. To be as helpful and keep as healthy as possible, I invest in practices & rituals that keep my zen flowing so I can show up with capacity to be empowering, supportive, flexible, & loving, yet earlier this week posted on social media that I wished the dicks of all men who show up like angry baboons fall off after a long gruesome experience with a flesh eating disease. 

And I meant it. 

And I think I still do. 

I just don’t like the encompassing rage that has become my companion this week.

I was furious for decades, so now when I’m viscerally angry for more than a moment about something, I worry that my mental health will suffer and my life will fall apart. Anger feels like steps backwards, even though I frequently sing along with Taylor that everything we lose is a step we take.

A couple weeks ago, I announced to my long-term therapist that I was ready to graduate therapy, so after a beautiful closure session, I, in gratitude, left her office curiously acknowledging the soft cloud of vulnerability that hovered gently above the ground I was free to walk upon unattached to the counselling office behind me. I’ve engaged with trauma recovery processes since my accident & coinciding brain injury in late ‘22, so stepping out here into the wild without a connection to a therapist I deeply value feels a bit scary, but in a way that breathes life into the lightness I feel these days.

Well,

          felt. 

Because something happened the other day that triggered a powerfully uncomfortable emotional experience, catapulting me into a space of anger, resentment, & hatred, which initially sent me reeling because I don’t want to feel like I’m moving backwards on my healing path, or that the confidence I felt about graduating therapy was naive.

I do believe that regardless of the progress we make in therapy, those of us that have experienced complex trauma will inevitably be triggered by something sometimes, and that one aim of the work we do in therapy is to learn practical application of strategies to employ in moments of unpleasant emotion so that we may continue moving forward in our lives as functional and lovingly as possible. I'm talking skills in mindfulness, perspective shifts, humility, acceptance, emotional regulation, forgiveness, etc.

There is also this: 

I posted on social media that I wished the dicks of all men who show up like angry baboons fall off after a long gruesome experience with a flesh eating disease because 1) I'm a poet and 2) I was wronged and sometimes our uncomfortable feelings are not entirely the fallout of a trauma trigger, but righteous anger caused by injustice.

Anger can be a reasonable response to injustice if we safe harbor ourselves from sinking in it. Pain is a teacher, and feelings are not facts, as they say. Our responses to emotion can teach us where authentic changes are asking to be made. I am in that process now, sorting out what truth lays at the root of every unpleasant emotion in this latest curmudgeon. For this to happen, I have to get real quiet and still with a notebook on my lap and pen in my hand to detail what simmers up from the stillness. 

Truths I have recognized thus far:

1. I need more time in wild spaces. I ache for mountains and forest more so than usual. This is hard with my brain's limit for highway driving so time for creative solution finding? 

2. I am blessed to spend 40+ hours with people that are wise in communication, kindness, empathy, & conflict resolution

3. Time to try again with obtaining a mortgage. I hope for a small piece of land that facilitates privacy in the development of a deeper relationship with mother earth; gardening, & flowers, & tending in ways that align with my value system

Wistful to marinade in green,

E