Hey, Hi, Hello
Hey, hi, hello, back to the blogosphere I go. The last time I blogged was about the birth of my second child in 2017 on a blog I spent four-ish years of my life writing about fashion and happenings in my life. I loved it, but as life and motherhood took over it felt like too much. However, as I sink deeper in the trenches of motherhood I've realized I need a creative outlet. Very desperately, much like Bernadette in Where'd You Go Bernadette. I feel like I can be real crotchety, antisocial, and a destroyer of things if I don't have somewhere to focus my energy. This time around won't be so much about fashion, although I'm still a sucker for an epic outfit, it's more of a place to process the current shift in my beliefs and thinking, to put some musings down, a space to share photography, art, what's inspiring me, thoughts that keep me up at night, that sort of thing. So really, this is probably more for me than anyone else and it might be utterly all over the place as that is how I feel in general. So if you don't mind and want in on the make-up of my brain at this point in life, welcome! Enneagram 4 over here and all about creating a space for creativity, beauty, honestly, vulnerability and making people feel less alone, as that is what I seem to want the most out of life most days. As inspiration strikes I'll hop on here and share tid-bits, things that are giving me life, rituals, thoughts, ideas and hopefully a place for inspiration for you as well.
I think more than anything I'm starting this blog as a way to process what feels like an upheaval of my life. Two-ish years ago I hit a big, fat, brick wall. I was in a marriage where I felt totally alone, motherhood was utterly overwhelming and I had basically no community or support - it was a fight every day just to keep going. I was angry, yelling at my then three year who seemed to know exactly how to push my buttons. Having anxiety attacks but not even knowing that that was what they were. I was fighting with everything I had in me just to keep it all together, keep myself together, keep these little people alive and attempt to live semi-harmoniously with my man. And it was more than I could take on alone. To top it off, I wasn't sharing any of this with anyone. Shame and fear consumed me. Shame that I was doing it all wrong, I was a failure, I was totally alone in my struggles, that I had picked the wrong partner and was an awful mom who yelled too much. Fearful someone would find out. Would judge and condemn me for not being better, for not knowing what to do and being able to handle it all, for not praying hard enough. I couldn't break out of the shame and fear to even reach out for help.
Finally, one afternoon I called a bestie and sat locked in my closet sobbing my eyes out. I was incoherent. It was like I couldn't even pinpoint why I felt so awful. I had been manicly moving at the speed of light to fight facing all those things. When I finally couldn't do it anymore I collapsed, I broke and it overwhelmed me. It was too much to process and even look at. It was the worst feeling of all. An onslaught of panic, despair, fear, endless shame. This wasn't supposed to be my life. How the hell did I end up hiding from my children who needed more than I could have ever imagined crying in a closet, wanting nothing more than to escape my own life. Not at all what I pictured motherhood, marriage, LIFE, to be for myself. But it was exactly that and the onslaught of depression was intense.
Just as I broke, grace began to poured in. As I started to tell people what was going on resources, encouragement, validation and love covered me, seemed to be at every turn. The fear that had ate me alive was a lie. People weren't shaming me or judging, they were carrying me, loving me. It wasn't long before I started analyzing my way of doing life, the systems from which I operated out of. Beginning with my family of origin. I began digging into why I do some of the things I do. The Enneagram found its way into my life, and honestly was one of the biggest, most helpful tools in all this work. It put so much of what I felt and experienced to words. Normalized what I thought was a little crazy, gave insight to the fact that not everyone thinks like I do. Which is hilarious we really think everyone thinks like we do, but we totally do. I began to understand others better. Began to understand myself better. Another big thing I started to analyze was my history with the church, the messages I received that I believed to be true. This is where things have gotten really sticky and messy. I know not everyone has a history of trauma with the church, some people have had lovely church experiences, but as I began to process my own history of growing up in a small midwest town legalistic church and telling others, I began to realize some things I experienced were totally not okay. In fact some of it was very harmful to my mental health and wellbeing. Directly related to my perfectionistic, judgmental, blaming, shame and fear-based attitudes. The same attitudes I expected people from my community to meet me with when I was at my lowest. Seeing this just made me see how much I had truly missed the actual gospel of Jesus. How much I had taken on this system of religion and how much damage it was doing to my psyche.
Processing all of this has been grueling. On top of working through marriage and attempting to raise two tiny humans well. It's been a roller coaster to say the least. Untangling all the fear and shame on each and every single layer of this onion (and constantly finding more layers), desperate to get the the root of it, to heal and grow, to find joy and freedom. To be truly myself, who I was created to be. To live a life without a billion calculations of my every move. To just be. And see that I am good. Writing has always helped me work through things, I have filled so many journals the past few years. But I also know being brave and sharing seems to be a step of it for me. At least that seems to be the nudge I'm getting at the moment. I've been learning new ways to go about life. Craving a creative, nature-filled life is bringing me great peace at the moment. The joy and freedom that art and being in nature give me these days is immeasurable. Doing those things- creating, reading poetry, being around plants and trees, feeling the breeze and sunshine make me come alive in a whole new way. To me, it seems it's the way we were created to live this life on earth. Creating and barefoot in the grass. I've been doing a whole lot of the latter, now I'm striving to do more of the former, hence this blog. Creating with words, hopefully to help someone maybe going through the same thing to not feel alone. I know for a while I so carefully measured my words to others (and still do to be honest), putting out tiny feelers to see if they knew what I was talking about in this process. It was stressful. Hopeful someone would understand, disappointed when they didn't, overjoyed when someone else did and we could dive into deep conversation. So if that's you, putting out feelers, fear and shame seemingly all around you, hey, hi, hello! You're not alone my friend, let's process.
I think more than anything I'm starting this blog as a way to process what feels like an upheaval of my life. Two-ish years ago I hit a big, fat, brick wall. I was in a marriage where I felt totally alone, motherhood was utterly overwhelming and I had basically no community or support - it was a fight every day just to keep going. I was angry, yelling at my then three year who seemed to know exactly how to push my buttons. Having anxiety attacks but not even knowing that that was what they were. I was fighting with everything I had in me just to keep it all together, keep myself together, keep these little people alive and attempt to live semi-harmoniously with my man. And it was more than I could take on alone. To top it off, I wasn't sharing any of this with anyone. Shame and fear consumed me. Shame that I was doing it all wrong, I was a failure, I was totally alone in my struggles, that I had picked the wrong partner and was an awful mom who yelled too much. Fearful someone would find out. Would judge and condemn me for not being better, for not knowing what to do and being able to handle it all, for not praying hard enough. I couldn't break out of the shame and fear to even reach out for help.
Finally, one afternoon I called a bestie and sat locked in my closet sobbing my eyes out. I was incoherent. It was like I couldn't even pinpoint why I felt so awful. I had been manicly moving at the speed of light to fight facing all those things. When I finally couldn't do it anymore I collapsed, I broke and it overwhelmed me. It was too much to process and even look at. It was the worst feeling of all. An onslaught of panic, despair, fear, endless shame. This wasn't supposed to be my life. How the hell did I end up hiding from my children who needed more than I could have ever imagined crying in a closet, wanting nothing more than to escape my own life. Not at all what I pictured motherhood, marriage, LIFE, to be for myself. But it was exactly that and the onslaught of depression was intense.
Just as I broke, grace began to poured in. As I started to tell people what was going on resources, encouragement, validation and love covered me, seemed to be at every turn. The fear that had ate me alive was a lie. People weren't shaming me or judging, they were carrying me, loving me. It wasn't long before I started analyzing my way of doing life, the systems from which I operated out of. Beginning with my family of origin. I began digging into why I do some of the things I do. The Enneagram found its way into my life, and honestly was one of the biggest, most helpful tools in all this work. It put so much of what I felt and experienced to words. Normalized what I thought was a little crazy, gave insight to the fact that not everyone thinks like I do. Which is hilarious we really think everyone thinks like we do, but we totally do. I began to understand others better. Began to understand myself better. Another big thing I started to analyze was my history with the church, the messages I received that I believed to be true. This is where things have gotten really sticky and messy. I know not everyone has a history of trauma with the church, some people have had lovely church experiences, but as I began to process my own history of growing up in a small midwest town legalistic church and telling others, I began to realize some things I experienced were totally not okay. In fact some of it was very harmful to my mental health and wellbeing. Directly related to my perfectionistic, judgmental, blaming, shame and fear-based attitudes. The same attitudes I expected people from my community to meet me with when I was at my lowest. Seeing this just made me see how much I had truly missed the actual gospel of Jesus. How much I had taken on this system of religion and how much damage it was doing to my psyche.
Processing all of this has been grueling. On top of working through marriage and attempting to raise two tiny humans well. It's been a roller coaster to say the least. Untangling all the fear and shame on each and every single layer of this onion (and constantly finding more layers), desperate to get the the root of it, to heal and grow, to find joy and freedom. To be truly myself, who I was created to be. To live a life without a billion calculations of my every move. To just be. And see that I am good. Writing has always helped me work through things, I have filled so many journals the past few years. But I also know being brave and sharing seems to be a step of it for me. At least that seems to be the nudge I'm getting at the moment. I've been learning new ways to go about life. Craving a creative, nature-filled life is bringing me great peace at the moment. The joy and freedom that art and being in nature give me these days is immeasurable. Doing those things- creating, reading poetry, being around plants and trees, feeling the breeze and sunshine make me come alive in a whole new way. To me, it seems it's the way we were created to live this life on earth. Creating and barefoot in the grass. I've been doing a whole lot of the latter, now I'm striving to do more of the former, hence this blog. Creating with words, hopefully to help someone maybe going through the same thing to not feel alone. I know for a while I so carefully measured my words to others (and still do to be honest), putting out tiny feelers to see if they knew what I was talking about in this process. It was stressful. Hopeful someone would understand, disappointed when they didn't, overjoyed when someone else did and we could dive into deep conversation. So if that's you, putting out feelers, fear and shame seemingly all around you, hey, hi, hello! You're not alone my friend, let's process.
Comments
Post a Comment