 “Take these broken wings, And learn to fly again, Learn to live so free” - Mr. Mister This morning I was thinking of my path to recording my very first podcast as a guest with Tammy Sollenberger. And as I was pondering, the Mr. Mister song came on the radio and the lyrics (above) really hit home. Imagine, the thing you think makes you, you was gone overnight. Your intellect, a gift/talent, a personality trait - gone. Maybe some of you, like me, don’t have to imagine because you have lived through it. And living through it takes a varied path, so I will not assume to know the road you have traversed.
For me, one of the things that made me, me was my ability to speak publicly with very little preparation and with little fear (don’t worry I have plenty of other fears). Several years ago, that public speaking skill along with several of my executive functioning skills left me. Suddenly I was faced with a life of speaking difficulties, the loss of organizing thoughts, sentences, and daily activities. I could no longer imagine a life of writing coherent papers, speaking clearly and thoughtfully about what matters to me, and showing up in the world as I had done for most of my life. Who was I now that I wasn’t all the things I loved? Thankfully I found a tremendous amount of support through retraining my brain, which encompasses a variety of therapies including speech and executive functioning. I was met with providers asking me if I liked doing a certain thing (sudoku for example) me saying emphatically NO and then the Dr. would say “good, I want you to do it every day until I see you again.” Ughhh, of course therapy to rebuild oneself isn’t to be fun, but everyday something that I LOATHE?!! That is the exact opposite of what humans want to do. What I discovered is if I did something everyday that I disliked and was a challenge with some compassion and patience, I ended up improving and enjoying the activity, growing my confidence in myself AND the process. So here I am, six years from the time I lost what made me, me. I have not regained everything I lost (and most likely won't), but I keep moving in that direction in a very non-linear pattern. Even though I have met many goals, I still get frustrated and sad about my changes. I do not take for granted the days I can do laundry AND write a newsletter because I never thought I would be able to accomplish two very executive function heavy activities ever again in the same day (a HUGE thank you to Sarah Lovell for making daily life less mysterious for me). This weekend when I listened to the podcast with Tammy, I listened with my whole journey in mind. I wanted to critique my verbal fluency in some places, and go back to hiding until I was perfect. But there is no perfection and no guarantees of improvement. The only guarantee is this very moment, in my very really humanness. And when I meet this moment with self-compassion and a deep bow to all that got me here, I am moved and humbled. I am so proud of my conversation with Tammy. I am so honored she had me as a guest. We talked about some pretty radical and boundary pushing ideas about IFS (IMO), most I have never discussed publicly but have spent many many hours thinking and writing about (one day those writing will become more public). What makes the conversation so special is how comfortable and welcoming Tammy made me feel. I could show up as my perfect imperfect self. The world needs more of these spaces. We need less of pathologizing our humanity and a whole lot more of acknowledging “broken wings” as deeply human and taking those broken wings as an invitation to freedom. In addition to Tammy creating this space, the podcast wouldn't be possible without everyone who courageously and vulnerably shows up to work with me. I am changed everyday by those I work with, something many practitioners do not talk enough about but is vital to personal deepening, the transformative process when humans commune together. Thank you! Click HERE to listen...I hope you take a listen and that something in our conversation has meaning for you. I would love to hear what you think!! Warmly, Valerie
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 I am not one for forced gratitude. I am not one for forced anything...joy, happiness, smiling, socializing. I am not for it possibly because I am not good at it. That is not to say that I do not think gratitude is vital to experiencing life with more gentleness. But gratitude has become one of the tools of spiritual bypassing. Often our suffering is met with “focus on what you are grateful for.”
While the intention of redirecting our energy is admirable, this invitation often comes from outside ourselves from a person who cannot accompany us in our suffering. The invitation is more about them than us. Or maybe this forced gratitude comes from within, because we are not able to accompany ourselves in our suffering or we have internalized the cultural message of “good” people are grateful. So we turn away from it, and focus on the good things, the happy things. And in this turning away, the happy things are not quite as happy as they could be because we have not attended to what is also in the room: our pain and discontentedness. During this time, when so much of the world is in crisis, gratitude can feel complex for some and a welcome relief for others. You do you. But my invitation is why do you do what you do? Do you think you should feel happy and grateful right now? Are you continuously overriding your impulses and feelings to appear grateful? No judgment - we all have cultural conditioning to unpack. This unpacking is what leads us to become more of ourselves…and sometimes we unpack and find that Yes, we do want what we have been taught to be. Personally, this year I am grateful for the invitation into gratitude. It has been a challenging year in my household. I have witnessed the difficulty, made space for it, railed and resisted against it, accepted it, and bowed down to it. And because of this, I believe I have space to meet the gratitude invitation more fully (ask me in a week or two and you may get a different answer). In the research of gratitude, specificity is crucial to the honoring. I would also add that being truthful to one’s self is a valuable ingredient…you don’t have to profess to be thankful for something that you aren’t. So yes I may be thankful for the surgical interventions that have saved my life, but I am not grateful for the pain I experienced (as one of my teachers says, pain is an overrated teacher). When things are difficult, I focus in on the smallest thing I can truly be grateful for (although sometimes I do not get to this step). Wherever you are in your relationship to gratitude - a huge fan, a skeptic, in a break up - honor it. Gratitude, when not a societal construct or something to check off our spiritual personality trait card, is a natural state we ebb in and out of. The ebbing in and out is one of the keys to knowing if it is a bypass or a more emergent state. If gratitude is something you are considering this holiday…the recipe to explore is specificity and not lying to one’s self, and also making space for the difficult. I am grateful for those I call friends and family this year because they have helped me remember that I matter when I have forgotten, and that has made life more meaningful and less lonely. I am grateful for my clients because I am continuously reminded of the beauty of humanity, opening up more access for compassion - for myself and others. I am grateful for my animals for showing me everyday what it means to be an animal, and this remembering helps me to lean into my own animal nature, offering spaces of more ease and resilience. And I am deeply grateful to each one of you who takes the time to read, reflect, and reach out after each of these newsletters because without you, I would not learn, grow outside myself, and create as much as I do. And creation is one of the very acts that keeps me here on this earth. Holidays are complex, stressful times for so many. They are bittersweet moments if we have loved ones missing from our tables. Or holidays can touch our wounds of othering and marginalization. They might require us to turn away from our needs and desires so that we may tend to family, safety, and to our survival. However this holiday lands for you, I hope you know you matter. And how you feel and what you do doesn’t change your worth. You matter and I am grateful you are here connected to me through these words and this screen. My invitation this holiday weekend in the US (and everyday from here on) is, find some small drop inside you that believes - without a doubt and without any need to do anything - that you matter…and tend to that seed drop by drop until it is a whole forest within. With much gratitude for your beingness… Valerie |
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