Deeper Well.

“You can’t just sit there and put everyone’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.”

This is a quote from one of my favorite books from highschool, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Funny enough, I went on for years doing just as the quote says not to. 

When I was 18 years old, two months shy of graduating High School, my dad had a massive stroke. He didn’t die, but the version of him I knew did die that day. My mother’s priorities shifted to keeping him alive, and life as we all knew it, at least that version of life, died that day too. 

There is no one to blame and it's nobody’s fault, but this started in me a trauma response in my brain from abandonment. Over the years, the abandonment wound grew with more experiences and new faces, until eventually a flip switched in me. 

I learned how to be the hyper-independent in codependent relationships, putting me in the position to make myself feel “irreplaceable” to the people around me. Earning their love with every need I could meet, not even needing to be asked. I just knew. I knew exactly what each person in my life needed, and I knew how to meet it. And to be honest, it worked. And to be honest, I was great at it. 

And while we are being honest, there are many people who are mourning that unhealthy version of me now. The version of me who met all their needs and never asked for anything in return. She settled for crumbs, and treated those crumbs like a feast. She was praised for how well she inserted herself, never needing much in return, and how very useful she was. 

It was until one day, I woke up in more codependent relationships than I could possibly keep up with, recognizing a pattern, and wondering how I ended up there? I had collected so many people that needed me, that felt entitled to me, I felt chronically suffocated and emotionally distraught. I was in so many relationships that I had identified as unhealthy, was absolutely gutted by how I was being treated in them, but was also terrified to move.

I had to take a look in the mirror and take responsibility for what my part in it was, and then I remembered…“You can’t just sit there and put everyone’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.”

The scariest thing I ever did was step out of that pattern. I looked so many people in the eye and said “I can’t be this version of myself anymore, it's killing me. Will you still love me even if I let go of the version of myself that has been trying to earn your love?”

I had to apologize to my codependent partners, I had subconsciously been manipulating them not to abandon me. Not giving them the option to stay or go, not even giving them the option to love me for the right reasons. I remember telling someone specifically that I had to start showing up in the world authentically, and letting each person choose for themselves if they wanted to love me or not. 

It seems so simple, but when you have an abandonment wound, it is the most vulnerable thing. 

I think anytime you shift from a state of unhealthy to healthy, it is vulnerable.

For me, this was another way of life, no matter how unhealthy it might have been, my perceived safety was dead again. 

Today, talking with a friend, I had this analogy pop into my head. It was really more of an image, it was me or it was you, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, only it was like this one scene was a picture of all of life. And every person who “left” was like a physical weight unlocking, falling off, so that we could evolve just a little bit higher, take up a little more space. It was a picture of painful relief, grief and gratefulness all at once. 

Though in my core, I feel like exactly the same person, the last two years in many ways I have transformed into somebody totally new. Somehow coming home to myself and evolving beyond all of me at the same time. 

A huge part of that has been allowing all the relationships in my life their own autonomy, not just in reality but also in my own cognitive perception, every single person has the freedom and right to leave my life at any time. Why they choose to leave may or may not have anything to do with me, but it's not my job to try to understand it if they don’t have the care to explain it to me before they go. And whether a person chooses to stay or go, does not alter how I choose to show up in the world.

I no longer look at my relationships as something I have to keep at all costs. In fact, I have seen how much better life is when you are not in relationship with people who you have to convince you are worth loving. Learning to let people go has been one of the most peaceful, satisfying lessons. The waves of sweet relief and deep grief have become a healthy flow in my life.

On the flipside, I do believe it is a privilege to be a part of my life, to have access to me, and to be loved by me. I hold myself to a very high standard in how I treat all humans in the world, but especially the people closest to me. Through healing my abandonment wound, I have gained the self respect to hold the people in my life to some of those same standards. I have taken the time to define my non-negotiables when it comes to my relationships, and how to let others decide for themselves if they want to meet them or not. (Though I have to be honest, I’ve never had to even ask those closest to me…the ones who show me true love every day. The ones who have redefined what love even means.) And through this self respect, I am no longer afraid to hold people accountable to how they treat me, and if need be, walk away. 

I am responsible for my own life, and only mine, and it's my job only to make decisions for my life, and that's true for everyone else too about their own life. 

I have taken the time over the years to learn how to receive love and how to give it, in pure and healthy ways. I have taken the time to forgive, honor, and cherish the version of myself that kept herself safe, even in ways that weren’t healthy and caused me pain. I’ve taken the time to practice empathy to the ones that loved an unhealthy version of me so deeply, who aren’t able to see the healthy version of me as good…how it must have felt like betrayal when I was no longer willing to give them the version of me that felt like a home to them. I feel so deeply for them what they lost in my own growth and healing, and also what they lost when they couldn’t figure out how to love this version of me too. 

But there is nothing and no one in the world I could trade this version of me for. The one who gets to be fully free, so sure of the people around me, who I get to love freely because I’m no longer subconsciously convincing them to keep me. Life is so beautiful, peaceful, full, and I made friends with my grief, always giving it a place to rest when it passes through, because I know its a part of rising, evolving, and growing.

So remember, “You can’t just sit there and put everyone’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.” You have to actively participate in this life, learning how to both give and receive love from people, in all our messy ways. And the painful truth is that outgrowing some people along the way is a part of living, an unfortunate necessary part if you choose to grow. It comes with grief, but it also expands your capacity for love as you transform into more of who you were created to be.

In the words of Kacey Musgraves, “I’ve found a deeper well.” And I can say, there is so much life waiting for you.

Yes Woman

I’m writing to you from a coffee shop in South Berkeley.

The barista who took my order told me she loved my style, and the one who handed me my drink told me that my outfit was cute. I’m wearing my thigh highs paired with my over-the-knee black boots, a bright green oversized sweater, and a denim mini skirt. My hair is curled and I put on a soft layer of my Lana Del Ray branded lipstick. 

I’ve been romanticizing this day in my head since the moment we booked this trip. I gave myself a single day off, while my sister, who I’m traveling with, is still in her business meetings. I knew I would wear a cute outfit, drink an excellent cup of coffee, and finally make time to write. And I know, perhaps more than anymore, that when you say “Yes”...almost anything can happen next.

My sister Hannah was the first one who crowned me with the term “Yes Woman” and I’ve kept it close to my heart all these years. 

I am a Yes Woman. The word “Yes” is a powerful word, it's both easy and hard to say, depending on the context. Sometimes we say it when we shouldn’t or when we don’t mean it, but that's called something else. That's called people pleasing, and I’ve held that title before too, but that's one I've left behind. 

I’ve learned the hard way to always take a moment to check in with myself before saying “Yes” to make sure my yes is coming from the right place. “No” is also a powerful word, and knowing when to use it is an important part of being a Yes Woman. I’m told often that I say yes more than most people would, probably more than I should, but I can only say yes because of how many times in my life, leading me up to this season of my life, I’ve also been brave enough to say no. I view both words as an opportunity, but “yes” is a word we get to say, “no” is one we have to say.

In December, I left off telling you about defining success in my life.

One thing about me, I am almost always considering my future self, thinking about what she wants, how she’ll feel, how she’ll feel about ME now and the choices I am making for her. I never make any kind of big life decision without considering her. I think this came from going through Lyme treatment, every choice I made, all the misery I endured was for her to live this life. My current life. I am living all her dreams, I thank that past version of me every single day for what she did for me, what she gave me. I can’t help but think about what other dreams my other future versions might have…the spirit of ”Anything is Possible” flows in my blood now, where the Lyme used to live.

So, I always thought I was going to die young, but now, it seems I’ll live a long long time. And at some point a couple of years ago, through a lot of life transitions and future altering choices, I thought about my future self on her deathbed. Old and gray, reflecting on her life, these years I’m living now, and all the ones I’ve yet to live, what would she be proud of? What would she want to hear about her impact from the people she loved most, as they were saying their goodbyes?

I am a Yes Woman. I said “Yes” to this life, to keep living it, to the way I live it now. And it led me to beautiful places, to beautiful people, and when I say yes it is a good I put in the world that always finds its way back to me. 

And at the end of my days, I hope what I’ve achieved continues to look a lot like that. 

And that people felt safe to call when they needed to, and they knew they would be helped, knew they’d have a place to go, knew they’d have arms to hold them. 

I know how I want to spend my time, my resources. I know the impact I want to make, my abilities to do so, and the adventures it will lead me on. I know I’ll feel the whole spectrum of this human life, carry grief that isn’t mine sometimes, be a part of things I never would have had access to otherwise, and make friends with new people every single day.

I’ll let people into my life, and some of them will betray me, hurt me, leave me, but I won't regret them, because I was pure and true to myself, to my values. 

And saying yes, it doesn’t hold me back, it propels me forward, even sometimes when I’m not ready to go, it evolves me. Saying yes brings spiritual awakenings, community, and the shattering of old narratives that aren't true, that are keeping you stagnant.

I’ve learned what I need, I’ve learned how to take care of me, how to let those around me love me the way I need to be loved. I let them fill me up, I let my cup overflow, not sometimes, but all the time. I walk around this life knowing my cup deserves to be overflowing, I expect it to. And so I give. Generously, though strategically, I let my cup overflow to whoever is next to me, wherever I am. And I move through the world free and open, ready to receive whatever it has for me, never afraid of running out of what's mine. 

I can’t imagine a richer life. 

Now I’m on to the rest of my romantic day, saying yes to whatever adventures present themselves to me…and living. Really living. Thanks for stopping in for a few moments with me.

November and Success

At the beginning of November, I felt this restless pull.

It felt like I couldn’t keep my feet planted where they were even if I wanted to. I’d come too far, knew too much, my spirit wouldn’t let me stay in unhealth. 

For almost 2 years, my life has been a consistent theme of “moving on” and “out growing” things. A lot of my healing has been needed because of staying with people and places too long. I spent the last year of my 20’s breaking cycles. Breaking cycles, to your brain, feels much like withdrawal from addiction. It physically hurts, it's actively rewiring your neuropathways against everything that feels safe, normal, depriving yourself of your coping and defense mechanisms, for a chance to heal.

I’ve been thinking a lot about something my therapist said in our last session together before I “graduated” from EMDR. She told me, “I’m confident you’ll never let anyone treat you that way ever again.” 

The beginning of November, I looked at a path ahead of me filled with moral injury, and I knew. I knew I could never betray my values, never betray myself again, never allow someone to redefine my self respect. 

And so I chose a different path, and in turn, a new path was chosen for me. And it is exactly where I needed to be. 

I have come a long way these last two years. I’ve ran, walked, crawled, whatever it took to forgive myself, to trust myself again, to come home to myself and define who I am. And I am so proud of who I am and where I’ve ended up. 

And so, I could no longer entertain the idea of coexisting in any place that asked me to leave my values at the door. I’ve come too far for that. 

I don’t want to spend any more of my time, any more of my life in spaces who ask me to “care less”. Caring is one of my biggest super powers. It's a part of who I am. I will nurture it always.

And in the moment I realized the repercussions of choosing this, I looked across the table from me and saw someone miserable. And in that moment I thought, “I am happy, even now. This should be a bad moment in my life, but I am at peace with myself…I am happy, and free, and confident. And I’d rather be in my seat than theirs, any day of the week. I know I am good, and kind, and loving, and full of integrity, and I’m confident in where that will lead me next.”

When I caught myself thinking this, I also found myself filled with gratitude. Because I know, always, that I am going to be okay. I found a peaceful home, a healthy nervous system, a well-built sturdy life, and now a steadiness lives inside me. It stays with me everywhere I go. 

And no amount of money, status, title, or lifestyle could ever make me trade it. 

Before November, and all its transitions, I had someone tell me that “truly successful people only care about themselves” they told me that my care for other people was “immature” and I would only truly be successful if I only cared about myself. Now, there might be some truth in this, as in, if success was defined by how much money I can gain and keep in my own pockets. But one of the driving forces that pushed me to this transition was defining for myself what “success” looked like in my life. 

I’ll share more on that next time. Thanks for reading, and Happy December. 

Deconstruction.

Is there anything more fitting than another white millennial female blogging about deconstruction? In a post evangelical world, after almost 10 years of therapy, it was the obvious next step. (At least I have a sense of humor.)

To some, “deconstruction” is a dirty word, but the truth is, I’ve been deconstructing since I was 18 years old.

I was 18 years old, 2 months shy of graduating highschool, when I became a single woman without her “fathers headship.” At that point in my life, it was not even my choice, simply the reality I found myself in, and I quickly realized that “The Church” didn’t have a place for a woman in my position. They didn’t have a category for a woman like me. 

It has been an unlearning and a relearning ever since, never once about the validity of God himself. Instead, the healthy questioning of what men in power within patriarchal spaces had taught me to believe about him. 

I believe deconstruction is a holy pursuit, a spiritual awakening, courageous, and beautiful. 

It has been made clear to me that to some I am no longer a “godly woman.”  I could never quite be tamed enough to meet the standard, who I am and my trajectory is something to be feared now. 

All I know is that I did try everything. I did everything I was supposed to do to be the conservative evangelical “godly woman.” Surely I deserve an olympic medal for the mental gymnastics, the way I morphed myself into the ever changing mold, carrying on for years even though I could never make myself fit. Until one day I looked up, and found myself further away from God than I had ever been in my life.

I followed those I was told to follow. They told me I’d be safe, happy, healthy, holy, loved. I “submitted” myself to them, every piece of me, one by one until I could no longer recognize myself in the mirror anymore. When this felt wrong to me, I was reminded that “losing yourself is holy, and finding yourself is worldly.”

So I kept going. I kept following until I couldn’t remember the last time I felt safe to enjoy Jesus, the one I was supposed to be doing it all for. I could not recognize myself, I could not recognize God, I was living in a constant state of anxiety, depression, and even dissociated from my body so I could continue to stay. Still, I was “difficult.” I felt absolutely insane. I felt so crazy it was easy to believe that I was difficult, that I was the problem.

I spent years hitting my head against the wall, picking myself apart, being told I was loved unconditionally, while the conditions were in fact like a crown of thorns on my head that I was supposed to pretend hadn't been placed on my head. And my face was covered in blood, and I was bruised from head to toe, and nobody seemed to noticed as long as I behaved. And I bore it. I thought it was my job to do so. I bore it beautifully. Until I couldn’t anymore.

What a betrayal this was to them, for me to be so utterly broken and so desperately desperate for Jesus, that I had to give it all up, everything I had built my life around, for a chance to be right with God again. To break the codependency, to feel safe in my body again, and to trust in what God was telling me more than the voices of those around me were saying. I was somehow brave enough (or maybe just desperate enough) to risk being wrong, to risk being misunderstood and unloved. To risk being left, for a chance to come home to myself again.

I’ve never in my life made a holier decision. I’ve never in my life been a godlier woman. 

I wish I could describe the level of devastation that comes from spending years of your life changing yourself to be loved, believing the people you’re told to believe, altering yourself each time they tell you to, only to realize years later, after completing striping yourself of everything you once loved about yourself, that you were never the problem. When you look around after giving quite literally all you had, and realizing it was never going to be enough. You were set up to fail from the beginning, there was never a category for you in the broken system.

I have spent the last 2 years of my life forgiving myself for that level of self abandonment, building and learning how to trust my own self again. I’ve spent the last 3 years of my life breaking cycles, unlearning and healing from a whole life of bad theology, and correcting the hyper-independant trauma responses in myself that contributed to building so many codependent relationships.

The people who have always loved me for me, and not just what I provided for them, have remained some of my closest friends; our relationships unwavered by what secondary theologies I no longer subscribe to. I have also developed many new friendships that have only affirmed to me that I was never asking for too much. I was not being difficult.

Healing out loud, sharing what God is showing me, has always been a part of my life. When I hit a certain point in my deconstruction process, I was asked to stop sharing publicly. For two years, as I’ve designated all my resources to healing, I still allowed a part of me to be dictated by control and fear. Finally, finally, I am not afraid anymore. There is nothing else I can lose, nothing else that could be said or taken. Nothing else I could give or prove. I am just here, open, honest, and raw, finally unafraid to use my voice again.

But I am free. And the world outside isn’t evil after all, it isn’t scary. It's filled with kindness, and peace. It's filled with faith that doesn’t harm. It's filled with regulated nervous systems and life changing friendships with people who make you feel so easy to love. It's filled with light, and loving who you are, and not hiding to fit in or be accepted. It's filled with freedom to live, freedom to enjoy, freedom to love and to know and learn and grow. It's so full, my heart could burst, and every day I take in all my deep breaths, grateful I’m no longer gasping for air. My hands and feet finally doing the work they were created to do.

In the words of queen Taylor Swift: “From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes, I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this. I hosted parties and starved my body, like I'd be saved by a perfect kiss. The jokes weren't funny, I took the money, my friends from home don't know what to say. I looked around in a blood-soaked gown, and I saw something they can't take away. There were pages turned with the bridges burned, everything you lose is a step you take.”

And still, I grieve with that 18 year old girl, that version of me that realized for the first time that something was wrong about the “truth” she had been told. I grieve with her now while writing this, and I know that my God grieves with her too. And wherever you are in your deconstruction journey, I want you to know that there is space for all your grief, but there is also so much joy waiting for you.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far.

P.S. I highly recommend seeing a licensed therapist if you are deconstructing your faith. Talk therapy and EMDR were necessary in my recovery, and such helpful tools.