In an Instant…Everything Changed

In an Instant - Everything Changed

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” - Frederick Nietzsche

I was 42. It was COVID. And I was more than anxious about the world and everything in it. All the tools and practices I'd worked so hard to put into place for years - through my psychology training, my own personal therapy, self-care, education, support, a therapy practice that was supporting me…and it all failed. And I began to feel like I was failing…or worse…losing my mind, my rooting to the earth, and maybe even dying. 

I had no idea what was happening to me, no one that had modeled this for me, no understanding in my therapy training. I tried as hard as I could to hold it all together, but I couldn't. So I decided to let it all fall apart. I decided. And let it. And it did… I had no idea, in that moment, how important that decision would be…

To the Pain!

In the beginning, letting everything fall apart was something I wanted to keep private. To keep inside me. But it just wouldn’t do. I was in one of the most difficult seasons professionally that was challenging me to my core, drawing up fear and shame and doubts about who I am, what I’m capable of, what I believe about anything and everything. It’s like the tethers that had bound me to the earth were coming undone and I was free falling in to the void. I thought to myself, Well now I’ve done it. I’ve thrown myself beyond the universe, beyond God, and all that exists. My identity that had always been so fused with what I do and who I relate to was cracking and shedding like a too tight skin. I pulled layer after layer from myself…Therapist…RIP! Scientist…RIP! Wife…RIP! Mother…RIP! Daughter…RIP! Friend, nerd, athlete, colleague…RIP! RIP! RIP! RIP! I kept thinking, if I keep removing layers, nothing will be left. I will have nothing. I will be nothing… I could literally scrape so much of me away that I’ll just transcend to the beyond right here, right now. The light in me went completely out. And I did not resurface for a year.

Dark Night of the Soul

Have you ever been in the country, really in the country? So far from city lights that you see so many stars it takes your breath away and scares you a little bit? I grew up in rural Alabama in farm country. There are places where I grew up that didn’t have streetlights or much outdoor lighting at all. When the moon is new, you can’t see your own hand in front of your face.

That’s how pitch black it felt. Falling in to the void like Alice down the rabbit hole, discarding every identity I had on the way down, until I didn’t have any identity at all.

I was just in the void.

It was the void that had its way with me. It was the first time in my life that I just let myself be. And in my being in the darkness of the abyss, I found that I could not stand to be there alone. So in another first, I reached to a few people in my life that were witnesses and close companions and let them in to my experience without controlling the narrative or trying to manage my image. I could see in their eyes their fear. I didn’t feel fear so much as initially terror, and then relief. There’s an eerie stillness in the void that’s peaceful. And I succumbed to it completely. I lost weight. My eyes turned black. My skin waxed pale and translucent. My voice turned inward. My ability to sense others muted. My inner world consumed me. It was a crucible of incredible fire and then nothingness.

And then when I thought that I may live in the void forever, a little spark lit inside me.

Hope.

I had lived through my worst fear - that if I disowned my attachments to my identity that I would be hollow or nothing or die.

I was very much still alive. I could feel my heart beat, my lungs breathing fresh air in and out and carrying oxygen to every cell of my being. I could see leaves on the trees blowing in the wind and found the intricate veins in the leaves fascinating and fresh to my eyes.

The ground that had been cracked desert dust and nothingness that I landed on was soft and muddy, watering me from the bottom up. Fresh life came for me from the bottom of the void. I could see it in my mind’s eye…the desert, dusty and barren everywhere I looked became the bottom of a well. My feet were soothed in cool water that comforted me and revived me at the right time. Living water.

I found myself ashore, crawling from the void on fertile ground. Breathing into new lungs, baby stepping my way back to my life.

My sacred witnesses helped me, reflected back to me what they’d seen and heard and experienced, which helped me take form as I AM. They trusted me to care for myself and listened deeply to me when I didn’t even yet know how to make sense of what was happening.

I stand now, one foot on solid ground, one foot in the sea. I faced my monsters, and though I found myself in the void, it did not kill me. It transformed me. It was alchemy.

The void is terrifying because it is complete unknown and surrender. It’s chaos. A friend of mine said that chaos is also the place of genesis. It’s where creation happens. The Big Bang. Spirit hovering over the waters in delight before the universe took form.

I needed to be taken apart so I could be recreated into something new. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Life. Death. Life. We live in spirals of creation, destruction, and recreation - over and over again.

This is what the Dark Night does. The Heroine’s Journey. The deep corrective emotional experience of letting go of what I was so that I could become who I am.

Since my Dark Night experience, as I’ve shared about it, I’ve found that many other people have experienced or are experiencing it, too. I know how alone and terrified I felt, how crazy it seemed and how few people understood. I don’t want anyone else to feel that way or think no one could ever understand. We do.

If you’re curious about what helped me during my time in the abyss, these books were ones that helped me through:

• The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock

• tiny beautiful things by Cheryl Strayed

• The Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

• Anatomy of the Spirit by Carolyn Myss

• Anything epic or archetypal like Joseph Campbell’s work, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings

• Poetry

I have some practices and other pieces that helped that I’d love to share as the story continues to unfold.

Wherever you find yourself on the journey, I send you hope and light and courage that you may face your own monsters and the void, be kind to yourself on your way through, have a fellowship that will sustain you in dark days, and trust that you will find your way home to yourself.

Fall Favorites

Fall Favorites.

It’s Fall y’all! The BEST season ever to me. It’s my birthday season, cool weather, football, soups and pastas and baked goods, extra mugs of warm things, cardigan sweaters, boots and cozy socks, more candles than my firefighter brother-in-law would ever approve, and so much more. I’ll share three of my current obsessions with you.

Go Jets! Aaron Rogers may be out for the season (heal up Aaron!), but we’re cheering on!

Fall Football

I grew up watching college football with my Dad and Paw Paw every single Saturday. Waaaaaaaaaaar Eagle! HEY!! I love the sound of a drumline, the cheer of a crowd, the drama, the emotion, the shared successes and victories, the stories and the athleticism. I love a stadium hot dog and ice cold Coke, the smell of fresh-cut grass and muted roar of tens of thousands of humans all gathered together for shared experience.

I started watching the NFL because of Chris, my husband, and his family’s love of the Green Bay Packers and Aaron Rogers. I had a brief love affair with the Dallas Cowboys in 8th grade, but that was more because of my junior high’s obsession with the Cowboys and Jimmy Johnson, but nothing held my interest like college ball.

That all changed when we started watching NFL shows like Pat McAfee and Quarterback. But it was Hard Knocks that got me in a chokehold. I love all things triumphant and feats of strength. I’ve gotten obsessed with cheese-rolling in Cooper’s Hill (not for the faint of heart), Cheer, The Olympics (obviously), soccer (prefer the US Women’s National Team), gymnastics and dance competitions, spelling bees, an incredible marble racing tourney we found out about from John Oliver, and basically anything you can compete in.

When it starts getting cooler and we’re inside more, it’s the perfect time to get loud and proud about your chosen competitive sport. Warms the blood and edifies the soul.

If you’re looking for a good place to start, may I suggest the latest season of Hard Knocks with the NY Jets. And if you’re so inclined, you can do the ridiculously fun thing I did for the first time this year and join my family’s fantasy football league. I am doing horribly, in case you’re wondering.

Fall Fashion

Fall Fashion

I love Fashion. Hear me out…

I worried a bit about including fashion as part of what I’m sending out. I didn’t want to feel misunderstood or judged as shallow. I’ve had so many experiences in my life where my intelligence or competency or even goodness have been questioned and challenged due to the way I look and dress. I guess we really aren’t all done with projections and insecurities. It’s interesting that this has felt more vulnerable to write and share than speaking about my dark night of the soul.

I love dressing myself in ways that make me feel good in my body. Whatever my body is experiencing. The way I currently think about how I dress is similar to how I envision moving my body. I’m not interested in trying to meet an external ideal, though I’d be lying if I said it didn’t impact me. It does. I notice it all the time. People say it out loud to me at trainings. That’s okay. I know it’s a systemic issue that’s always been here and won’t go away just because I’m good and kind to myself or others.

Dressing for my body and coloring and comfort and beauty has given me a way to love myself well, care for my embodiment, feel lovely with the way color blends or contrasts - like an artist choosing pigments and textures to best convey a vibe or mood or story. This is the story of me, and I enjoy getting to choose my own presentation, rather than living in response to what others want, expect, like/dislike, or approve/disapprove of. It’s a subversive act of love for myself to choose what feels good to me, just because I like it and feel good about myself.

Some of the things I’m loving for Fall are:

• All the boots. Over the knee are so fun. Plus you can play pirates.

• Silk everything - skirts, blouses, scarves

• Sweaters. It’s sweatah weathah!

• Autumn colors! Burgundy, Deep forest green, Navy, Browns, Gold

• Sneakers. Trainers. Tennis Shoes. Street shoes. Did I get all the terms?

• Dresses with good shape

At home, it’s Vuori and yoga pants and sweatshirts and whatever gives those cozy vibes.

Ah, Pride and Prejudice. An Annual Fall tradition in our family.

Fall Family Fun

Every year on my birthday, Chris watches the entire BBC series of Pride and Prejudice with me. Our kids have both watched with us, and when the Barbie movie showed a scene of this for Clinically Depressed Barbie (lol and also felt this), the kids cracked up in the theatre and laughed and pointed at me. They were right, of course. This is so on brand for me.

We also love the Danish tradition of hygge. Hygge is the ritual of creating warmth and comfort in your home as the light of the days gets shorter through the Fall and Winter months. The creation of comfy space encourages connection, engaged solitutde, rest, and ease to move through the dark seasons without slipping into the darkness of isolation and despair. We light so many unscented candles, light a fire in the fireplace, place throw blankets everywhere, drink warm mugs of things, wear cozy socks, and snuggle on the couch while reading or watching comfort TV like The Great British Baking Show. We love The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking.

I love cooking, and as the days turn cool, the kitchen doesn’t get quite so hot, so cooking and baking become more enticing. This works great because my family loves eating. It’s a match! Do y’all love soups as much as I do in the cooler seasons?

Walking outside as the leaves turn is good for processing emotion, releasing the stress cycle, and digesting food. Chris and I love walking and talking together. It’s uninterrupted, not tech time to just be together. In Jane Austen speak, we take a turn about the garden for our constitutions.

I hope you enjoyed these Fall favorites. What are some of your favorites?