#62 Sitting With and Witnessing Grief: Gemini season 2024 reflections (6/25/24)
🌲Navigating self limiting belief systems by taking new perspectives based upon where I'm at now mentally, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually on old wounds that are resurfacing related to rejection, abandonment, loneliness, and not being good enough.
🌲Choosing joy alongside the pain of Grief.
🌲Opportunities (primarily a family trip to the Cartoon Network Hotel in Lancaster, Pennsylvania) to see how far I've come in my healing journey based upon my ability to self-regulate and come back to center for things that in the past would have left me dysregulated and unbalanced for extended periods of time. In the past a cross country flight, unfamiliar surroundings, different eating patterns and days full of activities (especially in 90 degree heat) would have left me so dysregulated I would struggle to be present. It was so wonderful to see all of the work I've been doing these past few years on healing and settling my nervous system be put into practice and fully enjoy the time with my twin, nieces and husband ❤️.
🌲Reclaiming my magic. Currently reading Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi and it is so good!
🌲Embracing that the styles I like, be it clothing, music, television, hobbies, etc., are a part of what makes me who I am, and there is no need to pretend that what's mainstream is what I like to fit in.
🌲Healing intergenerational trauma
🌲Finished listening to Obsessed: A Memoir of My Life with OCD by Allison Britz and WOW. What a brilliant book. Such a reminder that everything your mind tells you isn't true.
🌲Finished up my 5th year of graduate school! This academic year I passed my generals exams, becoming a PhD candidate and put forth my prospectus. All I have left to do is do my doctoral research and write the dissertation. I am immensely proud of myself for sticking with it despite all of the ups and downs life has thrown at me.
Tarot pulls
Gemini season 2024 recap/lesson?
The grandchildren (the Star)
I foster past/present/future generations within and outside of myself. I am reminded of the grave importance of Nurturing my relationships with my inner child, nieces, twin, transitioned older sister, and husband (Happy 2nd year anniversary honey bunny!) by showing up and tending to them in the now.
| The Grandchildren (The Star) - Hoodoo Tarot |
John Horse (Emperor) and The Bear
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| The Bear - Grandma Baby's Oracle |
My ancestors are with and proud of me as I embark on my revolutionary path of intergenerational healing. Thank you, Mercedes, for being my ancestral guide. This journey requires rebellion, fearless devotion to my calling, trusting in my spirituality and PRIDE. Pulling the Bear card from Grandma Baby's oracle while down at the pond reminds me of another thing this soul purpose journey requires...self-validation and self-worth.
This message is so on point as I've been feeling down about resurfaced mother wounds. At the end of the day, my worth is not tied to anyone's acceptance of me. And I am strong enough to live on and beyond the familial pain I carry each and every day. While my pain, sorrow and grief are a big part of me, they are not all of me.
While many lessons showed up for me this past month, the one that stands out is that the journey of healing is a lifelong one that is never done. Intuitively and logically I already know this, and yet it is so easy to want to rush the process to be over already when suppressed emotions are triggered and resurface. In therapy I expressed my frustration at this fact. Why can't some of the childhood traumas I carry related to abandonment, rejection, loneliness, lack of protection, and ostracization, which leaves me feeling not good enough and not belonging, finally be cured, instead of manifesting as a feeling of having a hole inside of myself? In simple terms, my therapist let me know that it's all about honoring, acknowledging, and working towards integrating all of my parts. That instead of trying to fix myself all of the time, I needed to witness and extend compassion, love and grace to myself.
We did an exercise where I envisioned myself sitting next to the hole.
Not falling in and being consumed by the hole.
Not walking away and abandoning the hole.
Just sitting with and witnessing the hole that I carry within myself.
Interestingly enough, pretty quickly a naturescape filled in the initially blank space surrounding the hole. When asked what this naturescape represented, I said, "it's a reminder of the beauty that coexists alongside the pain." Here, I realized how easy it is to forget my capacity to hold multiple truths and solely see the world through a lens of trauma and darkness when I am in a triggered headspace. I came out of the session with a renewed faith that, while it may take a long time, just maybe all of the positive, beautiful, joyous, meaningful experiences I'll have throughout my life, each being individual bucket fulls, may just fill up the hole within myself enough to be a pond that I can swim in. I also know that the reality of what it means to be human is to experience grief, and especially having complex ptsd, there will be some days when i feel as if I am falling down an endless pit of darkness and sorrow, or drowning in the pond instead of swimming. And I know that that's okay too. Soon enough I'll reground, come back to center, and enjoy sitting next to my hole and witnessing the beauty unfolding around it.
With all that being said, I'll conclude with a prompt inspired by Gemini season, especially Jupiter, the planet of expansion, recent year long transition into Gemini. Feel free to use for anything you see fit, be it a walking meditation, journaling, tarot/oracle card pull, conversation starter, etc.
Q)If I have the choice to do anything (and resources were not an issue) what would I choose to do?
I notice that for me my response to this question is everchanging based upon where I am at in that particular moment. Currently, my response to this question would be to take a family trip to Bali, Indonesia, a destination known for spirituality that my sister Mercedes always wanted to visit. While Mercedes is always on my mind, she is especially present since the 1-year remembrance anniversary of her transition, and 29th birthday, both recently passed. I miss you, Mercedes. I love you, Mercedes. Thank you for being my guardian angel and watching over me.
until next time, with Love, the DLB
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