Should I be ashamed of this?
About wintering, storms, mountains, and the magic of shame when it is met with love.
CARE.CHECK*: what is one thing you tried to share with someone that couldn’t be received? What did you make it mean about your story? What did you make it mean about them? What did you make it mean about you?
And is there room for you to revisit what happened after reading today’s post?
[In case this letter gets cut in the email, you can click HERE to read the full post now :)]
Hello my Care Friend,
How are you?
It’s a very tricky question, isn’t it?
When you don’t want to brush it aside and fawn your way out of it. When you’re in this for the truth of who we are—and not for what looks good on an IG feed. When you really mean it, when you really want to know and answer honestly. ”How are you?” “Gosh… Where do I begin?”
It’s snowing in New York today and it looks enchanting. I needed that more than ever, because nothing else feels good right now. Nothing feels vibrant, alive or hopeful. Everything feels like a figurative winter.
So it seems this year I will not have a choice: I’m being called towards Wintering. And I’m an eager student of life, so I ordered Katherine May’s book called Wintering this morning. I take my learning assignments seriously.
Also, as you probably remember, I write this newsletter from a Flower Cafe, and let me tell you that sitting in a Flower Cafe the week of Valentine’s Day is another kind of experience! I thought I knew what being surrounded by flowers felt like… I was wrong. Who knew roses came in that many colors? Who knew so many people still bought each other flowers? (Now that’s a little glimmer of hope right there…)
** ABOUT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
Anyway, if you looked at me right now you’d probably think I’m doing very well.
I smile to everyone my eyes fall upon, because I’ve never been more aware of how much kindness matters. I look at the snow in awe, and upon the flowers in wonder. I sip my delicious Oat decaf latte and I savor the joy of writing to you.
Watching the snowflakes dance through the window, I’m more aware than ever of how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful apartment that is the embodiment of a dream come true—and where I can enjoy the snow because I don’t sleep underneath it.
Finally, I’m listening to a very empowering Broadway soundtrack—because manifestation comes through the senses not the mind… and because what’s better on Earth than a Broadway song? (Warning: This is a rhetorical question and any example will be received as a personal attack).
On Sunday, my magical friend Rick and I finished the lead sheet music of my latest song (You Can Love, an hymn to the souls and love we are underneath our trauma and shadow), and we started working on an accompaniment, that feels like soul medicine to my weary heart.
Creating music with Rick is probably the most sacred part of my daily life right now… I have no words to describe it. Only a feeling: Love… and maybe the picture below!
Yes, a little swan brings the notes that she found in her heart to a magician, who then figures out how to put the melody and rhythm on paper. He then writes, in return, the answer the piano holds to the song… And from there, stars are born in the darkness and baby trees can blossom to bless the world.
Magic. Miracles. Awe. Enchantment. Love
Not one word can define this.
How could we ever put the experience flow into words?
* How could we ever put the experience flow into words? *
I have many more reasons to be very grateful at the moment:
My closest friends and chosen family are healthy and welcoming babies, magic, music and they often share their kind words and gestures with me.
I’m healthy too! and I get to tell them I love them in a thousand different ways.
I have a job, I live in the city of my dreams, I can sing—which is a great relief for someone whose greatest love is singing—and I can write—which is a profound relief for someone who mostly finds solace and meaning through written words.
I also get to walk alongside many beautiful souls on their healing journey, while my own coach graciously supports me on mine.
So I guess I don’t just look fine; I MUST be ecstatic and in a constant blissful state of gratefulness and peace.
And in some ways, I am!
And in any case, that’s what I desperately want you to see and believe, because within me grief still feels shameful and like failure.
And I've experienced such a great amount of grief that I live under a MOUNTAIN of shame (big words deserve big letters)!
** ABOUT WHAT SHAME MOUNTAINS FEELS LIKE
This is not a sad realization. I’m used to that mountain.
It feels like part of my normal weight, it feels familiar, it feels normal. In some ways it feels like an anchor even! My incredibly optimistic and enthusiastic nature can take me to incredible highs… So as a human who could never let her roots grow anywhere until now, I don’t have a great sense of grounding. I NEED an anchor!
So, yes, I wish it was a more earthy, soulful, enlivening one than the weight of a troubled past, but you know… it works for now.
And I can deal with the mountain! I know HOW to deal with the mountain, I grew up with the mountain. The mountain is not only a burden, it’s my travel companion, it’s always been there for me. For better AND for worse, that mountain is my friend.
However, carrying a mountain in the middle of a storm feels like a stretch… and I’m in the middle of a very scary storm at the moment.
** ABOUT WHAT I WON’T SHARE AND WHY
**** ON THE JOB OF A WRITER
I’m not ready to share the details because, even though I believe it is the job of a writer to put into words what cannot be named, I also know we need to heal our wounds before anyone (including us) can benefit from their wisdom.
And right now, this wound is a work in progress. The knife is in my chest, and it is still cutting its way through my flesh. I have no way of knowing how or when it will stop. I guess I'm just on a losing streak… and still writing the chapters where we define all that is wrong before we can tackle the part of the books from which the solutions arise.
* We need to heal our wounds before anyone
(including us)
can benefit from their wisdom.*
**** ON VULNERABILITY (and our CAPACITY)
I won’t share the details, also because it feels way too vulnerable. My story is not a very usual one and, as my dear coach reminded me yesterday, when you mix trauma and death, you mix the two subjects people have the least capacity for! And so my feelings of utter loneliness make sense…
Not because no one cares.
We ALL care. Human beings are compassionate loving beings to our core. We. All. Care. Caring is never the problem… The problem is our so-called defenses, those walls we build around our hearts because we think we need them to protect us—not realizing that we’re cutting ourselves from our greatest source of strength.
Our nervous systems are wired to protect us. When there is a cue of danger, they close us up. And until we learn how to understand our inner system and to rewire those instinctual ways we learned in childhood, we have no way to override those protective mechanisms.
I witness them within me daily, I witness them within those I see for coaching weekly, and I witness them within those who surround me. Because we all have them! Because we’re built this way.
* Caring is never the problem…
The problem is our so-called defenses,
those walls we build around our hearts
because we think we need them to protect us.*
And it’s of paramount importance to remember we can only meet others as deep as we’ve met ourselves. And that doesn’t mean “once upon a time, I connected deeply with my heart and now I can connect with any heart or hurt of the world!”. No, that means as deep as we’ve connected with ourselves at least once, AND ALSO as deep as we’ve connected with ourselves TODAY.
For instance, I’ve followed my shadow to very dark corners of my psyche… and there’s very little you cannot confide in me that will not be met by compassion and understanding. I’m not scared of anger, shame, or grief. I’m not scared of suicidal thoughts or hateful pleas. I got to test this in a jail hospital and at the school of the work with people who confessed to rapes or murders. I get to test it daily, when relating to those who abused me when they were supposed to protect me. I got to test it on the oncology ward for more than ten years. I got to test it!
AND that doesn’t mean I can meet you in the shadows, at any given time on any given day. It doesn’t mean that I will be able to bring or welcome that degree of intimacy within any relationship. It doesn’t mean I can hold space for you when I feel empty. It doesn’t mean I’ll be able to listen deeply, feelingly, with my whole heart and body, when I’m sleep deprived, scared, thirsty, slightly triggered or completely dysregulated!
I can hold a safe space for you when my nervous system is anchored in ventral vagal energy, when I feel embodied and breathed by Soul energy. I can’t hold a safe space for you when there is no safe place within me.
* We can only meet others as deep as we’ve met ourselves
at least once AND TODAY.*
I’ve tried to open up on what I'm going through in the past week, and it wasn’t always received. Someone ignored it completely, blanked, shared nothing; someone rationalized, minimized; someone remained cold and uncaring. And I understand why. I do. And I know it doesn’t mean anything about “them” and that it didn’t mean anything about me. I know that with all my being!
Yes, I know that and it STILL hurt—very, very deeply. It still felt like validation of my most paralyzing fear. Validation that my grief is indeed shameful, that I failed at life, that there’s something really wrong with me… That I’m way too much for others AND nowhere near enough for happiness to waste its time on me.
**** ON WHAT IFs
So that’s another reason why I won’t share what I'm going through… because what if you can’t hold it? What if you can’t hold me… What if that’s just too much for you too, and you just want none of it? What if I feel rejected and unwanted again… What if I’m right to believe that people only love me when I can help and resent me the second I need help in return? What. If.
Now, what if works both ways of course!
What if you receive my story? What if you rush to hug my heart, and what if you can share some of the light I can’t seem to find anywhere within me at the moment? What if I am right to trust human beings’ beauty and goodness so deeply, and what if the rainbow in this storm will be to finally witness that I am not alone anymore? What if you want to know? What if you want me to know that you’re here and that nothing could be too dark for you to help me carry it? What. If.
* What if works BOTH ways.*
**** ON WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE
What I know is this: it is no one else’s job to take care of me. It’s not even my friends or chosen family’s job. It’s my sacred responsibility.
It’s my job only—and that also means that it’s especially not YOUR job to take care of me.
I don’t write because I want you to heal me. I don’t write because I want to heal you.
I write because writing and reading are healing.
** ABOUT MY PROMISE TO YOU TODAY
I write about what I learned on my healing journey, because those who shared what they had learned on theirs showed me how to save ME.
Our healing journey is like a magical tree whose fruits can seed within others the tree of healing. And as my tree grows, I’ll keep on turning those holy fruits into words and songs, so that you can seed within yourself a garden of awe and resilience.
I’ll keep on showing up to give us permission to suffer, to ache, to shake, to rage, to HATE. I’ll keep on showing up to give us permission to devote our life to our spark and all our precious energy to our dreams.
I’ll keep on showing up to give us permission to sing, to dance, to write, to mess up, to succeed, to believe in the world, to refuse magic thinking, to believe in MAGIC, and to refuse to refuse hope when hope is the elixir of Life.
I’ll keep on showing up because I know pain and I know healing and I have capacity to feel and I have capacity to HEAL, and because what I have is needed and is meant to be shared and received.
And I pledge to show up on this page never expecting anything in return that the chance and privilege to maybe write something that will help you, the way Maya Angelou’s, Liz Gilbert’s, Oprah Winfrey’s, Glennon Doyle, Andrea Gibson, Eckhart Tolle or Pema Chodron’s words (to only name a few of those treasured angels) helped me.
* Our healing journey is like a magical tree
whose fruits can seed within others
the tree of healing.*
I'll show up on this page to share all the magic that I’ve encountered, since I chose love and hope as my guides and surrendered to my dreams.
And I’ll show up on this page to tell you that I still have nightmares everyday, that early childhood trauma never completely disappears, that some people are scripted in meanness and cruelty and that some others have no capacity to hold our stories and our truths… and that IT’S OKAY.
Life is not supposed to be perfect. Life IS a fairy tale—and, in every fairy tale, there is an abundance of tragedy and horror alongside the beauty, the songs and the enchanting synchronicities.
I’ll keep on showing up to prove that it’s allowed and GOOD to share everything, and that it can feel SAFE to share everything.
I’ll keep on showing up to prove that it’s allowed and good to NOT share anything in spaces where it doesn’t feel safe to share something.
I’ll keep on showing up because maybe if I give a voice and a platform to my shame, yours will not feel so overwhelming anymore… and then my shame will not have been in vain, my shame will have turned into magic.
So today more than ever, THANK YOU FOR READING.
With kindness, love and light—because I truly believe they’re our most sacred offering to this world.
Always,
leo
* One last love note if you’re new here and wondering what is a Care.Check:
Self-care is the gateway to self-love, and self-love is the womb of self-creation.
Self-creation is how we become all that we were meant to be. How we turn our sacred dream into reality! How we embody our gifts so that we can share them with our beautiful hearts… and this extraordinary world.
THIS is why self-care matters so much. Because, ultimately, this is how we serve the world.
And to truly take care of ourselves, we need to understand ourselves—which means both our inner system and our vision of the world—deeply. We need self-connection.
Which is why we need to understand our body (our home and temple), our heart (our compass and anchor in love), our mind (our formidable assistant) and our parts (this inner family that has always lived beneath our skin and that IFS is revealing to us now).
So those weekly (newsletter) and daily (in Notes) Care.Checks are here to guide us back to our truth and intuition—while we travel this fascinating and soulful journey on Earth, together.