Last summer a reader asked if I might consider some advice-giving. The thought of it made me queasy, which meant it was compelling. I put out a call on my Instagram, and a handful of exquisite questions came in. I answered the first one here. I don’t know if I’ll keep doing this - if you’re not Cheryl Strayed advice-giving is maybe kinda cringe1 - but by-golly there are a lot of broken hearts bumper-car-ing around right now, so! Here is an offering from mine to yours. Thanks to these two sweetie-askers for their epic patience.
Question: Sometimes I put up with things to keep the peace… When should I put my foot down?
Oh, peacekeeper. I’ve been rehearsing peacekeeping since childhood, learning the fancy footwork, memorizing the blocking down to the well-timed joke and the anticipated need. I’ve kept the peace through a long drive in a bad snowstorm with a screaming baby, my raw nipple in her razor gums, hunched over her carseat, biting my tongue so hard I lost taste for a day, resisting combustion. I’ve kept the peace in the quiet of a perfect forest, listening to Matt Galloway explain the coronavirus, a birthday cake calmly baking in the oven that was a performance of hope that had no one fooled.
I’m still learning how to care less about keeping the peace, and more about keeping clear, kind, and true. I fail at this a lot of the time. But, when I don’t, I feel more alive, more messy, more me. It feels easier to manage myself without the vulnerability and chaos of another person. But it’s not actually easier at all.
Your use of putting up and putting your foot down speaks to me of the tension of being pulled in opposite directions. The physicality in “put my foot down” leads me to the body. Let your body be your guide. My first clue is constriction in my throat. What am I not saying? Oh shit. It’s that?! What are your physical cues? Practice the ~ pause ~ to check in. You maybe already know your body’s cues, tuned to listen to this wise knowing.
Somatics practitioner and therapist Prentis Hemphill has a definition of boundaries that I love: “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” Housed within your question is an invitation towards your blessed boundaries, and, if you haven’t already, getting really nitty-gritty specific about what exactly they are. I do this though writing things down. When I put things on a page I see what I mean, I read between my own lines and then write what’s there, the thoughts don’t just swirl into infinity. How might you love yourself, and then another, through the sharing of your needs before they become a snarling, hungry animal? Or a timid quaking? A bff recently reminded me of this Rayya Elias quote: “The truth has legs; it always stands. When everything else in the room has blown up or dissolved away, the only thing left standing will always be the truth. Since that’s where you’re gonna end up anyway, you might as well just start there.”
The moment to plant both feet on the floor is when these first cues reveal themselves. An offering. An extended hand saying, listen. I’m here. Depending on the circumstance this might look like simply noting internally what is happening. Learning yourself by heart. If you’re with someone you trust and/or the circumstance is right, you might say, “I’m noticing my chest feels tight”, or, “Something is coming up for me, but I’m not sure what it is yet.” The courage to step a foot into the unknown. Naming what is true as a doorway to what’s next, the vulnerability to cross through it, your own best friend.
Question: I do not know how to let go of attachment to a former long-term partner and the life we had together. Can you please help?
Attachment is the braid of connection that will not be broken, no matter how much we beg it to tear, or try to rip it in multitudinous ways. The strength of the braid holds on and on and on. Your attachment is your sacred connection to what you had. This attachment deserves your reverence, and, if it’s holding you to something that is no longer and keeping you stuck in a time that is not now, you must undo the ribbon and unbraid the three strands. Only then - in letting all the bits splay and fray - might you find what wants to be woven today.
I was in small town Ontario in the throws of grief, tears soaking pillow after pillow. Drunk with it, I dragged my feet through each morning, day, week. I don’t remember specifics of that time; heartbreak changes the time signature of whole seasons, whole years. What I do remember is the dull thrum of becoming a different shape, and that I knew I couldn’t fight it. I had to let it have it’s way with me. Lighting a beeswax tea light, I got out my notebook and pen. I wrote a eulogy to the relationship that was over. I wrote it in one spill and then read it aloud to myself. It wasn’t for him or them or anyone. It was for me, and for the particular preciousness that had died. I blew out the candle. This action felt a bit forced at first, but in the doing of it, in the speaking it aloud, something released. “Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close,” writes Francis Weller2. Have you marked this ending in a way that calls to you? A choreographed movement ritual? A funeral for the life that you had together, for what you hoped would be long and lasting?
Letting go begs us to yield to her sorrow song and get downright elemental. There is no correct timeline. There is only the truth of meeting yourself. Grief ravages and wrecks, burns away the caked on gripping, clinging, hoping. Both fortunately and unfortunately, as you well know, there are not shortcuts. It’s a river that needs to flow, that swells in Spring, turns in ways that even years later might surprise us. They catch me still: I thought I was done with that! You’re showing up now?! Here?! Agh!
Find the appropriate surfboard (dancing to your favourite song, calling a friend and spilling yourself, walking in a place where you can see a large sky) and ride the wave. You are big enough to hold this sadness. You are strong enough to meet yourself in this swell.
March’s five things
Reading: Greater than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine by Nada Elia.
Listening: Bina Venkataraman on the Planet as a Shared Heirloom on At a Distance (a podcast I’ve been loving).
Making: Lunchbox cookies from the WTF do I feed you?! zine. I sub coconut sugar for brown and cut the white sugar in half. My kid tops them with sprinkles. We’ve made them twice in the last month. So. Good!
Sharing: Commit to your writing practice and moving your pen in a supportive creative community on four consecutive Sundays. Let’s Write: Spring class series starts on Sunday, April 14th from 1 - 3 p.m. EST. Come for one session or tune in weekly - it is magic. I promise.
Learning: Suzanne Simard on How Forests are Wired for Wisdom on On Being.
Thank you for reading, and for being here. If you’ve got a quandary and want my particular (hot) take, you can send it in here. If you enjoy five things, drop a heart or comment! I would be most delighted if you’d share this with your bff.
I don’t know more than you. I just know what I know! And like to shape it into words I can hold in my hands before I change my mind and shape something anew. I am not a therapist, doctor, psychic, mystic, or Ann Landers. 🐰
In his beautiful book The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief.
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