🗺️ Mapping My Avoidance & Meeting My Parts

Hi, Hello, Friends! 🤓

Sunday’s have become my anchor.
They are slow, tender, and intentional without hurrying. That is important for me, because when I don’t slow down and act with intention, that is when my avoidance can easily take over and lead.

This week I had a lot of heaviness that kept coming up for me, but because I was traveling with work, I just didn’t have time to truly sit with the parts that were needing to be held and heard.

So, last night I made myself a cup of hot tea, turned on my nervous system calming sounds, did some grounding into self, and then allowed myself time. Time to think, time to write.
Time to feel.
Time to hear.
Time to understand.
Time to cry.
Time to start to heal.

It is both very difficult for me, and very important, to be slow and intentional. For a very long time, I thought my shutting down meant I was failing at connection, failing at life. I didn’t have a language to understand what flooding was, or how to expand my window of tolerance so that my capacity could hold more.

Friends please know, having some of the language does not mean integation is easy. This stage is quite difficult. I have to constantly give myself RADICAL COMPASSION as I flow through all of this.

Because in reality, my body simply learned to protect me this way a long time ago. My body decided that distance and avoidance was safer than exposure simply because the love I saw growing up didn’t protect me. It demanded silence.

The In-Between

I want to take a side quest to share a little more about this stage.
Because while it is beautiful and I know at times in my writing and posts it can seem romanticized, please know it is also deeply jarring.

The process of deconstructing is not graceful. This is deeply painful, disorienting, and I feel I am flowing most times through very messy. Most days I truly feel like I’m fumbling along the road. But friends, I am on the road. Sometimes albiet battered and bruised by my own patterns…still…I am on the road! I AM ON THE ROAD!

This is the In-Between…the liminal stage. This stage is quiet, but also so very loud. I oscilate between hope and doubt.
This is apparently my nervous system no longer in constant fight or flight. My nervous system (and my entire SELF) is working hard to learn, to understand, and to build a new map with me. My nervous system is learning safety.

It feels heavy.
I am in a deep grieving stage. I feel I am grieving what was, what never was, and the parts of me that survived but could not truly live back then. I also feel I am grieving parts of me that truly died.

Because saying I do not have the capacity is one thing, but I truly have to honor my body and my mind within that. I have to be the anchor, I cannot rush through this. I cannot let my avoidance lead. Because it will.

Last nights Journal Prompts:

• If I close my eyes and think about my parents relationship what did it feel life?
  • Unsafe, small, trapped, not seen, walking on eggshells, like a storm constantly brewing in the background.
• Write a core emotional message I absorbed.
  • Love stays no matter what.
• List a situation or two that shaped this.
  • My parents would have the most terrifying fights. With so much violence… violence can be words too. I have never experienced anything in my life as violent as my childhood.
• How does my body fee now when thinking about it?
  • Nauseous, my abdomen starts hurting, my scars started hurting, my chest feels tight, and my throat feels tight, I feel hot in my face…. I also feel tears coming on.

***This is where I paused in my journaling and I allowed myself time to cry. It is so important to give myself a safe space and the time to feel things without rushing myself to the next moment.

Patterns I Saw Growing Up

Pattern: Love means staying no matter what.
Interpretation: Leaving = betrayal. Staying = loyalty.

Pattern: I must hide and silence the truth to keep peace and to feel loved.
Interpretation: Love stays no matter what, even if it costs your safety.

OF COURSE my body learned:

“We will stay quiet. We will stay distant. We will avoud. THIS will keep us safe.”

But here is the important thing, I’m not in that childhood home anymore.
I get to rewrite the rules.

REWRITING THE RULES!

Old Rule: Love stays no matter what.
New Rule: Love without safety isn’t love, that is captivity.

OKAY, let’s dive into journal prompts and I’ll share again what I’m using. (I AM NOT a professional or a licensed clinician, I only want to share my story and learn as I go. I very much encourage seeking out a licensed clinician to help you through if you’re on this journey.)

This Week’s Journaling Prompt 🖋️.
It doesn’t always stay exactly the same, but right now, this is what’s helping and holding me the most.
We are truly learning together so please adapt it for where you are today.

💭 A part that’s present today:
Who showed up the loudest in me this week?
(the part that avoids hard conversations, the protector that stays “cool,” the exile afraid of losing safety)

🌀 Name the emotion:
What is this part feeling right now?
(shame, grief, a deep longing, fear of loss)

🧠 What is my body telling me?
Where do I feel this most?
(throat tightening, face getting hot, nauseous, shallow breath, stomach flipping)

🌸 What helped or what is holding?
What can I offer this part right now?
(I tell her, “We are safe here. We can speak and still be loved.” “We can put this down, we don’t have to carry this anymore, or even just for right now.”)

🪞 Integration. How I will walk with this part today:
I will let her rest without forcing her to change.
I will notice when I pull back, and ask myself if safety is possible here.