the dirt road
You opened this email, now you have a choice.
In option no. 1 I have written another by accident, probably too intense piece about how it is a real gift to be pushed to the breaking point of your heart and the journey to authentic fullness. You will find words like shame, self compassion, work, emptiness, agony, challenge, dance, Justin Beiber. Maybe this is not for you today! Nope. Not interested. Not what I need! Maybe you are thinking, wait, what, is it possible to feel like one day I might be okay, or like better than ever? Great. You can start to read this and see how it feels. Or you can skip to option no. 2.
option no. 1
the dirt road
The last time I drove this ten mile dirt road my mother was five months dead. I’d spent weeks in agony over the road ever since I’d read about it in the email. I also had a sneaking suspicion that if you broke down anywhere between Indio and Phoenix it was game over for you.
Later I would look back at this week as the beginning of my unfurling into new life.
When my mother died she took my shape with her, and I found myself in the world shapeless, the emoji with just the penciled outline, but also maybe the emoji with all the fog bubbles in front of it, and also the bomb.
I was driving to a five day Mindful Self Compassion intensive with Chris Germer and Kristen Neff in the middle of the Sedona desert. It was March, 2018. It was an accident that I ended up there, but also no accidents. It was my first adventure with my new no shape shape.
A small list of things I am afraid of… flat tires, doors with no locks, being in the middle of nowhere, too many feelings in my body that make me think I am going to die, not die like get cancer, die like just stop working, and snakes. All of these things would be present.
Did I think the intensive would change my life? No, but it did. I still find it hard to share what happened for me that first week, think ice sculpture and blow torch, and maybe you get the idea. I learned that I can give myself the same love and attention that I learned to shower on others, and it placed me right in the center of my own heart. It started to make me my ally and not my enemy. I was so used to being my own worst enemy.
Mindful Self Compassion became the earth so that I could start walking.
I was not healed in one week, we are not healed in one week. I was shown what was possible and given the foundational tools to begin practicing in my actual life. And for some reason I did! I did it all the time. I told everyone about it. I was on a podcast. I brought it to my clients in my psychotherapy practice. I was obsessed.
The idea did not change my life, the practice changed my life, and the practice continues to change my life, by changing my perspective of my experiences.
This past week, exactly eight years later, on purpose, I drove down that ten mile dirt road again. I listened to mostly Love Yourself by Justin Beiber on repeat, which is not about self compassion, and I just drove. Was I nervous, maybe a little bit, but mostly I felt so full. I could feel the way the light breeze touched the boundary of skin on my very own body.
I went back for Mindful Self Compassion, but FOR SHAME!! Please take a moment to allow yourself to pretend you are in a community theatre Shakespeare production, and your line is, FOR SHAME!!! It’s fun, but obviously shame is not! I spent five days turning toward my shame with self compassion, held by three kind and knowing instructors, and forty strangers with open hearts, who were all gathering up their courage to face the scariest parts of themselves.
I faced things, I cried, I had insights, but mostly what I felt was absolute gratitude, mostly what I thought about was the dirt road, about how in the past eight years, despite so much shame about my grief and fear and anxiety that I thought would actually kill me and feeling lost, I was fighting for myself the whole entire time. I was terrified and I turned toward myself, my emptiness, my brokeness, and I kept going. I went back to my room, which thank god, now has locks, and I made a list of all the ways I had turned toward myself; all the ways I had practiced Tender and Fierce Self Compassion, and it was so long!!!
Another way to say this is I worked my ass off because I was terrified that grief was going to kill me. I did not work to escape, I worked to get through. I don’t know why we think that life is supposed to be so safe, look at how we are born and how we die, why do we assume that the ride in between is all microwave dinners and Bachelor episodes? The challenges of life might be the point, they might be the curriculum, they might be the opening to everything that you want. That might be the actual design, and we are over here terrified and mad that we can’t just go to the mall and have a big soft pretzel. Are we selling ourselves short by pretending it’s all supposed to be all good?
The life that we want takes work. I think this is the best news ever!!
I think the phrase time heals all wounds is dumb. Time alone can save us or destroy us, but like the coach Steve Chandler says, most things are made better with time and attention. Attention! I will add work to that. We so often give our agency over to the stars, circumstances, to manifesting, and forget the very basic ingredients of time, attention, action, and practice. What if you let yourself work toward the life you want with self compassion in action? It’s hard, but it’s not complicated.
The last night of the retreat I showed up 15 minutes late to the dance party. I was tired and not sure if I wanted to dance. Eight years ago I walked into that same last night dance, nervous, and determined to start dancing again. It had been years since I’d really let myself dance, and I did it. I have danced so many times since then. I have danced alone and with people. I walked in and just hit the floor. In that forty minutes of dancing to Bruno Mars and Bad Bunny and anything at all, red faced and sweating, I felt total awe and love for the shape I am today. I worked so hard to get here. As I looked around my eyes filled with tears, everyone looked so beautiful, bouncing to their own spirit. They had faced themselves too, and we were all just little open treasure chests beaming the light of everything we have collected so far on this little trip we call life.
When I left I hugged a woman goodbye and she said, it was so nice to meet you, you are just so full.
option no. 2
a random in no order list of things i love
Go ahead and copy and paste your little hearts out.
Judi Boisson rugs. Trader Joe’s Sesame Mochi. Natalie Martin dakota dress. Ho’omana sprays. Maui. Matteo sample sales. My dog, Sunny. Writing Thank you cards. Mindful Self Compassion. Deszo charms. Hibi incense. Colabri Alchemy Rosemary spray. House of Intuition Palo Santo spray. Judi Rosen t shirts. Lee Matthew’s dresses. Sunroom. AA relaxing station in Ojai. Lani’s General Store Palaka bags. James Michner’s Hawaii, despite some very outdated language. The new Wuthering Heights movie. Love Yourself by Justin Beiber. The morning meditation at the Rinzai Zen Mission on Paia. The New York Times Flashback quiz. The work of Chelsea Kinch. My just for myself watercolors. Photographs from my childhood. Furtuna Skin cleansing oil balm. Artline 200 pens. Lolo blankets. Love Story, we will all be saving up for the Selma Optique Aldo sunglasses now, and crying at the final episode! Yves Durif brushes. Ally HIlfiger paintings. Beaches at Vidiots. Mana cards. Strangers by Belle Burden. Nantucket Hospital Thrift. Rainbows. My God Can. Tierra Del Sol gallery. Kunzite. Airplanes. Myself.
Writing down what you love is an act of gratitude, and an easy way to shift your thinking from survival to safety. Our minds are built on millions of years of trying not to die, learning to thrive is relatively new for them, so be easy!
What am I grateful for?
What is going well in my life?
What do I love?
xxJenny
Watercolors by ME <3
