Hearts-In-Healing Therapy

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“A grown man looms behind my three-year-old daughter. Occasionally he will poke or tickle her and she responds by shrinking. Smaller and smaller with each unwanted advance. I imagine her trying to become slight enough to slip out of her booster seat and slide under the table.

When my mother views this scene, she sees playful taunting. A grandfather engaging with his granddaughter.

“Mae.” My tone cuts through the din of a familiar family gathering together. She does not look at me.

“Mae.” I start again. “You can tell him no Mae. If this isn’t okay you could say something like, Papa, please back up—I would like some space for my body.”

As I say the words, my step-father, the bulldog, leans in a little closer, hovering just above her head. His tenebrous grin taunts me as my daughter accordions her 30-pound frame hoping to escape his tickles and hot breath.

I repeat myself with a little more force. She finally peeks up at me.

“Mama . . . can you say it?”

Surprise. A three-year-old-girl doesn’t feel comfortable defending herself against a grown man. A man that has stated he loves and cares for her over and over again, and yet, stands here showing zero concern for her wishes about her own body. I ready myself for battle.

“Papa! Please back up! Mae would like some space for her body.”

My voice is firm but cheerful. He does not move.

“Papa. I should not have to ask you twice. Please back up. Mae is uncomfortable.”

“Oh, relax,” he says, ruffling her wispy blonde hair.
The patriarchy stands, patronizing me in my own damn kitchen. “We’re just playin’.” His southern drawl does not charm me.

“No. You were playing. She was not. She’s made it clear that she would like some space, now please back up.”

“I can play how I want with her.” He says, straightening his posture.

My chest tightens. The sun-bleached hairs on my arms stand at attention as this man, who has been my father figure for more than three decades, enters the battle ring.

“No. No, you cannot play however you want with her. It’s not okay to ‘have fun’ with someone who does not want to play.”

He opens his mouth to respond but my rage is palpable through my measured response. I wonder if my daughter can feel it. I hope she can.

He retreats to the living room and my daughter stares up at me. Her eyes, a starburst of blue and hazel, shine with admiration for her mama. The dragon has been slayed (for now). My own mother is silent. She refuses to make eye contact with me.

This is the same woman who shut me down when I told her about a sexual assault I had recently come to acknowledge.

This is the same woman who was abducted by a carful of strangers as she walked home one night. She fought and screamed until they kicked her out. Speeding away, they ran over her ankle and left her with a lifetime of physical and emotional pain.

This is the same woman who said nothing, who could say nothing as her boss and his friends sexually harassed her for years.

This is the same woman who married one of those friends.

When my mother views this scene, she sees her daughter overreacting. She sees me ‘making a big deal out of nothing.’ Her concerns lie more in maintaining the status quo and cradling my step-dad’s toxic ego than in protecting the shrinking three-year-old in front of her.

When I view this scene, I am both bolstered and dismayed. My own strength and refusal to keep quiet is the result of hundreds, probably thousands of years of women being mistreated, and their protests ignored. It is the result of watching my own mother suffer quietly at the hands of too many men. It is the result of my own mistreatment and my solemn vow to be part of ending this cycle.

It would be so easy to see a little girl being taught that her wishes don’t matter. That her body is not her own. That even people she loves will mistreat and ignore her. And that all of this is “okay” in the name of other people, men, having fun.

But. What I see instead is a little girl watching her mama. I see a little girl learning that her voice matters. That her wishes matter. I see a little girl learning that she is allowed and expected to say no. I see her learning that this is not okay.

I hope my mom is learning something, too.

Fighting the patriarchy one grandpa at a time.”

~ By Lisa Norgren

She sat at the back and they said she was
shy
She led from the front and they hated her
pride
They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance
They branded her loud then were shocked by her silence

When she shared no ambition, they said it was
sad
So she told them her dreams and they said she was mad
They told her they’d listen then covered their
ears
And gave her a hug whilst they laughed at her
fears

And she listened to all of it thinking she
should
Be the girl they told her to be best as she
could
But one day she asked what was best for
herself
Instead of trying to please everyone
else

So she walked to the forest and stood with the
trees
She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves
And she spoke to the willow, the elm and the
pine
And she told them what she’d been told time after time

She told them she felt she was never enough
She was either too little or far, far too much
Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak
Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek

Then she found a small clearing surrounded by
firs
And she stopped and she heard what the trees said to her
And she sat there for hours not wanting to
leave
For the forest said nothing, it just let her

breathe

💚💚💚

The beautiful picture is by Siski Kalla from our children’s book of this poem
https://a.co/d/6fcwvfj

And the poem itself is also in the collection Talking to the Wild
https://a.co/d/9FFiRrW

Made this little post this weekend. Hope you like it. Have a great week everyone👊👊👊

The Agony of Anxious Attachment and How to Attract Better Relationships - Tiny Buddha If you in a toxic cycle of anxiously clinging to people with avoidant attachment styles, this might help you break your pattern.

Let life humble you.

Leonard Cohen said his teacher once told him that, the older you get, the lonelier you become, and the deeper the love you need. This is because, as we go through life, we tend to over-identify with being the hero of our stories.

This hero isn’t exactly having fun: he’s getting kicked around, humiliated, and disgraced. But if we can let go of identifying with him, we can find our rightful place in the universe, and a love more satisfying than any we’ve ever known.

People constantly throw around the term “hero’s journey” without having any idea what it really means. Everyone from CEOs to wellness influencers thinks the hero’s journey means facing your fears, slaying a dragon, and gaining 25k followers on Instagram. But that’s not the real hero’s journey.

In the real hero’s journey, the dragon slays YOU. Much to your surprise, you couldn’t make that marriage work. Much to your surprise, you turned forty with no kids, no house, and no prospects. Much to your surprise, the world didn’t want the gifts you proudly offered it.

If you are foolish, this is where you will abort the journey and start another, and another, abusing your heart over and over for the brief illusion of winning. But if you are wise, you will let yourself be shattered, and return to the village, humbled, but with a newfound sense that you don’t have to identify with the part of you that needs to win, needs to be recognized, needs to know. This is where your transcendent life begins.

So embrace humility in everything. Life isn’t out to get you, nor are your struggles your fault. Every defeat is just an angel, tugging at your sleeve, telling you that you don’t have to keep banging your head against the wall. Leave that striver there, trapped in his lonely ambitions. Just walk away, and life in its vastness will embrace you.

~ Paul Weinfield Coaching, Paul Weinfield

https://www.paulweinfieldcoaching.com

[Art: Mikko Raima]

Sending virtual hugs to everyone who needs it this holiday season. 💙

❤️❤️
(Pinterest)

The Best Thing to Say to Someone Who Won’t Understand You - Tiny Buddha One of our strongest desires in life is to feel understood, but some people won't even make an effort to understand. Here's how I've learned to respond.

The Problem With Believing in Manifesting Ignoring reality and leaving too many feeling guilty.

The Third Thing: Poet Donald Hall on the Secret to Lasting Love “Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment.”

Artistic Afternoons: If you have been hurt in friendship (and who among us has not?), consider engaging with this practice today: visible mending. Take an article of clothing that has gotten too holey to wear (or a piece of cloth that you intentionally tear for this project, to represent the brokenness in the friendship. Sit with the piece of clothing for a bit—whether it’s a sock or a sweater or jeans that just got too torn. Hold your friendship as you hold the cloth.

Then, take a needle and colorful, thick thread, and mend the hole or tear in a way that will continue to be part of the piece, seen whenever you put it on. You could look up the art of visible mending for inspiration—there are so many gorgeous upcycled pieces to browse through for ideas! As you stitch, let your body process with your soul the pain in the relationship and your desire for mending. When you have finished repairing the cloth, sit with it in your lap for a bit. What has come up in the process? What are you feeling invited to in this particular area of friendship? Let this bit of cloth or piece of clothing remind you of this invitation and your own desire—for the beauty of a mended whole, a friendship even more beautiful for the brokenness and the repair.

(And if you have been hurt in a friendship and it is not time to lean into it, feel free to stop with the part where you’re just sitting with the hole or tear. No stitches. No mending yet. Let it be the truth of what it is for your soul. Wonder with God a bit about what might be in store.)

*Image is of a mural in El Cotillo, Fuertaventura, Spain, by Conor O'Nolan on Unsplash.

Exercise creates Neuroplasticity!

Balance exercises improve brain function!

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29959048/

🫁🫁🫁🫁

Neuroplasticity

Every thought, feeling or action that we engage in triggers thousands of neurons that join together to form neural networks.

The more we engage in a particular thought, feeling or action, the more we strengthen the associated neural networks, the quicker signals can be processed, until eventually signals can be processed almost instantly.

6 Simple Ways to Stimulate the Vagus Nerve!

A quick, simple way to stimulate the vagus nerve⚡️⚡️⚡️