FROM HURTING TO HEALING - MY DESERT TAKEAWAYS - PART TWO
I hope you got some time to reflect on some of what I shared in my last post about healing my heart wounds in the desert last year. It feels heavy to me to write about it without rushing ahead to the revelations and relief, but I don’t think that would do the process justice.
Besides, it’s not honest. We don’t heal deep wounds quickly; not and have the healing last. No, it takes time sitting in and with those things that break (or threaten to devastate) us. It’s been almost a year since I took this trip into the desert and am just beginning to see the thread of this weaving through so many things before I actually got to Arizona. Look at this post that I wrote in March of last year - five months before I dug into my trauma.
I share this to connect with others who are searching for meaning within before seeing it in the physical, tangible world (instead of the other way around). This has happened time and time again in my life, but this last experience of being widowed for the second time is opening me up to seeing and understanding this in a whole new way.
Let me share more about this with the last five takeaways from my time in the desert last summer.
SIX. THE SOCIAL ATOM
I KNOW that I won’t do the explanation of this activity justice, but I will say that it was one of the most impactful (and painful) exercises for me while in the desert. I think our lead therapist was reading the room and knew that the visual learners (me, me! I’m truly a visual learner) needed a shift from the talking and experiential exercises.
He went to the large white board and drew a few shapes and explained what they should represent when you completed this activity for yourself.
Circles represent women.
Triangles represent men.
Rectangles represent organizations, communities and/or commitments.
Broken/dotted shapes represent those who have died.
In the middle of the page is you.
So, I put a circle in the middle of the page and wrote “me”. Then added God, and a dotted triangle to symbolize Mark. And then the rest of the shapes are added on the page in proximity to you (in the center) based upon how connected and how high of a priority they are in your life.
We had time to work on this activity during group time and I went to town on it. I could do this. Except, I found myself getting quiet and tearing up because I could see what I’d been doing in my life. I could clearly and quickly identify why I was so overwhelmed and constantly abandoning the person in the middle of the page.
My first draft of my Social Atom was so filled with shapes - mainly circles and rectangles - that I had little to no space on the page to get to everyone and give them what they needed and still take care of myself.
Normally, I would share my input and response to the activities when invited to do so, but during the sharing portion of this activity, I was completely quiet and incredibly angry.
No wonder my life wasn’t working. I had somehow swallowed the lie that I was responsible for all of these other relationships and people when that wasn’t at all true. The rectangles were daunting too - they included things like social media, social justice, work, church, volunteerism, therapy and a lot of things I’d said “yes” to long ago but needed to stop and exit since resentment and exhaustion had set in.
The purpose of the “social atom activity is to explore and help map an individual’s social network and relationships and to represent the interconnectedness and emotional significance of people in someone’s life.” You can type “The Social Atom” into your search engine and delve into this further if you’ve found yourself thinking about who is around you and what that feels like in your body and soul.
I went back to my room during quiet hours and sat with my paper and cried. I could see how much I believed that giving of myself - at the expense of myself - caused me to abandon myself. I didn’t really know where I fit in the lives of these people and these organizations that I was giving my time, attention and energy to. Besides, there were too many people to be clear about the connection.
I re-did the activity that night and sat with the revised version by my side as I type this.
I will wait until August (at the one year anniversary) to do it again, but I can see where shifts have happened from being willing to be more honest about what I have to offer and who gets to benefit from it.
Try not to be surprised and anticipate the shift that is coming.
When we are anticipating growth and change how we show up in/experience the world, it impacts all the things outside of us.
SEVEN. YOUR ENVIRONMENT IS PLAYING A PART
When saying yes to the first opening available at this intense trauma workshop experience, I did not care about the location. It was only after I booked my flight and paid for the program that I started to doubt the decision to go to Arizona (and the desert) in August.
Like, who does that?!?
Well…
Me and a lot of other people.
There were five of us in my group, but there were at least 20 other people who had also come to the desert to do their own work in different programs on different paths to healing. And there was something about that that resonated with me.
I’ve been in 1:1 therapy off and on over the past twenty years since Chad (my first husband who died from injuries sustained while serving in Iraq) got injured. There have been a lot of benefits from therapy and being able to talk about digging into the things that have happened to me. I’m a fan of the work.
But, the intensive, group work was totally my jam.
A group of like-minded people willing to take the time and put resources toward dealing with their pain in healthy ways in an environment that was quiet and set up to be safe; it was everything.
And it’s something that takes a lot of work for me to replicate at home or when traveling for work. I know that I talk a lot about being quiet and still and I don’t think that’s going to go away, but before this intensive time, I thought all quality processing needed to be done with others guiding me.
I do still think this is important - very important! Get thee to therapy friends!!! - and I also think it’s important what you do with the guidance you gained or were gifted when you have to walk alone. So, while I value the community we built during those five days in the desert, I have since recognized the significance of managing my environment to help move me toward the wholeness and healing that has often eluded me.
This section will be a future blog post because I think our home environment is a battleground that many of us are losing on the way to peace and real rest. I know it has been for me, but I attribute the set up in the desert - outdoor seating, walking paths, water features, circles for dining, optional activities for movement and further self reflection and the “no cell phone rule” to be instrumental in helping me relax and be present in doing the work I’d set out there to do.
EIGHT. NO PHONE
We were not permitted to be in possession of our phones outside of our rooms. Period.
Thems the rules and no one broke them.
I thought it would be harder than it was. By Tuesday, I was relieved to not concern myself with opening up my heart and doing this very difficult work only to have someone grab or glance at their device.
I have a good friend who gently reminds me of the worldwide addiction that exists with our devices. I definitely go through seasons, but before this time in the desert, I was addicted to my device primarily because of my strong attachment to Instagram.
I enjoyed making the stories, playing with filters, making reels or sharing content I thought would help others or show what a sliver of what it was like to be widowed a second time. I was out there in them Instagram streets really trying to connect. Or that’s what I told myself.
When in fact, I’d been trying to gain attention and finally crack the algorithm for more followers to boost my ego. I was lonely and looking for connection in my device and in a world that was largely doing the same. I couldn’t have articulated this at the time, but being without my phone for a week was the catalyst for me stepping back from this thing I’d become addicted to in order to re-evaluate its value in my life.
On the Sunday that I checked into the inpatient program, it was the 19th anniversary of my first husband’s death. Only a few people knew the depth of my pain and where I was going to be that week. And when I finally went to bed that night in anticipation of starting this thing, I knew that there was no part of this I could share on Instagram without explaining more. And “more” wasn’t yet accessible. I wasn’t completely sure why I was there and didn’t know how to share sincerely without hiding behind my ego.
So, I deleted the app from my phone and asked God to show me what to do when I came to the end of the week and was ready to head back into the world.
On Friday morning after completing the week, I KNEW that I needed to leave Instagram off of my phone. I committed to leaving the app for six months - which would turn out to be my 52nd birthday.
I’ve only been back on it a couple of times since August of last year. And most of the time when I think about it, I wonder where the time I gave it would come from. There are so many other things that are in my life that are getting my attention - mainly my soul - which have been neglected for so long.
I’m just beginning to talk about my break from social media more publicly because I think we need to be reminded that life can be lived beautifully and boldly without giving over our time and attention to something that takes so much and gives so little. I don’t want to be preachy about it, but when I’m honest, I have to admit that it is not really restful for most of us which is clear in the way we feel when we are on it, even for short periods of time and for the benefits we say we get from it but could gain in creative ways without using it to distract us from the connections we really long for.
This takeaway has changed a lot for me and I hope to create some guidance and support for how to leave social media and what to replace it with so that it’s easier to prioritize living from a posture of real rest.
NINE. COPING MECHANISMS
After everything that came up during the short week that the five of us were together working with our two group facilitators, I was doubtful that we would be ready to be released. Okay, I’ll speak for myself…
I was VERY ANXIOUS about boarding my flight from Phoenix to Seattle at the end of that intense week. It felt a lot like being released from the hospital with a newborn; I needed more information.
Turns out, we had gained a lot of tools to cope and continue our healing in that short time frame. It hurt to acknowledge that my anxiety was coming from the fact that leaving meant living these lessons and learning new ones. During the work, I realized that I was carrying so much stress in my very dysregulated nervous system because I saw all of this work as a list of things to tackle and complete, rather than embody and evolve with.
I was terrified I would slip back into old patterns and be worse off having learned that I am responsible for my own healing and movement in the world.
We were given lots of coping mechanisms and a FREE support network to access a lot of help. I returned home and continued 1:1 therapy until January of this year, I prioritized whimsy and play which was something I knew I wanted to embrace. But, I still had a long way to go in considering 12 step programs near me, regular exercise, nutrition that fueled my body in the best way, quality, consistent sleep, learning to self-soothe in healthy ways, delving into passions and hobbies and (ta da!!!) good rest and alone time.
None of this stuff was rocket science. None of the stuff was difficult to do. But, I did not really sit with it and fully implement things consistently until recently. That is okay, but I’m realizing how significant the small things are toward living the big and beautiful life God has for us.
This is an area of growth for me for sure and I’m glad that our final morning together was filled with giving us tangible tools and next steps for us to pursue.
TEN. THE NEED FOR EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY
The culmination of it all…
The need to be emotionally sober in my spirit.
You’ve read about the pain that pushed me into this intense, life-changing week in the desert. It was all of those things that left me recognizing how much of myself I had abandoned to avoid the truth of my feelings about all I’ve been through and experienced to this point in my life.
All of it has had an impact and until recently, I’ve recognized how clouded, drunk and out of control I’ve been in the world because I haven’t had the emotional clarity about what I am feeling and who I truly am.
I stayed busy attempting to prove my value to others instead of simply living valued.
I hustled to demonstrate my worth rather than walking in the high value that is within me simply because I exist.
I accepted harmful, disrespectful treatment because I did not believe that I was loved.
And when you strive to prove your value, hustle to demonstrate your worth and settle to feel some semblance of love, you cloud your emotional well-being. Our emotions are an integral part of our souls - our essence - they reflect our harmony or disharmony between our internal selves and the external world.
My soul has been detoxing since the desert. Coming back into alignment with the inner self that has been distracted by so many of the wrong things for so much of my life. This is the takeaway that I think requires the most consideration and ongoing effort right now because this is not my default response.
Nope, my ego runs this mess.
And I’ll bet yours does most of the time too.
Being “emotionally sober” means that you’re comfortable being present with all your emotions without them controlling you. This is my focus for recovery. This is where I pray for change and healing. I am desperate to be in alignment with what is within without letting it control me.
This is currently my quiet, solitude work that is moving me closer to who God says I am and who I am meant to be in the world and I’m so excited to share it with you in the coming weeks and months - especially as I make the clear connection between emotional sobriety, checking that ego, energy alignment and real rest.
It’s been a journey into the desert and now here almost a year later. I hope you’ll stick around and continue to read as I share more about this in a way that I pray resonates with you and nudges you toward being real rested.
