I was out running recently, and the trail, while made of mostly concrete, was a mess! Small branches, leaves, and other bits of debris entirely covered large sections. It’s near a couple of ponds, and it appeared some high waters from the ponds had washed out onto the path, to the point that it was “squishy” like a dirt/mud path rather than firm under foot. 

I have this habit when running – more like an impulse – to kick stuff off of paths where I run. I’ve hurt my toes a time or two trying to kick stuff that was harder or heavier than it looked. There was a time, several years ago, when running on a roadway, a plastic bottle was in my pathway. It appeared to be an empty white bottle. Turns out, it was a clear plastic bottle that someone had filled with white paint. And the lid was not on it. Those two running shoes were both ruined immediately! The shoe that I kicked the bottle with got the worst of it, but the other shoe was splattered in the process. I ran with them anyway, because they were almost brand new, but there was some embarrassment on my part every time I put them on. I couldn’t wait to get enough miles on them to feel okay about replacing them!

Back to the recent run…I was thinking about those ruined shoes on this run, and kept telling myself don’t kick the sticks. And still, I did kick a few. And yeah…my shoes were muddy /messy by the time my run was over. I also got to thinking about all the other times I’ve done impulsive things through my life. For instance, the time I stuck scissors in an electrical outlet. Or the time I got banned from my (step)mom’s favorite fabric store. And then I remembered a photo my wife sent me recently, and the brief text exchange that followed:

So… yeah, my wife was taking her mom thrift shopping, and she came upon this plunger, stuck to the floor, then she thought it would be funny to tell me about it. Or, rather, tell me about it. 

You see, when I was a kid, my family – probably the five of us at the time, with me being the youngest, most spontaneous, and most curious, all went to a hardware store. I could probably just stop there… 

We did a lot of things all together back in the day. I think it was my newly married “blended family” parents’ way of trying to normalize and unify our family unit. We all do things together, all do things the same. It felt like rigidity to me. At some point during the excursion, probably when the parentals were focused on whatever they came to get, I wandered off on my own and onto the plumbing aisle. And I mean, what’s a young, impulsive kid gonna do when he sees a bunch of rubber plungers with wooden handles all right there in front of him at eye level? Of course, I grabbed one and stuck it to the floor with all my might! I started to grab for another one, but then fear gripped my mind. What if my parents realized I was gone? I was gonna be in a crapload of trouble! 

I turned back to the plunger I’d so forcefully attached to the floor, and pulled. 

It did not budge. Rather, it stood there, mocking me! I was always a little small for my age – maybe because of being born premature? This stupid thing was reminding me just how weak and pathetic I was! Now I was in a full-on panic! I tugged and pulled, keeping an eye on the ends of the aisle. If I had known any foul language, I would’ve used it! I was SO gonna get my bottom busted! Oh, how I wished I was bigger, or smarter, or stronger, or not so disobedient. If only I hadn’t wandered off! How many times had my curiosity gotten me in trouble! Why couldn’t I just be a compliant child?? My face was turning red, my breath shallow and raspy – my gosh darn asthma was flaring up! My arms were shaking and my hands were sweating! And still the plunger stood there and mocked me.

I don’t remember much of what happened after that. I was so distressed, I’m fairly sure I became dissociative. I know someone – or maybe everyone – in my family found me. I know an adult calmly bumped the rubber part of the plunger with their foot to release the suction and put the plunger back on the shelf. Was it a worker? A parent? I couldn’t say.

I know that everyone in my family had a good laugh about it. Except me. I was humiliated!

Did you notice my initial response to my wife’s text?

“And?”

My family members still enjoy bringing up this incident and having a good laugh. A few years ago, my little sister, who wasn’t even born when it happened, gave me a tiny keychain-sized plunger as a gift. It’s one of those things I’ll never “live down”. And for the longest time, I felt like it was wrong of me to express how I really felt about it. So, I just went along. Ha ha. 

I’m 50-something, y’all, and still I hold some shame about that experience. And, on a grander scale, I forget that it’s okay to be curious – to be me. My initial response was defensive. For a moment, I was that little freaked out weakling of a little boy all over again. And then, I deflected and moved on – until I was out running and all but kicking myself for kicking sticks, and this surfaced.

Very recently, I wrote that there are ways to have too much fun – especially if it’s hurtful or harmful to someone else. That “plunger incident”, over four decades ago, is such a situation. It didn’t have to go that way. Soo many things happened prior to that day, leaving me in the place of fear and already living in shame about who I was. My parent, and then parents, were very out-of-tune with who I was and how to meet my emotional needs. I was a child. I was not securely attached. I’d experienced abandonment and abuse. So of course I didn’t know how to handle myself in that moment. 

But then, my wife sent this “funny photo”. I took a chance, exposed my shame, and we I got the chance to talk through this, together. I was able to rewrite the story. I can see the humor in the situation, and still, it has never been funny to me. In writing it all out, and in sharing about it with an empathetic witness (or witnesses) I get the chance to literally change the narrative about it in my own mind. This is what it means to be curious, compassionate, and connected – towards myself and my story. This is recovery.

I spent several hours yesterday and a while today working on one blog post. I started with a lot of fervor about the topic! And then, the more I wrote, the less sense it made. I kept re-writing, re-ordering and revising what I wrote, and then, moments ago, I just deleted it entirely.

Sometimes, it’s okay to just let go. Not every idea is going to turn into something. But it’s also very okay to try and see where it goes. I’m noticing a need – and the ability to – be kind to myself about that. This isn’t failure. It’s just an idea that didn’t go anywhere – this time.

In other news, we’re now over 4% of the way through the year 2024. That’s worth noticing, don’t you think? And, this means I’m over 4% of the way towards my goal of making 2024 a relapse-free year. Also worth noticing, even celebrating!

(Part 3 of 3)

A couple of stops along the way were all that interrupted our travel. But I cut in frequently as my wife kept reading. It almost became a dialogue. She would read, I would reply with some of the thoughts that, until then, had never seen anything but the dark interior of my mind.

And at this point, I need to change books for a moment. I’ve used this quote before, and it bears worth repeating. This time I’ll just drop it in as an image.

I kept hearing my wife read about the feelings of shame – that I’d carried inside since I was a child – from the stories of so many other people. Something changed in me. Dialogue really began. She would read, I would share, she asked questions. She would share. I asked questions. Read some more. Rinse, repeat. We were beginning to understand one another.

We reached our stopping point for the night. That nine-ish hours felt so short! We were still a couple of chapters away from completing the book, so we agreed to finish it together the next day. And then, for the first time in weeks, we actually shared an enjoyable meal together.

When we walked into the therapist’s office the next morning, to begin our pre-intensive work, I had hope. And, my wife was open to the possibility of hope. This was not the case just 24 hours before. We had a lot of work to do, but there was hope.

(Part 2 of 3)

“One way to approach its essence is to understand it as an undercurrent of sensed emotion, of which we may have either a slight or robust impression that, should we put words to it, would declare some version of I am not enough; There is something wrong with me; I am bad; or I don’t matter.”

“Wait, go back…will you read that again?” I asked.

My wife was still reading to me – or at least out loud – from The Soul of Shame, to preoccupy our minds with something.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt like there must be something wrong with me, that I’m bad, and I don’t matter. This is exactly how I’ve been feeling – for a long time!” I told her.

She didn’t reply, but continued reading.

I was grateful for the words filling some of the void between us.

Since we had gotten married twenty-something years before, I’d only admitted to having any sort of unwanted behaviors a handful of times – including the affair 17 years earlier – and always with a quick “but I’ll do better, I promise”. A decade had passed since becoming esteemed missionaries, and from that time forward all sins and shortcomings could absolutely only be communicated about in past tense.

I didn’t stop being human just because I became a missionary. I walked the halls of our headquarters thinking I walk with Giants while feeling more like a bumbling child. The vetting process for becoming a staff member made it all too clear. There just wasn’t room for the stuff I struggled with. I quickly learned how to speak missionary, attend my weekly accountability meetings, and hide & lie my way through the rest. Of course, hiding and lying was something I’d been practicing since I was six years old – since the ADHD diagnosis and “special diet” treatment plan. It was, after all, how I adapted and survived. But my adaptive behavior had clearly become maladaptive – not that I had language for or understanding of it. I just knew there was something wrong with me. And no one could know.

Only, now everyone would know.

When I told the chaplain what happened, he told me to just stay home. I wouldn’t be going into work for a while. At least a month, maybe never again. People would know. There was no hiding my sudden disappearance. People would talk. They always did when these disappearances happened.

“…Matt would sometimes find himself ruminating about how he and his family would one day end up living in a box under a bridge…”. My wife read.

“I’ve had that same recurring thought, only it’s just me in the box”, I stated.

She glanced my way for a moment. Was that sadness I saw? Pity? Sympathy?

She continued reading…

(Part 1 of 3)

This was going to be a long drive. About nine hours. We were headed to a “marriage intensive” – one my work chaplain found for us. Would it help? I definitely had my doubts. Though she had agreed to come on this last-ditch effort of a trip, my wife was still shut down. Completely. Her indifference was not hard to understand, yet I didn’t know how to handle it.

She brought a book with her. She opened and began reading it.

Oh, great. Silence. Being ignored via book. But, I deserved it. I brought this on myself! We’ve always enjoyed our “windshield time” before. Not this time.

“Would you mind reading that book out loud, just so there’s not total silence?” I timidly asked.

She sighed. “Okay, I guess. I’ll just start over at the beginning.”

“…Shame has made an impressive resurgence in the popular media as well as the academy. It has been the focus of helpful, impressive work by researchers such as Brené Brown and has become a go-to topic of conversation for talk shows. At one level this makes sense, given the place that shame has in our lives. For indeed, it is everywhere, and there is virtually nothing left untainted by it…a primal emotional pigment that colors the images of everything: our bodies, our marriages and our politics; our successes and failures; our friends and enemies, especially the God of the Bible, who may at times feel like both.”

“Sorry to interrupt”, I said. “That part about “especially the God of the Bible” – he mostly just feels like my enemy.”

…

“Sorry, I’ll shut up. Please continue”.

The book was The Soul of Shame by Dr. Curt Thompson. My wife picked up the book a year ago after sitting in a conference breakout session led by Dr. Thompson. I remembered her telling me that she was super tired that afternoon, and sat on the front row in an effort to force herself to pay attention. But then the session content was intriguing to her, and she didn’t have as much difficulty as she thought. And this guy even took time to speak with her after the session, mentioning how she seemed so intent to capture every word. So, of course, she bought his book.

He probably said stuff like that to all the pretty ladies. Great marketing ploy. Give a little attention, they’ll have to buy the book! But how good was it, really? That book sat on a shelf for a solid year after she bought it.

But still…

The words of this book were making a lot of sense to me. Tugging at something within. And she hadn’t even gotten to chapter one yet.

And, yeah, I was certainly feeling a lot of shame. No, shame wasn’t a feeling in me. It was me. I am shame. This was the message I had enmeshed with to the point I didn’t even recognize it as being different from me.

Maybe this Dr. what’s-his-face was onto something…

– This concludes Part 1 of a chapter in my life that became part of a larger book that is still being written today! I cropped and did some light editing to the image above, from the front cover of The Soul of Shame, which is currently in my lap.

In a recent phone conversation, my son asked me about his grandpa / my dad. The truth is that grandpa is doing as well as could be expected, given his health conditions. His mobility is limited. He’s in pain all the time. I told my son that grandpa’s body has definitely kept the score, and the best he can hope for at this point is a limitation of pain, because it’s honestly not going to get better.

My son followed his mom (almost by accident) into the Social Work field. Because of the type of work he does daily, he’s only too knowledgeable of how trauma, left unattended, wreaks havoc on a person and can extend into entire family systems. And, he knows I’m earnestly practicing recovery – not just for my own health, but for my family’s as well.

After sharing the status update about his grandpa, my son told me “I have zero ACEs”. I know he said some other things, as did I, but my mind froze on that one statement.

You may recall, I wrote a post about ACEs not so long ago. In card games, having several aces is usually really great! Sometimes, though, it’s great to have zero aces – and in fact, if you’re not holding any (or very many) cards of high value, it might be a good time to “go nil”.

Other variations of the word “nil” that I’m aware of include “nillo” and “nello”. But nil is the only word actually appearing in the English dictionary, and the most commonly used. So, that’s what I’m going with!

To “go nil”, in the game of Spades for instance, means that the player does not want to receive any “tricks” or “books” during that round of play. If successful, the player is awarded with 100 points. If they are not, it’s a loss of 100 points.

Having zero aces can be a great thing in cards. Having zero ACEs is always a great thing in life! My son has zero ACEs! Nil! Zilch! Nada!

Hearing him say that brought tears of joy to my eyes and lump to my throat. Of course, it is not entirely up to the parents when it comes to children having adverse experiences. Outside forces sometimes enter unwelcome, no matter how intentional parents are in caring for the wellbeing of their children. In most situations, parents are truly doing the best they can with the situation they’ve been given. Sometimes, the adverse experiences can still happen. I’m grateful that is not the case for my son.

If you follow my other blog, you may recall another post I wrote some time ago, called fathers and sons. I am in this season of caring for my dad in the best way I know how, while endeavoring to encourage and support my son as he continues his journey into his adult years. I am also still learning to care for me, so that I can show up most fully as I work to bridge the generations without passing on the generational burdens. And, of course, I am not doing this alone. My wife is right beside me, as she has been for over three decades now. She and I are, together, standing in the gap between what was and what is becoming. We are both doing our work – putting on our own oxygen masks so we can effectively assist others on this life journey.

Hearing my son say he has zero ACEs was music to my ears, healing water to my soul. Getting to share about that with my wife brought even more tears of joy! For both of us!

Updated to add: A few days later, my daughter read this very blog post. I had to know. I sent her a text…

Yesterday, I was pretty keyed-up. The agitation came from a number of sources, but all seemed to center around one message. It was as if everything in my life converged all at once to tell me one thing.

Only, I couldn’t quite figure out what.

I just knew there were a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head, and none of them were quite landing. I also noticed a lot of energy coursing through my body. Agitation. In response, a single message was coming to mind:

STOP!!

I was terribly grumpy, too. And this was all culminating while having lunch with my wife, dad, and mom-in-law. They weren’t doing anything wrong, or even anything to bother me. And they had no idea there was a volcano about to erupt next to them at the table. Which, I didn’t. I knew they were not the problem, and I had enough mindfulness to know I wasn’t either.

While cleaning up the dishes and such, I whispered to my wife, “I need to be wearing my Care Bear shirt”. She raised a knowing, concerned eyebrow… “oh, thanks for the warning”.

Oh, wait, you don’t know about my Care Bear shirt, do you?

Well, this post just got a bit longer…

I mentioned once before, very briefly, that one of my nicknames is Grumpy. It’s a term of relative endearment, with a story.

My family and I were on a road trip many years ago, and we made too many stops, did a little too much, and found ourselves rather “hangry” – beyond what even Snickers could handle. We needed a real meal and some time to unwind! Especially dear ‘ol dad (me).

We came upon a restaurant named The Grumpy Gringo. As indicated by the Hispanic word, Gringo, it was a restaurant serving primarily Mexican food. I don’t really remember much about the food – good or not so good. I do remember they only allowed one small basket of chips and one small container of salsa, gratis. That didn’t go over so well for all the hangry gringos at our table! But, we ate, and we all felt better. And then, on the way out, we noticed they had T-shirts with their logo emblazoned on the front. Someone suggested I needed one, as a warning to others. We laughed. I bought a shirt.

I still have the shirt. In fact, it outlasted the restaurant. The black fabric has faded to black-ish, but hey, I don’t wear it often – preferring to wear it only on occasions when I’m feeling a bit snarky.

Sometime since that incident, our family got to talking about grandparent names. Mine was quickly decided. Not sure who even brought it up, but mine is to be Grumpy. It’s funny and fitting. Hopefully, I can be the least grumpy grandparent ever. But, on the other hand, sometimes I can get really grumpy!

This year, for Christmas, my daughter and son in law gave me a coffee mug with the cliché “World’s Best Dad” idiom on it. A sweet sentiment in itself. Inside the mug was a T-shirt. It’s a Care Bears branded shirt:

When I saw what was on the shirt, I laughed so hard, I think I snorted! It’s perfect! Well, except that it’s about 3 sizes too big, which is also kind of fitting and hilarious. My daughter told me she “won” it in one of those “dirty Santa” gift exchange parties. She was pretty proud that she was able to get it. And I am pretty tickled that she did!

So…back to yesterday… this is the shirt I was talking about, and the story behind it.

I was almost to the point of tears when I whispered that to my wife.

Then, I asked “Will you go with me for a walk after we finish up here?” The weather was decent enough outside. Along with the immense frustration I was experiencing, I had an overwhelming feeling that I needed to get moving!

And, that’s what we did. As soon as we started walking, I started talking. I told my wife about all the messages I was receiving from the different sources. I told her how they were making me feel. And we walked. And I kept talking. And she just listened. And the dis-ease I had been experiencing began to lift.

As someone with ADHD, when my mind gets keyed-up like that, my body requires movement and I need an outlet to share what’s going on inside. In addition to writing, movement is one more way I can get the swirly stuff to land.

In fact, I’ve been pacing the floor of our garage apartment the entire time I’ve been writing this.

Oh, and the message that had me so amped up? It was a false message. A saboteur. A spiritual attack. But I already had all I needed to fend it off. And I did.

Someone recently asked me what my “rock bottom” was, and I found myself struggling to find the “right” answer. I’ve written about some really low points in my life on this blog. In pondering the question, though, I noticed a desire to be really honest – with myself!

Early on in recovery, someone told me “Rock bottom is where you stop digging”. The truth is that my “rock bottom” happened even as I thought I was on my way up – after I had already begun pursuing recovery. Seems I hadn’t let go of the shovel yet.

Before I could even share about my “rock bottom”, I noticed a need to stop and give voice to the deep sadness I felt welling up. To give words to the sadness, though, I had to pull out my Feeling Wheel. The words that I locked onto included feeling stupid and ashamed. I also noticed remorse bubbling up. And, I had to let myself know that those are valid feelings to have. I chose to notice them and give myself some compassion. And then I started sharing.

I didn’t stop digging just because I had a therapist, just because I read some good books and listened to some great podcasts. Not even having some trusted allies on the journey, with whom I was being fairly honest, was enough to keep me from digging. Why was that??

At the time, I was managing a retail-type specialty store – part of a regional company with about a dozen stores/locations. I loved my team, my employers, and had good relationships with staff across the company. I was being noticed and recognized. The CEO had even asked me to consider stepping into a bigger role. I was flattered and accepted his offer. Not long after, my stepmom died. I took some time off to be with family. We all knew my dad could not be on his own. He was going to need support. Even though her mom was already living with us, my wife and I felt like we needed to be that support. This meant moving and giving up on the promotion, but it was best.

Around that same time, I met a female employee from another store. The first time she walked into the room and introduced herself, I felt an impulse to spend more time with her, a “spark” that I recognized as dangerous. But hey, I was in recovery! I could do things differently this time. I told a few guys in recovery with me, and I told my wife. I didn’t act on the impulse. I was proud of myself. It was just a one-time moment, and we worked in different stores, different states even. Nothing further could happen.

I was already beginning to form an exit plan from the company. Chances of ever seeing this young lady were pretty low. I was safe. Bullet dodged.

And then, the next month, I saw her again at a last-minute company event that I’d been asked to help with. How was I to know she would be there? We were cordial but stayed distant. Then the event was over, and I decided to stick around and have lunch with this young lady and one other coworker, with whom I had a healthy relationship. The conversation got really deep, really quick! Turns out we had all been reading the same book, What Happened To You (great book). We each shared a little of what had happened to us. It felt good, but didn’t feel entirely safe. Still, we were all just helping each other, right? And after all, I rationalized, I was just trying to do the things I was learning in recovery – be vulnerable and transparent with other people. And I would be sure to tell my wife and my recovery guys all about it. Which, I did. Only, leaving out certain aspects that might cast a less favorable light on me. In particular, leaving how that conversation left me feeling. I think I was trying to hide that from myself as much as anyone else.

The three of us continued a text conversation about the book, and then about other topics. Then this female and I started chatting 1-1. Still, I told my wife about the conversations – to an extent. Always making it seem as though I was just being a friend, just helping. My wife didn’t think it was a good idea, but I convinced myself it was a way I could reclaim earlier failed situations that were similar in nature. I was in recovery! I could do this!

As my impending departure from the company came hurtling at me, this friendship continued. My wife and I invited her over to our house. She came – even from a state away. We drove to her house as well, and went to social events with her and others. She was becoming closer with my wife, seeking her out for conversations too. We told her our marriage story – all of it! And, along the way, she shared about herself – even things she hadn’t voiced to anyone else – with me. I felt so good that she felt safe enough to tell me. Oh, how badly I wanted to be a safe person! She told me I could share her story with my wife too – which I did. I also encouraged her to share with others, not to keep this part she felt was shameful hidden, but get it out there – douse it with empathy from others so the shame would lose its grip!

By this time, she and I were texting constantly and talking on the phone regularly regular, and leaving each other voice memos when our schedules didn’t match up. She asked me along the way if my wife knew how much we were talking. I dodged the question as best I could, or just lied. Truth is, I hid the frequency of our conversations my wife, telling her just enough to keep from seeming like I was trying to hide anything. And yet, my wife knew. She saw how distracted I was – so focused on trying to be something I couldn’t, my wife felt it as neglect.

I knew it wasn’t all healthy. I told her we really needed to stop talking so much. I sat in my car one morning and bawled my eyes out. I felt so broken! This wasn’t what I wanted, what I meant to happen. At least, that’s what I told myself. It’s what I told my wife, too. But it was also exactly what I wanted. It made me feel good to be so needed. After all, I was helping, right? I had more plates spinning than I could handle, and I was desperate not to let any of them come crashing down.

But then, they did. One evening, after feeling the neglect yet again, my wife asked me to look at my phone. I didn’t want to let her. She would see the thousands of text messages between me and this lady – which the lady told me she didn’t ever want me to delete, as proof that nothing improper was taking place.

The problem wasn’t so much what we were saying, it was the sheer amount of time I was giving to her (and stealing from my wife). In seeing the texts, my wife would have confirmation that I was hiding this significant detail. I was still trying to get it together, make it right. I was trying to find a way out, on my own. I didn’t want my wife to know I couldn’t handle all the plates. But, I finally gave in and handed her the phone, dejected and ashamed.

My wife was deeply hurt, as she read through all the texts – for hours. I felt so small, so helpless to do anything. We didn’t know what to do next. We both felt stuck.

As it happened, my daughter and son in law were visiting us at the time. They could clearly see (and likely heard) that not everything was okay between my wife and me. We’ve been pretty transparent with our kids and theirs spouses about our marriage journey for a long while now. We sat down together and I explained the whole thing, and again bawled and cried until I was entirely spent.

My wife, my daughter, and my son in law just sat with me, heard and saw my anguish, and stayed with me through the evening until I was able to get my wits about me. The secrecy was gone, and still I was loved and known.

I am sure this was my “rock bottom”.

My wife and I, together, decided to remain in her life – as sort of consultants – but made it clear she was only to text us in a group conversation – never 1-1. We also set some time/frequency boundaries for ourselves on how much and often we would communicate with her. For several months after we moved, we stayed in touch through the group text and an occasional group phone call. But things just stayed awkward. As much as she needed help, we were not the people who could give it. She eventually had enough of us, and stopped communicating entirely. Ironically, she was following my blog and it was something I wrote that caused her to cease all communication. Though I wrote it in a way that wouldn’t at all reveal her identity, she didn’t like that I’d written it at all. That was the end.

This was a relationship doomed from the start, and a huge warning flag for me. There could be times in the future when I feel that “spark” again, but it’s not something I can afford to mess with. Even so, I grieve how the whole blasted thing went down. And, speaking of grief, I am certain that I was more vulnerable in the first place due to the death of my stepmom. This experience undergirds how important it is to practice self care and stay within my recovery loop in times when major life events happen. It’s also one of those areas I’ll always have some regerts about. But, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it (Santayana, Churchill, and many others have made similar statements). So, I will not ignore my own history. I am determined to learn from it, as I continue to practice recovery.

I had a story to share today. But then someone on a recovery forum I’m part of asked a question that I’ve never had the guts to answer or put down in writing before. It has taken me a few hours to put together a truthful response, and now I’m wrung out. I may post it here sometime, but not today.

Practicing recovery means doing the hard thing, and then also being compassionate to myself about it. So, I wanted to acknowledge this is what I’ve done and what I’m doing today.

Thanks

It’s day 3 of year 2024… so at some point during this 24 hours, 1% of this year will be completed. This means I will be 1% complete with my goal to be relapse-free for the year 2024.

Day 1 was easy. Surrounded by family, it was a really good day! Yesterday was emotionally difficult. I knew it was coming, and still it was hard. Still, it felt abrupt. The tears came, and I let them. This was different for me. I found myself wanting to compartmentalize the pain rather than surrender to it. I think I ended up doing some of both, but more of just allowing it than anything.

Historically, as a child I wasn’t allowed to feel sorrow, to experience grief, or to even be upset about something. My pain was always a trigger for my dad’s pain, and that was something he couldn’t tolerate. So, his response of my dad was to shut it down, whatever that might’ve required.

To this day, my dad he doesn’t deal well with emotional pain. Ironically, but not coincidentally, he is in physical pain 24/7! The body keeps the score. We cannot heal what we cannot (or will not) feel. He is becoming increasingly incapacitated by his pain.

This just gives me more motivation to keep working through the hard stuff. Noticing and allowing it. Connecting with others and writing about it – 1% at a time can become 100% in time!