You Have A Home In The World
This year has maybe been a decade long, from the feel of it and from what I can see. We’ve all been through a lot, collectively, and our collective capacity for outrage and fury and grief has been somewhat exhausted. It isn’t completely tapped, but my god, aren’t we all hungry for good news.
It’s in this context that I’ve thought about how we move through the world when things are feeling overwhelming and burdensome.
I first got trained in EMDR three years ago, and thus began a process of aggressively pursuing as much as I possibly could about somatics, trauma, and the body. There had been some previous training in trauma and somatic, but not with the same density or intensity.
Connecting to The Fragmented Self
To me, it all made sense to me as a body of work that connected about how we survive. Not only how we survive, but how do we honor that survival. Additionally- how do we pursue growth and our options for doing so when that survival has been satiated, or you want to cultivate other skills?
One of the things that I coach people through in what we broadly call ‘trauma processing’ is working through how they want to connect with the parts of themselves that are traumatized. We all experience fragmentation as a result of unprocessed trauma.
When our trauma remains unprocessed, we can remain estranged from these parts of ourselves. It is also typical, in survivorship, to have internalized some disgust or disdain for themselves as the site of this trauma.
Part of working through the trauma processing is specifically cultivating an active practice of self-compassion and unlearning disgust for the ways in which we feel small, sad, and lonely. This fragmented self usually carries the experience of trauma, and we utilize disdain or disgust to distance ourselves from that experience.
Often folks access therapy so that that fragmented part of themselves can connect to someone, because they cannot tolerate that fragmented part of the self. Part of my job is supporting the present-tense person to connect with and care for their fragmented aspects.
Integration Predicates Connection
While some of the function of therapy is to cultivate our capacity to be in relationship with others more successfully, it also means that we have to cultivate opportunities to be in relationship with ourselves, including the fragmented aspects.
A sweet pea I know describes this as “having an anchor in myself”- which is also a way of describing secure attachment in a way that is not reliant upon other people to be consistent in the ways that perhaps you long for but they have not shown up for.
One way to think about this, that does not rely so heavily upon internalizing the need to not need anything from anybody is the idea that by deeply attuning to your own intuition, you will be drawn in the direction of the connections that will deepen your life.
But trusting your intuition and being guided in the direction of What Is Your Truth can be a really lonely pursuit. It’s a tricky balance- to hold the tension between Your Own Solitary Truth and the expansive ways in which we are all explicitly and implicitly connected.
You Belong Here
It is so painful to make your way from a place of fragmentation to a state of locating and wanting to connect with yourself. Part of- and honestly the beginning of the work- begins with wanting to. This borders what Sonya Renee Taylor beatifully describes as ‘colluding with possibility.’ Even if you don’t believe you are worth it, or that you still hold the edges of disgust for yourself- you can collude with the possibility that you could believe something else.
You have a home in the world. It may not be one that your family gave you. It may not be one that your friends would craft for you, given the opportunity. Your home in the world may not look like anything you have ever seen before.
But that does not mean it does not exist. The goals of EMDR- at least as far as I see them- and this is in concordance with cognitive trauma theory- that people can integrate a traumatic event into their idea of themselves. This means that a crucial part of healing is seeing the forces that shaped a traumatic event (including, perhaps, their own choices) without blaming themselves for the harm that was done.
Sometimes this means: what if you live in the world with the idea that you are good enough. What if, even if the people around you don’t know how to love you, you love you. You think you are funny, even if people don’t necessarily know that about you. There are lots of things people probably don’t know about you- or maybe just can’t see- but that does not render those things untrue.
You contain multitudes. The world can feel vast and unforgiving- and especially this year, has felt full of cruelty- that does not mean you have no choice other than to be cruel to yourself.
An astrologer once described this to me as-‘you have to stand in your own boots.’
How Things Are is Not A Reflection Of How Things Should Be
I cannot look into the uncertain future or the blurry past to find evidence that things will line up exactly how you want them to, because that’s not what I do. But I can tell you with certainty that you deserve good things.
You deserve to be here, and to have a home in the world, even if it’s only one within the confines of your own skin. If you are any kind of outsider, youy probably have to make at least parts of it for yourself.
That does not mean you are without safety, it in fact makes you a person who builds the islands of safety within which you can make a home. You built that, and it is only yours.
You choose and support the relationships that help you flourish. There is a future that does not feel or look like the present, because you know how to grow in the direction of your own wellbeing.
Things can change. You can change. You are good enough right now, and also, there is a home both in the right now and in the future that is place for you to thrive.
This has been a painful year for so many people. Thank you for staying, and do your best. I hope 2020 is everything you long for.
In solidarity and with great affection.
About the Author
Maria Turner-Carney has a BA in media studies and queer identity development from Fairhaven College. She received her Master’s in Social Work with a focus in Mental Health from the University of Washington. Her work background includes LGBTQ mental health; work in the anti-violence movement; dating and domestic violence; harm-reduction; mental health case management; chronic mental illness; intergenerational relationships; and managing chronic health conditions. Her practice is located in Seattle, WA, which you can book here. You can follow her on Instagram here. This article was originally posted in Maria’s blog.
