my divine decision not to hide

Hi Resties!

I’ve been experiencing a lot of change and transition lately and knew that it required some deeper inner work. Hence the lack of regular posting…

While the stuff that I’m going through is still under development (and too raw to address publicly), I am reminded of a different experience that felt similar to what I’m going through now. It happened last summer when I checked myself into an in-patient facility for an intensive workshop to address my trauma and grief.

Before I get into all of that, let me share how I got to the place of accepting that I needed this.

I was stuck.
Angry at the world and everyone in it. I was especially hurt by God. I felt like a victim. Unloved, unseen and broken beyond repair.

I did not feel understood and was quite honestly operating from fear. Fear that being widowed for a second time was making me a pariah. I was lashing out. Hardly listening to what was being said. And taking every single criticism and curious inquiry as rejection. Looking back, I can see how difficult of a person that made me to be around in virtually every space I walked into.

Granted, there were lots of things triggering and activating me, but I was the common denominator and my outlook was bleak. Rest and recovery were not really on my priority list - not internally anyway. Nope, I was going through the motions and finding myself deeply disconnected from everything, including God and especially myself.

Things came to a head while wrapping up a work event on the East Coast. I was complaining, crying, sad, heavy, angry and felt overall incompetent. Incompetent to do the job and incompetent to be a person.

My heart was devastated.
I had lost myself and was spiraling. Living was hard. Working was harder. Simply being was the hardest.

I was reactive and I was small. My words and behaviors were looping with how misunderstood I felt and the painful choices of others. I felt I only deserved to experience hard things, to live in struggle and to lose anything good. I was out of control.

After dropping off all of the team members at the airport, I went to return some unused supplies at the Target I’d purchased from earlier that week. I was so out of it that I don’t even remember getting back to the rental car parked less than 100 feet from the store entrance.

I closed the door, turned on the engine, buckled my seatbelt and then paused to look around.
Where was I again?!?
Oh yes, Virginia. In July.

It was sticky and somewhat miserable.
Though I was certain the participants got what they needed from the work they’d been invited to do, I felt like I would be returning to Washington State with that sticky, uncomfortable feeling and didn’t believe I would be able to ever recover from it. I was drowning in the pain I was feeling. It was too much.

I had a few hours before I had to return the rental car and check-in for my return flight home. The plan was to go and see the Black History Museum nearby and grab a light lunch, but the museum was closed on Sundays.

Another example of the world being against me.

I lost my shit.

I started crying and sobbing right there in the parking lot of that Target.

As the tears fell down my face, I didn’t bother to wipe them away or to worry about what those walking by might say or do. I didn’t want to end up on the news, but I also didn’t have the energy to hide my pain anymore.

I picked up my phone to find something different to do. Anything to snap me out of this current craziness and into something where I could blend in and pretend that I was normal; that my life was normal. And then my friend texted me…

And this needs to be noted as significantly important.

This friend and I have only met in person twice after meeting on social media (Instagram) several years ago. This friend is somewhat famous and had a huge following at the time we connected online (she reached out to me). This friend has a full life, but always seems willing to reach out as a result of heeding the Holy Spirit after those unknowing but clear nudges.

It has happened this way a few times with us.

So, it didn’t really surprise me when it happened this time on that day.

She texted and asked how I was.
And I decided not to hide. To risk the relationship and be completely “too much” and tell the truth of what I was feeling in that very moment.

The texts turned into a phone call. She listened to my tears, the break in my voice and allowed me to share the pain in my heart. My wounds were not too big for this friend at this moment. I thought I was letting her have it, but what was actually happening was that this friend was being primed to share an important invitation with me.

Turns out this friend had endured some similar feelings and thoughts and told me one of the things she’d done about it.

I listened to her intently. This felt different to me.
This felt divine.

This was not advice from someone who didn’t know what it felt like to experience such gut wrenching pain or who was so far out from their loss that they couldn’t empathize with those deep, dark places and spaces that make you think you’ll never make it back.

I acted immediately. You might even say impulsively.

I called the program right after hanging up with my friend.
The intake took 48 minutes. More crying, more of my voice breaking, more anger. I hated that I was doing this, but felt desperate to get any little sliver of what my friend had that I might be able to hold onto. Anything. Anything. Anything besides the deep despair that I recognized as being wrapped around my neck and now strangling me.

At the end of the intake, the woman who had endured all of my answers with more compassion than I think I’d ever given myself, let me know that there were no open spots for the next available session in a few short weeks. She would put me on the waitlist and then secure my spot for the session starting in early September - about six weeks away.

I believed that she had done all that she could do, but I think we both knew I was terrified that I would not make it that long. And that if I did, it would be six more weeks of shame, struggle and self-harm in the waiting.

A quick aside - my self-harm comes primarily in the form of mental and emotional abuse. The voice in my head and the one that ruled my heart at that time was not loving or kind. It was the worst of all of the trusted voices wrapped into one, sitting up close and personal, volume on the highest setting.

The phone call ended. I called my friend to tell her that I’d done it. And to thank her for sharing this opportunity with me. Then, I called my sweet son to tell him how I was really doing and that momma needed to do this in order to try to live. I felt like a failure, but this awesome human being took it in and then poured out love for me. It’s so unfortunate, but easier to see now looking back, that though he was incredibly supportive, I didn’t really believe that he wasn’t embarrassed and ashamed of me.

Because I certainly was embarrassed and ashamed of myself.

I wiped my face and pinched my cheeks (why do people do that anyway?!?). I pointed the car toward the airport and went through all the motions to behave like a normal traveler. In my window seat from thousands and thousands of feet in the air and while covering many miles quickly, I was unsure of what would happen next but had some hope that I was moving toward something better.

I listened to songs that made me cry. I slept. I stared out the window.
It’s beautiful isn’t it?!? How we get to see the planet from a different perspective. I’m always fascinated by being able to fly. I didn’t watch any movies or read any of the books I’d brought with me. I felt my feelings and told myself to hold on.

One connection and 8 and half hours later, we landed in Seattle. I turned on my phone and saw that I’d received a voicemail. The woman who had done my intake had called to let me know that there was a spot open in the next session and that she had already added my name. I was going to be getting intense help in less than two weeks.

I was going to be able to deal with the trauma, the pain, the grief and the wounding and I wouldn’t need to wait much longer. I thanked God aloud under my breath. I felt seen and carried and also slightly terrified.

And yes. There were more tears in public. I did not care. I was being given a chance to heal.

—

In the next letter, I’ll share more about what the experience was like for me during that week in the desert (as I lovingly call it). But, for now, as I’m working through some new things, some deeper things, I can see how where I was in July last year - and probably long before then - was keeping me from the level of rest and recovery I so desperately needed. Even now, I’m noticing and realizing that this work was the beginning of something huge. A shift in my thinking, believing, being and in my healing.

Silly Regina. I thought I would go and do this big, hard thing once and be done. But, that was not true. Real rest comes from going honestly inward and allowing yourself to deal with and earnestly love the real you.

More soon.