Everything until now. Everything right now. All that will be.
The full spectrum of your life is here for the loving, from gleam to dream and everything in between.
Don’t pick and choose which parts are more deserving. Your past is not more golden. Your past has not already written the future. Ask who you are becoming – this question meets you right here, and invites your hope to stir. When you ask who you are becoming, you acknowledge the strength you have been building, the healing you’ve been welcoming, and the dreams you’ve been hearing. Everything you are becoming is here. It is growing now. It is lovable now.
You don’t deserve love. You don’t earn love. You are love.
The thing about windows is, they can make you feel exposed or they can open the world to you.
It’s not the window making us feel anything. It’s our relationship with windows. Our boundaries. Our openness to experiencing the world. Our relationship with ourselves.
It’s okay to protect yourself during the hard rain of heartbreak.
This is a loving reminder to check in. Ask what your heart needs, from moment to moment. Emotions are like fast-changing weather.
What does “late bloomer” even mean? That you used to have a limiting idea about acceptable timelines for your own unique brilliance? Where did you get that idea?
There are SO many places where we get that idea.
Just because you can get an idea, doesn’t mean you have to keep it.
You are not a “late” bloomer if you trust that you are on your own path, and everything is unfolding as it needs to.
You are not a “late” bloomer – you are simply, a bloomer.
You are no less intelligent than a cherry blossom tree.
Maybe we can drop the judgment and expectations of timing. Maybe we can stop comparing our cherry blossoms to dahlias and our dahlias to lilacs.
Because it’s nobody’s business.
You’ll bloom when it’s time for you to bloom. Every time. Again and again.
For plans you cancelled. For the traditions you didn’t have energy for this year. For shopping where you didn’t really want to shop. For the calls you meant to return. For the guilt you feel.
Forgive yourself for the boundaries you didn’t set. And the ones you didn’t reinforce. And the ones you aren’t really sure how to articulate, even to yourself.
Forgive yourself for the uplifting intentions you lost sight of. For the goals you thrust upon yourself when you thought you needed purpose – but instead you really needed to unravel, unravel, unravel.
Forgive yourself for losing faith. For wishing things were different.
Forgive yourself for pretending things are normal. And the relief you felt, if only briefly, when you let yourself zing that terrible, cynical joke.
Forgive yourself by naming all the stones you carry in your heart, your pockets, the lining of your coat.
Name each one. To a friend. To the sky. Feel the weight of each stone in your palm.
You don’t have to “make up” for anything. You don’t have to defend or explain.
Forgive yourself, but only if you want to. Forgive yourself, as many times as you need to.
And know that none of this means you “don’t love yourself”.
So if that’s a stick you are beating yourself with, let me snatch it from you right now. 🙂
I see you on this self love path.
Discovering again and again, that self love isn’t what you thought it was. It’s so much more.
Just like you.
So much more than what you first thought you were.
I woke up at 3:30am. My skull endured a dull throb. I had been calmly dreaming of awful things. Not a nightmare exactly, more like the banality of mortality sitting crisply on my face.
There was nothing to tend to. No emergency to soothe. Nothing new, anyway. I was deeply exhausted yet alert. Now what?
I’ve learned a lot about brains since receiving a concussion in 2018.
What I have learned (and keep forgetting and relearning) is how much energy it takes to do things that don’t seem all that brainy. Like, basic functioning. Feeling your feelings. Trying to be “normal”, whatever you imagine that to be.
The difference is this: Two people are listening to someone tell a long winded story. One person may be entertained, or bored or indifferent. They might leave that conversation making a joke about how draining it was, and then move on.
The person with a concussion was listening as though they were being charged $100 for every word they heard – and they were already in debt to begin with. It’s a feeling of being flooded and doing your best to try and navigate which words are important, because you literally can’t afford to process every one.
You will pay for this later – no matter how many people agree that you “look fine”.
Additional charges:
do you feel safe enough to speak up? If they don’t understand (you look fine! we’re tired too!) everything doubles in cost.
panic about whether this inconsequential conversation will drain you of your capacity to explain why you need to excuse yourself, and leave you with nothing to get yourself home.
service fee for the work of doing all this mental sorting in the first place
taxes for any other random sounds or motion in your periphery
If you have a concussion, your daily brain allowance is a small fraction of what others might receive. They can afford to over exert a little and feel at ease knowing they will be reimbursed shortly. You pay way more, and receive way less.
I think my brain bill became so long, that eventually I started doing what Shannon Simmons describes in Worry Free Money as “f*ck it” spending. You’re so deep in debt already you can’t imagine your way out of it. So you say “f*ck it” and buy yourself something that will make you feel human for the time being. What difference could it make at this point?
Even though I had read Elizabeth Pierce’s memoir before, at 3:30am that night I heard new things. I felt a wave of mercy come over me. I have been ungrateful. I have been pushing myself. I have been rushing my healing. It has been unkind.
Self love has allowed me to have moments like this. Where I can see the harm I’ve been doing to myself, and feel the shame of it. I can do this, because I know that I have made a commitment to love and accept myself. My self marriage vows hold space for healing. And healing means relapses. I can acknowledge how I have been unkind. And I can love that unkind self. And I can make amends. I can surrender to the discipline of healing, again.
Maybe through Elizabeth Pierce I needed to hear this reminder, exactly now, at this current stage of healing. And maybe you needed me to share it, exactly now, at your current state of self love.
Stop Hunting for the Healing
Therapies need time to work. Are you allowing them time to work?
Are you always listening to the next podcast, reading the next book, joining the next webinar, taking the next course? What self care practice did you introduce and then bury in a heap of other self care practices?
Do you tend to take on one self care practice and then feel like it’s not enough? Read that again.
You are worthy of love and mercy. Whether you are healing from a brain injury, enduring another kind of loss or simply learning to treat yourself as someone worth loving.
Allow yourself the time it takes to receive the benefits of one therapy or self care practice.
I know, you want to make a lot of changes. You have a lot to heal – and you want it all now. Trust me, I know. But you can be as hungry as a lion and have that means nothing if you don’t allow yourself to swallow and process one bite at a time.
You will be fed the healing you need, one bite at a time. Piling your plate high with self help books and even the most wonderful therapies will make no difference until you slow down, open up, and receive what you have the capacity to receive.
Yes, this is not only enough – it is effective.
Thank you Elizabeth Pierce for writing and sharing your story. I needed the reminder.
I carry this little heart with me. It’s been as far as the pacific shore, and all around Ontario. I like seeing it “in the wild” and taking pictures of its travels.
What if you had a little broken heart you can hold in your hand, as a stand-in for the one you have mending inside your chest? Mine is made of sculpey clay and painted blue. If you made one for yourself, what colour would you want it to be?
If you had a little broken heart of your own, you could do what I do. Carry it with you. Place it in the world. Witness your broken heart as it braves the weather, basks in the light and persists through these days of healing.
Give it some attention. Be your own witness.
Here is my broken heart on a sunny window ledge. Here is my broken heart in a golden bed of leaves. Here is my broken heart bright of the snow. Here is my broken heart in a cozy coffee shop.
When you allow your broken heart to belong, it stops being a barrier. When you allow your broken heart a place in the world, it will stop fighting for one.
And when you allow it to be something beautiful, it will be.
When your self-care needs are especially high – a breakup, mental health challenge, a significant loss, or just a really hard day – sometimes the kindest thing you can do is lower your expectations. We all have these times. It is easy to forget the obvious things that help us nurture ourselves back to stability and calm.
You could make a self-care check-list.
I did that.
But in list form, self-care felt like one more thing “to do”.
A check list by definition, has expectations. It expects you to check things. When I lower the bar, I like to lower it all the way to the ground. I like to bury the bar entirely.
Nothing teaches you to lower your expectations quite like a brain injury.
Making self-care cards took the expectation out while still keeping a written record of the obvious things I forget when I need them most. With cards, self-care becomes a game. I can make up the rules. Plus, they feel good to touch.
When I made these cards, I was lowering my expectations a LOT. Some days I didn’t even bother with the cards at all. And even then, I was able to celebrate a self-care “win” – because one of the cards says: That’s enough. Surrender. It’s okay. You’re okay.
What would your self-care cards say?
What helps you? What little actions + thoughts feel nurturing? The beauty of making your own self care deck is that it will speak specifically to YOU. Your needs, your current abilities, your personal preferences. Do you feel cared for when you paint sparkles on your nails? Do you feel cared for when you go on a long sweaty run? Do you feel cared for when you have permission to zone out with a video game for a little while?
Making the cards = self-care craft time
Your cards don’t have to be fancy. They don’t even have to be the same size – it’s not like you’re playing poker with them. You can cut up a light weight poster board or use index cards cut in half. LOWER EXPECTATIONS.
If it’s been a while since you’ve used markers or art supplies, make it an afternoon. Put on an audiobook or podcast (I know a good one!) and allow yourself some low-key colouring time. Remember these are just for you – they can be as simple or decorative as you’d like. I wrote out the self care act in black marker, and then coloured around the words with pencil crayon.
How to use them:
First of all, make sure you…
Make easy ones – set yourself up for success (try “tidy something tiny”)
Make fun ones – give yourself points for re-watching Gilmore Girls if it makes you feel better
Make kind ones – the whole point is self care. Leave the “shoulds” out of it.
Keep them general enough so you can easily do them. I have a card that reads Grooming + Body Tending – this could mean anything. I don’t have to make separate cards for a face scrub or a home pedicure or playing with make-up. Any act counts.
Also, be specific so you can easily do them. I have a card that reads Get Naked and Nap. For me, the specificity of getting naked changes the nap entirely. Getting naked frees my body from restrictions and makes it much more difficult to get up for “just a second” to do something “important” (read: resisting rest). Naked naps are intentional and delicious.
Once you have your first set of cards (even 3 cards can make a deck) play with different ways to bring them into your day:
Select one at random. Shuffle the cards and listen to your intuition.
Select one with intention. What would feel the best right now?
Select a few the night before and lay them out as reminders for the next day – is there one you haven’t used for a while? Like washing your hair? This is a gentle way to notice what needs special attention.
Keep them on a small dish where you can see them + dip in as you please – like a candy dish.
Remember: Your self-care needs may be fluid
Your self-care needs will rise and flow and change depending on where you are and what you are going through. The support you need to move through a breakup may be different from the support you need during a busy work season.
Listen to what you really need. Not what you think self-care should look like. Allow your answers to be right. They are right, for you.
