When “Normal” Doesn’t Fit: How to Develop Self-Love and Nurture a Soft Place To Fall

When “Normal” Doesn’t Fit: How to Develop Self-Love and Nurture a Soft Place To Fall (as published in The Friday Edition of HeartBalm Healing at https://heartbalm.substack.com)

Self-love… what?

What is the path to self-love when I have only known suffering, abuse, fear, and survival? How do I access this space that allows me to hold myself with compassion, love, and kindness when I have not known this kind of nurturing and how it feels to be loved and cared for in this way?

For so many of us, surviving each day, keeping a roof over our heads, staying consistent, and staving off fears and anxieties, triggers and downward spirals that threaten to upend our health and sanity is a full-time gig. The simple act of tending to the everyday needs of life is more than enough to keep us moving forward and able to get to the next day, or the next hour or minute. How do we or how can we add this other task and element of healing to our to-do list?

Maybe we have a therapist or counselor we speak with and this healing helps and carries us through. Great – that is self-loving.

Maybe we have a mindfulness practice where we stay as present as we can throughout the day, and meditate regularly or when we can. Wonderful – that is self-loving.

Maybe we volunteer and give back when we are able and that expands our hearts, makes us feel good, and affirms that when we help others, we are helping ourselves. Perfect – that is self-loving.

There are so many ways to find and nurture self-love within us and to make that an inward-facing action of compassion and self-care. But there can also be a gap in our understanding, need, and willingness in how we care for and nurture ourselves because it has not been modeled to us and for us. For many who suffered childhood trauma and neglect – especially at the hands of a deeply narcissistic parent/guardian, and extended family we were only allowed to attend to their needs and wants – ours were quashed, manipulated, and made irrelevant and wrong in the face of a tyrannical narcissist or abusive parent. How do we come home to our vulnerable selves when we are not sure of our own wants and needs because we have become so accustomed to neglecting, betraying, and dismissing ourselves in the course of a day?

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

_Carl Jung, “The Undiscovered Self: The Dilemma of the Individual in Modern Society”

Growing up and into adulthood, I watched friends who had loving parents and families and how they responded to life. Fears, upsets, or anxiety may arise for them from a failed relationship, life event, or random occurrence, and they are, of course, devastated, in tears at times, frustrated, and scared. But their ability to move through it and find a way back into the ease and normal cycles of life, and carry on has always left me curious and jealous more times than I can count. It is a far cry from how I plummet to the deepest depths of despair and wonder how to come back and live again – how to climb back out of this bottomless pit of overwhelming feelings and terrifying sensations that weigh more than I could possibly ever carry.

The following is a poem I wrote about a friend’s reaction to a situation that confused me. I love this poem and love her dearly but it does explain the differences in our shared experience and how we both come to and experience life.

Those Geese are Mean!

And she said, “Those geese are mean!”

She is a kind soul.

A person who finds the good in all.

Someone for whom life is cushioned without fail.

Yet in a world filled with wars,

Greedy, soulless men,

And the planet on which we live

Exhausted by abuse and neglect,

She is unsettled by a bird.

Next to a beautiful early-morning lake,

On a spectacular fall-colored day,

She is adamant to say out loud,

“Those geese are mean.”

_Sunny Lynn

For the trauma survivor and those with CPTSD, each upset, abuse, and trigger is a life sentence that can also move to a death sentence literally or figuratively as in living a zombie-like existence. I realized over time that I was degrading my own reactions to life and normalizing my friend’s responses to difficult times and heartbreak, and how their journey seemed much easier, soft, and less life-threatening than my own. I realized I was taking their experience and putting it against my own responses to life’s upheavals – trying to fit it into me somehow, and wondering why their “normal” did not fit me. I found out it would never fit. It was a far cry from my own experience and I did not understand why for a long time.

I realized the common thread of many of my friends, and how loving and nurturing at least one or both of their parents had been towards them, and how that forgiving space, that consistency in having a soft place to fall within their family unit gave them a reliability and trust in where and how they landed after a difficult situation. They were not petrified when something bad happened, or that their life as they knew it was over and about to be extinguished. They were upset and distressed but the uninterrupted memory of being held, comforted, and loved through tough times was their anchor, and their deep knowing that no matter what – they were safe, loved, and would be comforted – even as adults. It was a built-in knowing within them, and unflinching solace for them in tough times – they knew no different. There were no deep, dark, bottomless holes to fall into for them – no places like mine and so many others, where life events cast them alone into the bleakest, darkest, scariest, and unprotected corners of the world. The spaces where the thick atmosphere of desolation, hopelessness, and continued threats was the only air to breathe.

When you are born in a burning house, you think the whole world is on fire. But it’s not.

_Richard Kadrey, “Aloha From Hell”

I came to understand how different I was from many of my friends and how they were at times, unable to understand me, how I reacted to life events, and why I was still triggered and haunted constantly by the past in the present. It did not matter what my explanations were, or my attempts at translating it all to them with analogies or relatable stories because it was untranslatable. You must live it to know what complex trauma looks and feels like, and I would never wish that on them. My luck came in the form of how my friends cherished and loved me no matter what – even if my reactions or time lost in the dark forest of complex trauma and its changing labyrinth kept me closed off, muted, and from their reach. Invariably, they were always there waiting with open arms when I came back. They became my anchors until I understood how to develop my own sense of safety and self-love – which is my responsibility to appreciate and foster. I honor that because I know better than anyone what I want and need, how to comfort myself as an adult – and how I would have wanted to be comforted as a child. So that is what I do now. I love myself, as best as I can each day, back to wholeness and my worthiness to know love and be loved.

Through my loving interactions with friends, and my curiosity to know what was so different about our experiences, and how they handled life and difficulties I began to understand and chronicle these differences. I began to identify what I found comforting and helpful in their nurturing upbringings and the habits and ways of holding themselves that were foreign to me. I gathered these along with my own experiences of being nurtured by my grandmother, great aunt, and other kind relationships with adults in my child-life and began to create my own process and map of self-love and nurturing.

I Can not change the past 

As an adult, I cannot go back and change the past. I cannot change anyone in the present that triggers me and feels much like an abusive or narcissistic person from years ago. The only control I have over difficulties now is to nurture my inner scared and despairing self, give comfort and compassionate self-directed actions, cultivate and foster feelings of safety, security, and self-love, and create a safe place to fall within myself. The serenity prayer comes to mind here: “God [Love], grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The lifelong education and homework involved in living with complex trauma, abuse, neglect, and PTSD can be overwhelming but it does not have to mean it is a brutal life sentence. It can be, with acceptance, and the desire and will to expand beyond what we were shown, told, and taught, become an honored, respected, and much-loved journey towards a dedicated practice of worthiness and deserving, that allows us to appreciate, and admire ourselves, and our one wild and precious life. It can become the beautiful, abrasive contrast that pushes us to expand past our limitations, and beyond what we thought we knew and who we thought we were. It can help us understand ourselves at the deepest levels, develop unwavering self-esteem and self-respect, and empower us to love ourselves back to life and connect back to our worthiness of being, and our shared place of oneness with all things.

Tell me, what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.

_Mary Oliver, “House of Light”

I invite you not to wait a moment longer to begin to bring light to your needs and wants and build a bridge back to yourself. Even if you have already begun, do not waver or become complacent or dishearted in this task. Wherever you are on your journey continue to seed, attend, and nurture the garden of your heart. Within a short time, you will see, feel and know the fruits of your labor. Flowers will blossom and bloom and even when they fade the child seeds of their life will continue to reseed and bloom again – becoming the beautiful, soft space for you to harvest, enjoy and find comfort in. Find your way – in whatever way you can to express, build, imagine, and continue to breathe deeply in and out – loving all that you are and realizing your worthy and unique being – needed and necessary, and at one with everything.

Like wildflowers, you must allow yourself to grow in all the places people [and you] thought you never would.

_E.V. Rogina

To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:

• Carl Jung, “The Undiscovered Self: The Dilemma of the Individual in Modern Society”
• Richard Kadrey, “Aloha From Hell”
• Mary Oliver, “House of Light”

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