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Reminder to myself…

Instead of feeling perpetually disappointed when your needs aren’t being met, consider that maybe you’ve just been trying to get your needs met at all the wrong places.

This doesn’t mean friendships or relationships need to end. It simply means that we haven’t yet explored the many different kinds of outlets that are available to share ourselves through.

And an outlet isn’t always a person. Once we get clear about what we’re looking to give and receive, we can seek out the right kinds of places that will be naturally receptive to these parts of ourselves.

-JLK

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(An affirmation—something I’m working on.)

I think of myself as a gardener.

I imagine the future and see my garden in full bloom.

I take seeds from that future garden and I plant them metaphorically right now.

How I water these seeds is with my nurturing-in-action.

There will be droughts. That’s expected.

Sometimes my energy has to go to watering myself in order to just survive. And that’s ok.

And other times I know my brain will get overwhelmed—I’ll start getting new ideas and before I know it, I’ll be planting new gardens—watering new seeds and neglecting the old.

And that’s also ok. Sometimes flexibility can lead to blossoms I would have otherwise never expected.

But no matter how it goes, knowing that whatever I water is what will grow helps me remember to focus on watering the seeds I *want* to see grow, instead of the ones I would never want to see in my garden.

This means that I refrain from watering the seeds of shame, because I know those seeds will blossom into a shame garden.

And this means I refrain from watering the seeds of ‘I’m not worthy,’ bc I know those seeds will grow into a garden that would never reflect the wonder of who I am.

And this also means refraining from watering toxic people, expecting that they will one day blossom in my garden, bc I know that other people are responsible for their own growth and I’m responsible for mine.

With practice, I can learn to trust myself and be a reliable gardener.

-JLK

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(Potential trigger warning: mental health issues, hearing voices…)

Years ago, during one of the many times my mother was near death, I went down to Florida.

During the day, I stayed at the hospital, and at night, I slept in her bed at her apartment.

She’d had a seizure and there was blood on her chair and comforter. And the energy in the room was all fucked up. You could literally feel the monsters my mother had been battling.

Lying in her bed, I was so scared. Terrified, in fact.

Even with all the lights on. But there was no other place I could go.

And then when I got more scared than I could handle, I realized there was only one thing left to do: talk with those monsters, my mother’s monsters, that had scared me on and off my whole life.

So I took a deep breath, and I said, “I bet you guys have been misunderstood too, just like my mother. I bet in some ways, you’ve just been trying to protect her. To tell her important things, urgent things. But she hasn’t been listening, or she’s been twisting the meaning of your words. That must be frustrating.”

I felt a softening. So I continued.

“Well, I hear you. And I’m here. And so what I’m going to do, is give you guys all a hug.”

And that’s what I did. I hugged each scary thing I was feeling, and the strangest thing happened…

Every time something scary was touched by love, it turned into love. One after another. Everything scary melted into the understanding it was given.

The most powerful weapon turned out not to be attacking the fear or fleeing the fear, but giving love to the fear, by accepting it first, and then reflecting its best intention.

Then I got another idea. I got up and wrote my mother a note:

Whenever you hear voices in your head, telling you terrible things, I want you to listen deeper. Because there’s another voice that’s there too. It’s this one. Mine. Telling you I love you and that I understand you. And that I’m here with you. If you hear my voice, I bet those other voices will hear my voice too. And they’ll like the sound of it. And they’ll feel better too, and they’ll let you get some rest.

I love you, Your Daughter.

Then, I got back into my mother’s bed and fell asleep.

And ever since, when something inside me scares me, I try to remind myself not to run away, but to instead go right toward it, and give it my love.

-JLK

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For those who’ve experienced trauma, there may be a recurring time of day when you experience a heightened sense of hypervigilance, a heightened sense that something is wrong.

This can happen no matter how much time has elapsed since the trauma actually happened.

You may find yourself in these moments looking for evidence for what is still wrong, and you may find many things wrong.

These pieces of evidence that everything is wrong might all meld together and leave you feeling privately drained and awful, even though you still may smile and be your best self for everyone else.

You may find yourself secretly desperate for an elixir that might help let you have a little peace.

You may find you notice all this more when you’re by yourself, where there are less distractions and less attractions.

Whenever you find yourself in this uncomfortable predicament, please remember that there is a space within yourself where you are safe. It may be just the tiniest apartment deep within yourself, but it’s yours whenever you’d like to visit.

The walls of this space are built with boundaries, boundaries built not from animosity for others but rather built out of love for yourself.

This space can be here for you to be just as you are and just as you aren’t. Where you can sit on a cushion of empathy and observe all that’s right or wrong but from a less triggered place.

Where you can simplify your actions to breathing in, knowing you’re breathing in, and breathing out, knowing you’re breathing out.

You may also find comfort that you are not alone here. That there are so many others like you building similar spaces, learning how to not be held hostage by their circumstances and by other people’s behavior.

Sending my love to you, you who gets secretly triggered everyday. You’re not alone. I send you peace from my tiny apartment to yours.

-JLK

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If you experienced past trauma at certain times of the day, you may find that there’s still an urgency to prioritize safety at these specific times of day.

For example, maybe at night, you don’t really care about your ‘thriving’ goals, because you’re too focused caring about your ‘surviving’ goals.

Maybe this looks like pushing everyone away to protect your autonomy, or feeling more reactive by other people’s demands or their neglect. Or just doing your best to cope with the acute panic that still consistently shows up.

And maybe when you wake up in the morning, you feel confused, because your mind is suddenly in a different mode now—able to access more nuance, flexibility and the stuff that inspires you. And maybe this is bc your brain is out of the danger zone so it’s able to focus on thriving now.

If this is you, please don’t shame yourself for being on this roller coaster ride. Allow yourself a minute to reflect on your nighttime experience and then give yourself permission to get back to investing in your daytime goals.

I find when I replace my shame with wisdom, it makes sense that I have parts of my self that work the day shift and other parts that work the night shift. That’s what was necessary to cope with those old circumstances out of my control.

But I believe we can begin to merge these parts. I believe as we strengthen our attention, this part of ourselves that is aware can be available around the clock to support both our thriving parts and our surviving parts.

With awareness of all our parts, we will get to experience that there is nothing ‘wrong’ with us. That we are both an extension of our environment and an extension of the divine. That we are whole, complete, fascinating, and worthy of being here.

-JLK

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Someone asked me a question about how to notice which internal voices are our own, and which belong to other people’s, and how to develop our own voice if we mostly, or only hear other people’s toxic internalized voices.

Thought I’d share in case it’s useful to anyone…

Earlier, my 11yo son was supposed to go on a walk with me. But he didn’t want to go.

And I felt myself getting reactive and I said something mildly shaming. Something like, “I was really hoping you’d honor your word here.”

And he tried to explain that something else came up that was important to him.

I managed to pause for a second to hear a voice in my head: “You have no control over your son.”

This was not my voice. It was my father’s voice.

But this was the voice that fueled my reactivity towards my son.

When I gave that voice my attention, I could remember the times when I was younger and I didn’t keep my word with my father.

I had wanted my father to understand my perspective and I had wanted him to be flexible enough to negotiate with me, but instead he only said, “I’m so disappointed in you.”

This hurt to hear. And he said that a lot.

But the weird thing is, I almost said it to my son.

I had a powerful urge to say it. That awful message was at the tip of my tongue: “I’m so disappointed in you.”

And why?

Bc I think we humans evolved to be programmed by our parents. Our parents/caregivers are the ones who instill within us our first software that we run on.

Ideally, we’d grow up in families that would teach us the skills we need to survive and thrive.

But toxic families install toxic software, and it’s then our new purpose in life to figure out how to uninstall and create new software for ourselves that instills a sense of self instead of a sense of shame.

So, just as I almost used my father’s voice on my son, I often go ahead and use those old voices on myself. And I think they’re mine:

“It’ll never work out for you.” “You missed your chance.” “You’re a disappointment to everyone.” “The stuff you do is just not enough.” “You’re not the valuable person you think you are.”

It’s not only my father’s voice. We live in a society where affirmations for not-being-enough are shouted from the rooftops practically everywhere we go. I sometimes think the bird call of humanity is ‘You’re not enough.’

So to create new voices, I have to separate myself from those old voices. And one way to do that is by being aware of those old voices as distinct from mine.

And by using my current voice to understand where those old voices came from, I’m creating a voice for myself.

Personally, I think writing is a great way to understand the meaning we’ve given to those old voices, and I think writing is a great way to create new voices.

We can create new software for ourselves, one affirmation at a time. And when we voice our affirmations, we begin to make new choices based on the new voices we’re using.

I like to think of it as wiring—I fuel the voices with my attention.

Those old voices have a lot of fuel bc I’ve been giving them my attention so long.

But in time, they’ll run out of fuel if I stop giving them my attention.

And my new voice will start getting more powerful the more attention I give it—by voicing what’s meaningful to me, and by listening to my own voice.

So back to my son—when I was able to access my own voice, I paused and looked at my son and thought of myself at his age—wanting my needs and wants to matter—and I remembered that my son just met a new friend and that’s really important to him.

Without my fathers voice, what was my own experience of my son not wanting to go on a walk?

Big deal.

Bc flexibility is one of my self-created affirmations. And so is ‘context first.’ That way I’m looking underneath the moment for its meaning, instead of comparing the moment to what others might think it *should* be.

Does my son need to prioritize honoring his word in that moment to be a quality person? No, bc teaching him flexibility and to communicate his wants and to negotiate and enroll someone in a new plan is much more important to me.

So basically, by writing down the things I notice about the voices I’ve internalized, as I’ve done here, it strengthens my current voice, bc through writing, I’m using my current perspective to understand these other voices and how they’ve impacted myself and my life.

And this is the kind of exercise that helps me to create a voice of my own.

-JLK

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When I’m trying to find peace and comfort, I still get attacked sometimes by that uncomfortable feeling of wanting to reach for something—a cookie, a phone, anything.

It’s so difficult for me to remember that there’s nothing 'out there’ that's going to make anything ‘in here’ feel better for long.

And I still wrestle with that perpetual reaching and nothing there, reaching and nothing there. Until I have no choice but to sigh and surrender to the idea that maybe I don’t mind being alone in my body after all.

Because when I think about it, I’m not really alone. I have my current self to connect with, along with everyone I’ve ever been. And plenty of associations and memories to keep me entertained.

It’s habit really—this experience of believing I’m not enough just as I am, that feeling that keeps me running from the most glorious moment with the most substance—the moment we’re always in. Right now.

-JLK

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I think that we’re born with all these electric wires or tentacles that need outlets to plug into.

Outlets that connect to caregivers,

to community,

Friends,

Partners,

Career,

To places where we can be a contribution,

receive support,

express our most authentic selves,

and of course, that outlet in our own selves so we can explore and connect with our own depths.

There are well-adjusted people who are plugged-in and connected to many of these outlets, and for many of these people, it’s through their own efforts, but for many more, it’s through no effort of their own. They were born well-connected. They were born with access to all these outlets.

For lots of us, however, we aren’t naturally connected to much, and we have all these live wires just dangling and even flailing about.

And it often may seem, that no matter how hard we try, we literally cannot find the kinds of outlets we’re looking for. Which is a very stressful predicament that can cause depression, anxiety and a lot of frustration.

When this happens, it can be easy to make meaning for why we aren’t connected. Like, I mustn’t be good enough. I must be unlucky. I mustn’t have what it takes.

On top of that, if we have kids, we have the additional job if connecting all of their tentacles to outlets.

And if we aren’t able to find the right outlets for them, it can be heartbreaking to see their flailing tentacles, wanting to connect but also not finding the right connections.

For me, I’d say I’ve been sort of in the middle. I’ve got connections to a few of these outlets but I’ve got a lot of flailing live wires eager and desperate to find connections I don’t have access to.

I’ve often relied on that inner plug, where I get most of my energy. And that in itself is a treasure to me.

But sometimes when I can’t find any energy that lights me up, I’ll plug into energy sources that don’t provide the sort of energy I’m after—outlets that actually drain the little energy I have left.

In these moments, I try to remember that I do have the choice to unplug and find or create connections to new sources of energy that truly light me up.

In my opinion, there’s never a good reason to give up finding or creating the outlets we need.

We may just need to re-assess which kinds of outlets are going to light us up, and abandon looking for the kinds of outlets we’ve been taught *should* light us up.

To figure out the difference, I think it’s important to plug into ourselves first, to help us discover which kinds of outlets really would make a difference.

Because by connecting with ourselves first, we can plug into the current moment we’re in, where we can access what’s meaningful to us, what’s most important to us, and what brings us closer to the most authentic version of ourselves.

And from what I’ve noticed, every time we express these authentic parts of who we are, we move closer to more compatible outlets.

-JLK

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(TW: Possible upsetting content regarding death and estranged mother/daughter relationships.)

I remember one of the last times I saw my grandmother before she died. She hadn’t seen or talked to my mother in over 20 years.

My grandmother was not the type to talk about her feelings, though.

She could send back soup for being too cold, she could complain to managers about the quality of such and such product, she could correct someone mid-sentence about their poor enunciation.

But when it came to her own feelings, and especially her feelings about her estranged relationship with her own daughter—she was dead silent.

Then one day, I was setting the table for dinner and she looked at me, and after a pause she asked, “Does your mother ever mention me?”

And I could see such anguish in her eyes. I knew it took everything she had to ask.

I of course knew better than to say, “Only when she’s asked if you’re alive, to which she replies, smiling, ‘Why no, actually, my mother has been dead over 20 years!’”

Instead, I thought to myself about what’s also true. That sometimes the damage between a parent and a child just can’t be repaired. There’s just too much that happened and too much time that’s passed.

It becomes instead a journey of repairing oneself through one’s own understanding of what happened through one’s own perspective and languaging of the hurt.

My grandmother made mistakes. Awful mistakes. And there wasn’t a way to send it back to the kitchen to make it right.

And maybe, at that moment, she was ready to accept what happened. And acknowledge the truth: that she wished she had done better.

And so I said, “Even though you made choices you probably regret, I think you can let it go now. I think maybe sometimes, people serve unexpected purposes for each other. And I’m not sure things could have gone any other way. And I think my mother understands this too.”

My grandmothers shoulders relaxed.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said.

I called my mother from the car after I left and told her what happened. “Honey,” she said. “You can’t force people to see things differently. Every choice she made in her life was to keep herself from seeing things differently, bc seeing things differently would mean becoming someone new, and that has always scared the hell out of her. I want you to understand something very important: Being complete doesn’t need to involve the person who caused the trouble in the first place. In fact, completing with yourself is the only way to stop carrying around those same old wounds.”

Both my mother and my grandmother are gone now. But I carry that wisdom in my heart.

And I realize now that intergenerational trauma doesn’t really have sides. It’s a virus of unresolved pain that continues, generation after generation, until someone finds a way to heal it through their own heart, by giving that pain our understanding and love, and then by making different kinds of choices in our lives.

And as for my grandmother—when I see someone who reminds me of her out in the world acting like a jerk, before I judge only what I see, I remind myself that for all anyone knows, they’re behaving that way bc it’s the only way they know how to express their unresolved feelings.

I’m not excusing people’s behavior, but the times I’ve smiled at these people, they often smile back, as if amazed and also confused that anyone would look at them and be happy instead of wish that they were dead.

-JLK

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Come on little girl, we’re going to be late!

Let’s go! No dilly dallying!

Yes, you may use the bathroom. Hurry up, or you’ll miss the activity!

This is a timed test. Late papers won’t be accepted.

You’re going to miss the bus, and I’m not driving you to school!

If you’re a minute late, you’re grounded.

You want to wait to go to college? I wouldn’t.

You better publish something by the time you’re 25.

Aren’t you gonna have kids soon… might be too late if you wait…

Better enjoy life before your beauty fades.

Your son is still in diapers? He’s too old!

By this age, he should really be writing in complete sentences.

Better introduce him to an instrument while he’s young.

It’s never too early to prepare for college.

Make sure to enjoy your kids before they grow up!

Have you written a living will yet? You’re not going to be here forever, you know.

Do you have enough saved for retirement? It sneaks up on you… you’ll see.

To myself: It’s the strangest thing. Every time I try to slow down and relax, I get this surge of anxiety that won’t leave me alone!

Sometimes, in this human race, I prefer to be a human being.

-JLK

 

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I was in my 11yo son’s room while he was talking with a few friends online. They were watching something together and a dad entered the screen. And one of the boys said, “My dad died.” It was so soft, almost invisible, but yet there it was, sitting like a boat in an ocean all alone.

I waited to see what would happen. And no one said anything. Then my son pressed mute and told me what happened. “I’m scared of saying the wrong thing,” he said.

“There is no wrong thing to say. Just dowse it. See what comes up for you.”

He unmuted. “I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry your dad passed. That’s really sad.”

“Thank you,” the boy said.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was something. And something was enough to keep him company in that boat.

When I used to hear people say, “Express yourself!” I thought they were talking about expressing yourself as a performer or as a writer, or expressing your ideas and talents and beliefs.

And while this is true, expressing yourself is also noticing when someone drops a little clue that they need support, and instead of not being sure what to say, or walking away, to let your heart be heard by saying, “Are you ok? Not sure what’s going on, but it sounded like you might need some support. If this is the case, please feel free to reach out.”

-JLK

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For so long, I was stuck with this icky feeling that something was missing, but it never occurred to me that what was missing, was me. I was missing—my own presence, at home in my own body.

The space inside our bodies is our home. And for those of us who’ve had a lot of difficult times in our bodies, it takes some getting used to, to feel at home in our bodies.

We may have internalized a lot of toxicity, or maybe we were punished a lot as kids and our punishment was being forced to spend time with our horrible selves all alone in a room.

Whatever the reason, the self was a place to flee, not a place to come home to.

And I became pretty masterful at escaping my body. Or, if I was stuck with myself, I’d bring in substances to keep me company, or food, or whatever else I could find.

But after awhile of this, a person grows exhausted and longs for a place to rest. And so begins the journey back home.

After taking many baby steps inward, I have discovered that being in our bodies with ourselves is not at all a punishment. It’s a privilege.

Who we are is a vast world to discover.

Our bodies and who we are, are sacred. We are the gift we’ve been given so that we can experience our lives.

We can be safe inside our bodies and take ourselves to where we want to go.

-JLK

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If you grew up without anyone’s undivided attention, someone present enough to see who you really were and encourage you to be that self out in the world, you might find that you sometimes still feel invisible in the world.

You may find it’s difficult to figure out who to be and what sorts of life choices to make, or which direction to go, bc you’re still not exactly sure who you are in the world of others.

You might find yourself influenced by so many things but unsure which is the thing for you.

To create ourselves in the world, we have to go inward and discover what’s meaningful to us. We have to do the work that our grownups missed out on—giving ourselves our own undivided attention, discovering who we really are, and encouraging ourselves to be who we really are out in the world.

Though discovering who we really are and what’s most meaningful to us, we can begin to discover a place to stand in the world, and we can begin taking steps in the direction that supports who we are.

-JLK

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I recently wrote a piece thinking about where we’re naturally situated—inside of ourselves or out in the world.

But I wanted to add something, thanks to a wise comment I received—that when we suffer trauma outsides of ourselves, we may hide inside ourselves when really, it’s our natural desire to be situated out in the world.

And I realized that I was probably once an outside-situated person, but bc of trauma I hid inside myself. And yet, bc I had internalized so much toxicity from the outside world, inside my body didn’t feel good either.

So it felt like I had no home in my body and no home in the world. Both felt like places I wanted to escape from. And I spent a lot of my efforts trying to do so.

I’d say much of my healing journey has been about my journey back home. Home, back into my body.

And once I started to feel at home in my body, I practiced taking baby steps out into the world, to share myself and connect with others from a space that felt a lot more comfortable.

-JLK