The bones
/Before you read, listen to: The Bones by Maren Morris.
“The house don’t fall when the bones are good.”
My bones...
They are my Dad.
Lately, I’ve been really struggling. I’ve been having battles in my mind, been fighting my body to get to sleep, restless nights, unactionable worry, self doubt, attacks on my self worth, complete burn out, and mostly a hard hit of depression. Every time I feel myself sinking, or I feel myself lifting out of it, I reach for my phone to call him.
And every time I feel that intense void of him being gone, so strong and so nauseating, I breathe… and I channel him and deep down I know in my heart the things that he would tell me and say to me. Because he built me, us, with good bones.
Our motivations in life are all different. Our pushes, our influences, our reasons for doing things and the paths that carry us. But we all have bones. We all have a foundation, a structure, a guiding force. And sometimes I think that when the world begins crashing down around us, we tend to forget about our foundation, our internal strength, our ability to preserver and be resilient… until we are buried and survival forces us to remember. I know that that’s my own process- burn out. And I know that I’m always actively working on stopping it from getting to a place of being buried- being proactive instead of reactive. And sometimes it’s my friends, my family, my clients who remind me of this force… to remember that if we can return to our bones, our foundation, reflect on our own internal light, we can make it through anything.
Starting my own practice was… is…. HARD. Not only is owning a business a completely new venture for me while maintaining my heavy trauma caseload, but the self doubt and inadequacy thoughts that go along with being an entrepreneur are REAL. I go to a place in my mind so dark sometimes over something as simple as not returning an email in one day, or taking a day off and not fitting in those clients that week, wondering how many I will see the following week, if I’m off by one person, or I’m over by 2, that I didn’t text that person back within the hour, I didn’t finish that note at the end of my 10 hour client day. And then I spiral into am I helping people?, am I even good at this?, is everyone okay?, did I do enough that session?, will they survive?, is that child safe?, am I making a difference?. But ya know what never gets questioned in my mind… AM I OKAY?
And here’s the thing. I’m okay until I’m not. I’m excelling until I’m drowning. Because I see my purpose as something so much bigger than me and making sure I maintain simple necessities in life like eating real food for dinner, or not responding to work texts and emails on my “days” off, and scheduling an hour (shit a half hour) break in my day, those things are sacrificed. And I can do that for awhile, I can sacrifice. I can give and give and give and give, but eventually the world starts crashing and the walls start closing in.
Yesterday, I was having a really hard morning. Sinus infection, fever, 8 clients in a row back to back, 3 new clients to respond to, 3 calls to return, a pile of notes, endless texts from family and friends that go unopened all day long, a new crisis call to manage, and on top of it my own personal struggles and a cloud of depression pouring self doubt. I was overwhelmed. I broke down hard, in the quick 2 minutes I have in between clients to collect myself. And I tried to get my shit together. I walked out of my office to get my next client. As I approached her, and as a fellow empath and survivor she could see it written all over my face. I couldn’t hide it. As soon as we got into my office and she asked me if I was okay and wouldn’t accept my dismissiveness, the tears escaped me, and I cried for a minute. That shit happened.
And in that moment of doing my best to keep it together, be present for HER, she would not allow me to continue without allowing me to release. Because maybe that’s what I do for her? Because maybe that’s why I’m good at my job, because I’m as real as it gets… and sometimes my world crashes, my house is under attack, and the truth comes out that I’m human. So she hugged me. Then, we moved forward with our session.
As soon as she left I talked to my Dad. Part of me felt ashamed, unprofessional, part of me felt unworthy… but I knew that we had still had an important session. That my shittyness, and my realness didn’t get in the way of us connecting and making movement, and that maybe it even encouraged some of our discussion and that it connected us on a deeper level. That despite my world crashing (literally a therapist’s worst nightmare crying in front of a client like that, what is wrong with me??) my bones didn’t break. Before I even opened my mouth to talk to him, I knew what he was going to say. Be vulnerable, be real, be humbled, because baby girl…that’s the only way you do your GOOD.
I saw a friend that night. And she reminded me that as we move forward in the storms of our lives, it’s okay to choose ourselves. To make choices that lead us to where we want to go, and the people, the support, the things that are meant for us will follow. Not only was it a good reminder for self care, but a good reminder that I am strong and worthy of my life and where it’s going. And I can be human. Our foundations won’t crack and while the winds may be treacherous, they won’t blow us over.
When my dad passed away just a few short weeks before Andy’s and my wedding, all of our worlds were crashing but our house didn’t crumble. Our community showed the F up. That entire month of June, we cried together, we broke, we fell apart, we danced, we drank too much, we celebrated. Because he built us, and WE ALL BUILD EACH OTHER. And the people and experiences that have become a part of your foundation- whether they are new or old, distant or present, conscious or unconscious, believe in them, revisit them, remind yourself of them. While our storms in life and our identities are forever fluid and constantly changing, our bones are good.
Thank you to my client who held my tears, you are my bones.