Truly, Deeply
New moons make me feel bat shit crazy. For most people, it is the full moon that causes distress, which makes sense. The full moon is itself revealed entirely, in turn putting us on display, pulling the tides and pulling you. But for me, the most magical moments of my life are under a full moon, and I thrive in every way. I have more energy, I am more positive, and I feel more powerful in myself. New moons however are not a wave of rebirth for me. Just little deaths. I intend to take this time to fully embrace the shadow, the dark, but sometimes I don’t embrace it at all. I let it wash over. I stand in these summer thunderstorms, letting the rain encompass me. No, for real. I did that Monday haha.
I’m in love with the moon. Truly. Deeply. Jenny Slate, my favorite comedian, does too. She has a whole stand-up special about it here
Jenny comes highly recommended. She has two specials out right now and two books. The way she talks about life and love and being a woman is like she lassoed it straight from my brain. I admire her so much so that one of my daily mantras is “I am brave for love” coined by Jenny.
She talks about love in a way I can grasp and deeply resonate with. And not just romantic love but love for your parents and grandparents, for your culture, your home. Yourself.
She has this monologue. One that makes me tear up every time I think about it. It goes like this: “Have you ever been faced with a gorgeous situation that you have wished for? Like that a really good person loves you and is being super fucking nice to you and they’re not doing anything wrong. And it’s exactly what you asked for… your reaction is to be filled with fear fantasies and suspicion and unable to trust and you’re like ‘oh that’s a mismatched sort of kind of thing there’. And you’re like ‘it feels really bad to feel this way and also it’s a really bad fucking look’. But you can’t stop yourself you’re just like ‘oh no but if I trust them then I’ll let my guard down and then they’ll hurt me’ and it’s just a terrible cycle. But then of course, the person’s goodness shines onto you and shows you the inside of yourself where you’re like ‘oh I’m believing some bad things about myself but I’m not bad I’m just holding some brutal beliefs that I should get rid of’. For example: That my feelings are too much and they happen too immediately and nobody wants to deal with them and nobody will ever be able to give me the amount of love that I need in order to actually feel loved! Because most people receive love and they hold it in their hearts like a bowl but for me I’m more like a colander or a strange felt hat that just leaks away and then you’re like ‘no stop it stop it! Think of something else do something else’ and you’re like I can’t just grab their face and scream “don’t destroy me!!!!”
wow.
Even reading it is mind boggling because I feel like she articulates my human experience so well.
I have always felt like I feel too much and that it does me dirty in the end. That I wish I could just sort of shut my feelings off, even for a moment to be numb. To put my head down and go rather than my neck on a swivel, taking every essence in and analyzing it for recourse with myself, or my poor mother who answers all my phone calls. As Jenny described above, you can take that intense emotion and overwhelming feeling and either it is self-sabatoging or used as information and context. I’m all about the context these days. How can you use how you feel, your immediate reaction to better understand yourself and limitations? Where your triggers are.
I usually don’t love to use the word trigger around people outside of a clinical setting because oftentimes it is made light of or people just aren’t able to comprehend what it means.
But recently, I feel like I am learning my triggers, and how to experience them, move through them. When you’re in the thick of it, you can be triggered and not even realize it. That may be because everything else is dark and dull that it just seems normal. So when things are good, and a trigger pops up, you can be thrown completely off balance. I know that’s my experience.
Are we going backwards?
My answer: No. We are constantly being reminded of where we need to put in work for ourselves. We are shown mirrors through other people, direct portals to our perceptions about the world and beliefs we hold about ourselves. The human experience, when in pure growth, means these “setbacks”, but they only are here to launch you forward in a way you would never even imagine for yourself.
This means, every time you grow in life, you have to re-meet your past experiences because now, you see them in a different light. So don’t think about triggers or challenging times as a delay in your healing, it is the rest of the chapter.
This is a week of anniversaries for me. One year with Lover, two years at Central Cycling. To think about who I was when I started Central, scared, shy, vulnerable, lacking confidence, unwell in my mind and body, and to see the growth!!! I have changed so so much since then, but I am all of those things still, because they are a part of my story. I can’t erase it, and frankly I don’t want to! I find when I am triggered, I resort to these ‘identities’. I get quiet, I don’t speak up, I find it hard to eat…
But with time and coping skills I move through it, remind myself who I am now, and shift my mindset. I rely of course on my friends, Lover, coworkers, my mom, my therapist. These are all characters important to my story, and they each have their place. I couldn’t be more grateful for my support system.
How it can be—— Worrying about the future based on my past and missing the now. Or being too in the negative now that I invalidate the past and distrust the future.
Everyone wants to ‘be in the now’. But it isn’t that easy. We all struggle and we all go through cycles and waves. The full moon, the new moon. Just here to remind you that you aren’t alone.
Luv ya mucho, here for you
Abundant blessings ∞
-madison renee katherine