Becoming a rested woman

 Last year was a healing year for me. I also had a lot of fun and learned a lot about myself. It was a  year where I stepped into both my power and my tenderness. It was a year of me firmly saying, “NO!” and it was a year of me enthusiastically saying, “OH, YESSSSS!!!!”.  A year of playfulness and adventure. It was a year in which Sekile and Monique/my inner child were cared for. A year of simple joys and pleasures. It was a year of transition and transformation. Last night at my second Pour One Out StoryTelling event, I didn’t talk about the entirety of my 2023 but I did share a story about one of the most beautiful gifts I gave myself last year. Rest. 

 

This is my story of how I became a rested woman. 

 

On April 16, 2021, I became the state’s inaugural chief equity officer. I promised myself and my therapist that I would stay 2 years in the Gov’s office and then I would finally rest.  I kept my promise to myself and despite the fact that I was actually enjoying  working with the hard working people who were serving our state,  exactly 2 years later on April 14, 2023, I began what I have affectionately called—my season of radical rest.

But while, I aspired and dreamed of resting, I didn’t quite know how to. I remember cowering in a stairwell at the gov’s office in tears and on the phone with my best friend minutes before handing in my letter of resignation. I had watched my fellow sr. colleagues leave with flashy press releases as they launched onto their next professional endeavor. I also found myself reflecting on the words of my supportive colleagues from NW who had cheered me on to take the position—telling me I could write my ticket after I worked for the governor. But when I left, I did not want to launch.  I left because I was weary. Cumulatively weary. Weary of surviving. Wearing from striving. Weary from providing. Weary from healing. Weary from trying to fix broken and inhumane institutions. I left to lie on a soft pillow and in my hammock but of course, my departure press release didn’t include those life sustaining decisions. 

In hindsight, quitting was the easiest part of my journey! How does one truly rest when they have never seen others who didn’t possess  economic privilege or wealth—rest?! How does one rest when they have only seen the people in their lives work until they could not work any longer or until they die? How does one rest when they have been told there shouldn’t been any gaps in your resume-especially if you are a woman, a person of color,  and/or mother? I’m all of those so I have never even entertained the thought of rest.   I wasn’t even sure how to rest or if I had permission to take the road less traveled but I was determined. 

And I’m here to tell you—-deciding to rest and resting are two totally different things!! Resting was soooo delicious but it was also a constant and hard fought struggle!

Well—- at first it was easy—-I left the country for a month and really enjoyed myself. I literally and figuratively unplugged. But when I returned, our world was still on fire. It was hard but I gave myself permission to rest from my abortion advocacy work. And my RJ comrades encouraged that rest for me and I pray for it for them. But family stressors were ever present and there were several financial crises that suddenly arose for my loved ones. I recall feeling resentful at first, thinking why couldn’t they give me this? How could these issues all bubble up right when I quit my job and was just trying to rest!? Then something shifted in me. My heart expanded and I eventually felt grateful that I had the time to give to my family. To show up for, and be present with them in ways I would not have been able to if I was working. But showing up for family is still not resting.

It hit me that the world will always keep spinning so I had to protect my commitment to myself—even in the midst of family crises and obligations. I began to pour into me first and then poured into my loved ones. I was determined to return to myself and I learned to request the space and time that I needed. I learned to activate DND and how to silence my notifications. The silence was glorious. I realized resting was an active process that needs to be crafted within and despite  the chaos of daily life. I fought for rest and claimed it as my own.

And it wasn’t just family that pulled me away from rest when I returned to the states—My anxiety skyrocketed as I realized I did not have a job for the 1st time since I was 14. I began panicking and applying to jobs frantically and without intentionality. I was not resting. I was on LinkedIn and the chronicle of higher ed jobs daily. I was chatting with folks about potentially opening my own institute and starting a story telling series focusing on reproductive freedom. I said yes to panels and guest lectures in order to have some cash flowing in and to make sure I stayed “relevant” and “in the game”. And it wasn’t until I didn’t get a job in June, which I was over qualified for, that I finally began to sit with myself again. I was wayyyy off task—this not only was not resting—- this was desperation. So I exhaled and I decided to trust myself and my process. I returned to my hammock, traveled to see family and friends, practiced yoga at the beach, and enjoyed my summer. 

Until the next wave of anxiety came over me in late August and September when I saw everyone in my FB timeline returning to campus for the fall semester and I was still at home in my pjs. No syllabi to create. No book to publish. No welcome back events plan. No initiatives to spearhead. No cute back to school outfits to buy at the thrift store. I began worrying if I would ever be able to find employment again. I also started feeling shame and suddenly began saying I was on a “sabbatical”

because  that seemed more acceptable than simply saying that I wasn’t working. Yes, internalized capitalism is real! Somehow resting began to feel like failure and the specter of financial insecurity had me spooked. The little working class girl inside me was scared—- I had survived poverty as a child and was terrified about  experiencing it again. Rest was competing with self doubt, uncertainty, and past trauma. My therapist and several of my friends had to care for little Monique—that’s my inner child— and remind her that we were both safe. At one point, I even began worrying that I was being punished for resting and that my family  and I could suffer for my unplanned and potentially catastrophic choices.

Everybody needs rest—who was I to think that I deserved a sweet taste of it?! During this phase I became more emotionally dysregulated and found myself requiring more care, compassion, and support from my inner circle. I learned how to be more vulnerable and share when I was feeling lost and unsure of myself. My therapist and friends held me close and am so grateful. I took more baths, meditated,  and practiced Qi Gong as I fought to stay in my body so I could  feel and work through my complex emotions that bubbled up to the surface. I lived simply as my savings dwindled. I had to trust that I would be ok and I returned to rest in between my periodic anxiety spirals. I learned to cultivate and appreciate stillness, slowness and yes, aloneness— as most of my social connections were busy at work and living their equally full lives. I became my own good company. 

As my season of radical rest began to come to an end in December, I savored every second that was left. I retreated even more into myself and sought  silence as a sacred praxis. 

It’s January, and  I have returned to work but I now claim rest as my own. Though I had to occasionally fight back  my survivor’s guilt for having the privilege of a season of rest, and at times I did not feel worthy of it—-it truly was a journey of joy. 

I NOW know WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE A RESTED BLACK WOMAN—-

and I now know that I am worthy. 

We all are.

Resurrection Sunday: Mi Cerrada

I am not a religious person but am deeply spiritual. I am also someone who falls into blessings. Like the time my friend Thea* came to town and invited me to hang out with her and her BFF, Marta*. I’m a person who connects with people based on their energy and from the moment I met Marta, I felt her fun loving and compassionate energy. I also had a chance to bear witness to her power as a healer that night. In between drinks, snacks, and vibing as fellow Pisces, Marta performed Thea’s Cerrada/bone closing. Thea had recently had her 3rd baby, and Marta was a doula who was trained in this beautiful Mexican post partum ritual that invited the spirit to return to the body after the trauma and stress of birth. It also involved massaging the womb and then tying the womb with rebozos to “close”/realign the pelvic bones. I sat on the couch in amazement that a healing practice like this even existed. I love that it was both sacred but also ordinary in the way Marta and Thea interacted with each other as sister friends. I had not had a child since 2003 but I asked Marta if she could perform one on me. She obliged and did a mini version. I felt cared for and recall feeling the weight of my births, abortions, and sexual abuse trauma lifted. I went home and devoured everything I could read about bone closings and learned that women from all over the world have similar post partum healing rituals. I also learned that the ceremony and practice can be done not just for birth but also for the full spectrum of reproduction and for other aspects of life transition. I felt a sense of betrayal as I realized this is yet another form of women’s power that has gotten erased for so many, particularly those of us who live in the US under capitalism and the medicalization of birth and reproduction.

Last year when I visited Mexico City for my belated 50th birthday, I participated in a Temazcal, a pre-Hispanic ritual of Mexico. I wrote about how I felt spiritually reborn after and it has deeply contributed to my healing from being the person the world told me I should be. This year as I began preparing for my return to Mexico, I became curious about participating in a full Cerrada. I wasn’t quite sure where to begin and decided to reach out to Marta to see if she knew where I could go. But then it hit me that Marta knew my story—my sexual trauma story, my abortion story, my birthing story, my relationship story, my career story and my story of my journey towards myself. So I called her with a sisterly ask and she sweetly said yes to my request. We decided that Easter Sunday, a day associated with the season of fertility and rebirth would be the perfect day for her to perform my Cerrada.

Our time together began in a very ordinary way. She came to my place with all her supplies and calming spirit. We chatted like sister friends do as she cut the tops off of several bouquets of flowers and boiled a pot of herbs for my baño. I made us some Jamaica/hibiscus tea. As we sipped our tea, I learned how she came to become a doula and was reminded that beccoming a doula had also been a goal of mine that I had put on the back burner with other hopes and dreams. I also learned that she was becoming a midwife and I recalled the pleasure of having midwives for my 2nd and 3rd birthing processes. We talked about being mamas and about being committed to work that felt affirming and energizing, not depleting. She was tender and caring. I wish I had snapped a picture of her standing in her power in my kitchen.

After a while she called me back to my room. There were candles lit everywhere and my room and bathroom smelled heavenly. I walked into my bathroom and the bath was full of the rose and calendula blooms she had pruned while we were chatting earlier. The herb infused water was the color of tea and there were sprigs of rosemary around the borders of my bath tub. She told me that she prepared different  baños for each person and that mine had herbs and flowers that invited healing and protection. She invited me to undress and step into the warm, flower filled tub. 

After I was settled in she began talking to me about my journey towards myself. My personal and professional life transitions, my traumas, my victories, my areas of struggle and my oppurtunities for growth and healing. She encouraged me to feel what I needed to feel as she “whipped” my body with a bundle of rosemary branches. She said that during the reproductive process, particularly birthing or other forms of womb trauma, our spirits leave the body. The  baño and skin stimulation was inviting the spirit to return. I have been briefly naked in front on my friends and lovers but I rarely have been this naked and vulnerable before.  I have gained over 20 pounds in the past 2 years and have not been feeling comfortable in my body lately. Not because I am fatphobic but more because I am disappointed that I have let the world and life stress “win” again. But, I have begun being more self compassionate and have been revisiting the way I frame my tendency to numb myself and cocoon under my covers to protect myself when I don’t feel safe or feel overwhelmed. I have tried not to feel shame when I use these survival skills but instead am learning to become aware when I don’t feel safe and explore what I need to get and be safe. I felt safe with Marta. Not once did I feel over exposed under her care. In fact I felt quite free. I felt like an innocent and trusting child being given a bath by a caring adult—a reality that I can’t say I’ve had when I actually was a child.

She continued to talk to me and the tears fell. She noted that I was on a healing journey and that I am now dabbling in my “rebellious teen” years. Those exploratory years were cut short for me as the over responsible oldest child and as a sexual abuse survivor who felt like damaged goods. She noted that my “inner child” still needed healing and reminded me that I had survived and that I was safe. It was both a heavy and a light moment. My tears mixed well with the sweet smelling water in my bath tub.

After my baño, she invited me to lay naked on my bed, which now had 4 rebozos laid across it. First she massaged my body with clarysage starting with my feet. Then she externally massaged my uterus and manipulated my pelvic bones to close them physically and spiritually. Then she massaged my upper body and head. After massaging each section she would tie that section with a rebozo. I felt lovingly mummified or cocooned. I felt protected and safe. I felt like soft air. 

 It felt like time had stood still. When she arrived it was daylight but I realized it was dark when she finished. Marta had explained what would happen during my Cerrada in our prep call but I had no idea what spiritual journey I would be going on. I felt so grateful to her as Latina for sharing her healing practices with me as a Black woman. It felt like a gift of Brown-Black solidarity that I will carry with me forever. She labored over me and poured into me. It was magical.

After she finished, she collected the flowers from my baño and said that I could bury them or make and offering at the Lake. Of course, being the mermaid that I am, I chose the lake offering. Her, being a fellow Pisces, said she figured that would be my choice. So the next morning, I got up and walked to the beach. I threw the flowers in the water but not far out enough. Most of them washed right back onto the shore so I began to pick them up one by one and toss them out farther. 

Then all of sudden 4 geese appeared in the water and went directly into the area where all my flowers were. I wasn’t sure if geese liked to eat flowers but they went straight  towards where they were all floating. I have been going to this particular beach for years and have never seen geese there. I was so intrigued by their sudden appearance that I decided to look up the symbolism for geese. One of the most frequent ones I found was that they symbolize PROTECTION, which was aligned with Marta’s message to me the night before. She told me that I was safe and that I was protected! The visit from the geese felt like a serendipitous ending to a beautifully healing experience. 

I believe we all need healing and tender moments like this in our lives. Moments where our spirits are being invited to return to our  bodies. Caring hands massaging and kneading healing deep into our bones. Intentional pauses from life to explore our feelings and thoughts deeply. Instead we are often forced to just push through life and hope time will make it all fade away. That had been my strategy for most of my life. I also spent a considerable amount of time caring for others and ignoring the fact that the child in me had not been cared for and the adult I had become was in need of deep care. I needed to begin this blog in 2014. I need massages regularly and to dance wildly to stay in my body. I needed to begin therapy in 2015 and then again in 2018. I needed to begin taking solo vacations so that I could sit with and discover myself. I needed to be reborn in the Temazcal last year. I needed my spirit to return to my body during my Cerrada this year. And I will continue to pour into my healing for the rest of my time on earth because hard lives need soft spaces.

I don’t mean to romanticize Cerradas but for me, having intentional time to be embodied and having someone hold space for me to come apart and put myself back together spiritually was beautifully healing. Survival is life long. We need pauses. We need time. We need safe, loving, and power filled hands laid on our bodies.  We need words of encouragement and reassurance. We need time for and commitment to restoration. 

Muchas gracias, Marta, for holding my hand and walking me home to my spirit so that I could journey anew. You are a blessing.

More on Bone Closing/Cerrada: https://www.theeducatedbirth.com/articles/bone-closing-ceremony-what-it-is-and-where-it-comes-from

Author’s note: As I said previously, please engage in non-predatory ways when being gifted access to other people’s cultures and spiritual traditions.

*Names have been changed to protect my friends’ badassery

Son Shining

On June 3, 2018 I was all smiles as he walked across the stage but the next day I woke up back in my feelings about my sonflower graduating from high school and heading to college. We moved to our community 6 years ago and he began his time here as the middle child entering the 7th grade, the middle of middle school. He was a free spirit back then—mohawk and skate boarder. Marching to the beat of his own drum. He signed up for club soccer and realized quickly that our laid back nature about team sports and life was not valued in the culture of our new over structured and intensified suburban reality. He dropped skate boarding and double downed on soccer. He cut his mohawk he had worn for 7 years. He navigated the sea of other middle schoolers and the ocean of high schoolers over the past 6 years. He also has maintained an honor roll GPA despite the constant life stress and family transitions. In his senior year, he decided that he did not want to play club soccer any more. It was like he woke up and remembered he was enough and he had had enough of the team sports hamster wheel. He decided to play soccer and live life for the joy.      

He began spending time playing basketball, working out and hanging out with friends whom we never met. At times, I did not know how to parent him. He was fiercely independent and private and I, a social worker and self professed super mama, just wanted him to "share his feelings". He chose not to go to homecoming or the prom. I learned new notions of a "normal" high school experience. He applied to college without my help. He was accepted in 7 of the 8 colleges he applied to but only 2 of the 8 accepted him into the Civil Engineering & Architecture programs that he applied to. I stewed as I thought about the structural ways Higher Ed pushes black and brown folks out of STEM, knowing he was a strong student. He decided that he would major in communications not Civil Engineering or Architecture, though as a Lego kid he had spent his childhood building and drawing new worlds. I wanted to advocate and fight the systems that stood in his way but to be honest, I felt powerless. I held my tongue and my heart.

 I also didn’t quite get his sharp pivot since he had already taken 3 courses in Engineering but I was learning that supporting and loving him meant following his lead not understanding him. Still I was haunted by all that I imagined he was navigating. He reminded me often to stop constructing his journey as a victim narrative and to trust him when he said that he was good. He soon announced that he and his 2 best friends, whom I met on graduation day, had decided to go college together and would be room mates. And days after dropping him off at college he announces that he is joining a fraternity that is not one I am familiar with from the black experience. Initially I felt like I had failed to help him appreciate our family’s traditions and valuation of black organizations and institutions. But I forgot that what I also value is bodily autonomy and freedom of expression. I forgot that I raised my child to blaze his own trail and to live beyond the boundaries of what the world, including our family’s world, defined for him. I raised him to chart his own course--and so he is. 

I have loved him deeply as I had hoped to be loved by my parents. Which at times, I admit, may have even been smothering. Parenting is hard. Parenting as a black mother of a black son is harder. Parenting as a survivor of emotional, physical and sexual abuse further complicates it all. I generally parent out of worry, fear, anxiety and then somewhere down the line, I remember to just breathe and let them blossom. It does not come naturally to me. Letting go, loosening my grip, is healing. Tightening it risks producing intergenerational harm. I am learning and he is teaching. 

I dropped my son off at college 9 days ago. I have felt every emotion I own since I dropped him off but the 3 most prominent are love, awe, and pride. He is a beautiful and brilliant human and I am so grateful the world gets to experience him. Keep shining brightly, sonshine!

                                                                     Love, Mom!