Nest. Twig. Love.

Can you tell what the nest

is going to look like or feel like

with one twig, or two, or ten?

Which twig, exactly, makes a nest a home?

 

Is it even the twigs?

Or is it the tree,

the forest,

the moonlight?

Or is it your own song?

 

It’s a cold night

and a slivered moon

and I am surrounded

by books, boxes

pots and pans—

 

twigs all.

They aren’t yet a nest

though it may be

that’s it’s just too soon to tell.

 

Home was never a place

to return to,

just to flee.

I know how to jump.

I know how to fly.

But not how to slowly

weave all the branches together

into something that feels like home.

 

Must the nest be complete

to call it home?

 

Or is it enough to love

each and every twig?

To love the sunrise over

the mountain with pink clouds

and the light through the windows

and the pine woods and laughter

with friends over dinner.

 

Am I the nest maker

weaving each twig into a whole?

Or is it only love

that binds the twigs together?

I guess it’s simply

too soon to tell.

 

© 2024 Gretchen L Schmelzer, PhD 

Wondergirl

Boy there are days I miss my superhero.

All of us have different aspects of ourselves. We have our ‘work’ selves and our ‘home’ selves. The self we share in public and the self we share with our closest friends or family. These are the normal, even sometimes necessary splits in our persona that we use to navigate the world. They help us both sort our behavior and protect the parts of ourselves that are, or need to be, more vulnerable. They help us ‘show up’ in the world and be effective.

Trauma makes these splits even more pronounced. There is such a need with trauma to have some part of yourself protected from the trauma—removed from the feelings of helplessness that comes with the experience of trauma. Protected from the fear and the memories. We put up dividers inside our heads and our hearts so that the trauma can sit behind some wall or stay encased in some lead box so that we can still stay part of the world. With the trauma safely stowed somewhere else in our persona, we have freedom of movement again. We have hope. We have energy.  There is just no better antidote to helplessness than the superhero. And the beauty of it is—there are so many superheroes.

Me? I miss the feeling of the cape blowing in the breeze. Especially during weeks like this where I am really aware of how it now hangs, dusty, on its hook. And anyhow, if you really look at it, the cape is child sized.

I called her ‘Wondergirl.’ She was my private superhero. You might have called yours something else. You might have been Superboy, or the Hulk or Tron. But mine was Wondergirl. She could do anything. She could tackle any problem, study for any test, do any project, take on any real-life dilemma. She was the most undaunted person I have ever met. Okay, she was frenzied and somewhat manic about how she went about things—but she got things done and she never gave up—just like any good superhero. Leaping tall problems in a single bound. She not only got things done—she went looking for things to do. She volunteered for everything. She made everything from scratch. She got another job, and then another. There were still hours in the day left, right?

The thing about trauma is that you are always trying to protect yourself from two main things: Getting caught off-guard, and feeling helpless. Wondergirl is the genius answer to both problems. Wondergirl is a workaholic control freak. You can’t get caught off-guard if you are busy controlling all of your time, and often, the time of those around you. Yes, you may be exhausted, but your life feels predictable. You have the illusion that you always know what is going to happen next because you are wildly orchestrating everything and everyone. And you don’t feel helpless when you are in constant achievement mode. Me? Helpless? I just made 4 batches of strawberry jam and wrote six reports. Take that Helpless!

As far as survival strategies go, Wondergirl is great. But she is just that. She is what you use to survive something. To get through something. I mean, even Superman didn’t stay Superman all the time. He shifted back to Clark Kent when the crisis was over. The problem with trauma, though, is that it can leave you in a perpetual state of crisis—of believing that the past crisis is always about to start again. So you need to be ready, need to have your cape on, need to be in control.

And not everyone uses Wondergirl or Superboy. Some of the superheroes are less into saving lives and more into destruction. I worked with one teenage boy on a hospital unit who came in to the unit after tearing the door off the refrigerator at home. When he felt out of control, he became larger than life. He created control by totally losing it—His wild "Incredible Hulk" behavior would bring in a whole system to help him and his family. The key is that your superhero comes in to protect you from feeling what you hate the most. Your superhero is the self you can rely on. It becomes habit.

My friend Jane once summed up the problem of Wondergirl perfectly by stating, “Wondergirl ages badly.” You see, once you are aware of her. Once you catch yourself relying on her, you realize that a well-meaning, terrified, manic sixteen year old is running your life. A sixteen year old moving at a rapid pace so no one will realize that she’s sixteen, notice that she’s wearing knee socks, notice she’s not a grown-up. You catch yourself because it’s past midnight and you are baking carrot cake cupcakes for work the next day. You catch yourself because you are overbooked and behind on the work you have and you just volunteered for another committee. You catch yourself because you have offered to help again—when what you really needed to do was ask for help.

And when you do catch yourself, you understand you don’t really want a sixteen year old running your life. But the problem is, she’s been running your life for so long that you don’t know how to do it without her. And you aren’t sure you want to.

It takes a lot of patience to unhook from Wondergirl. She hates losing control and you hate taking it. It’s a real tug-of-war to get her to let go and for you to take the rope. It’s mostly a long process of catching yourself suddenly in your cape, and turning around and sending Wondergirl back inside to hang up the cape, telling her that you are going to take care of it, whatever it is, that it’s not her job anymore. It is recognizing that you, as an adult, are the one who is going to say yes, or no, and tolerate the feelings of helplessness that come with regular life—of not actually knowing the next move. Of tolerating feeling awkward or clumsy or inelegant as you learn to do things. Wondergirl flies, and you, as a human walk, and this is just a hard adjustment. It sucks losing your superpowers.

I have said before that repeated trauma is really three forms of trauma: what did happen, what didn’t happen and what you did to protect yourself from the trauma. This is why it can be a long process to untangle it all. Getting to know Wondergirl, getting to know whatever superhero you used, is way to understand how you protected yourself. In fact, you can’t really heal from trauma until you really get acquainted with your superhero, until you understand her or him. And until you take over their role—in a new and more reasonable way. The role of our superheroes was one above all: Keep us away from our trauma and ever experiencing it again. They work so hard to keep you from feeling bad, but their hard work keeps you from getting well, from getting whole.

We need to see our trauma to heal from it. Not all at once. But we need to know it, and we need to feel it and we need to be able to move with it and talk about it. We need it to become a whole story so that it can move it to the past. And Wondergirl is designed to keep you away from it—Wondergirl lives in an ever-present-past.

Basically, you tell Wondergirl it’s time for her to retire. You tell her that her job is no longer necessary. You thank her for her long years of service and you metaphorically send her back to the life of a sixteen year old. Then you take over the job of getting things done. Over and over. Under stress she can show back up again. And with discipline you send her back in again. It takes a lot of repetition. A lot catching yourself in the act.

And then one day you notice that she’s gone. That it is a particularly stressful week, or stressful day and you miss that turbo-charged gear that she had. You realize that she’s no longer part of your system. You aren’t protecting yourself from an old crisis—you are just living through the everyday ups and downs that we all live through. Some days more up and some days more down.

And on those days I miss her. I don’t want her running my life, but I miss her as the loyal and somewhat annoying friend and superhero that she was. She was a constant companion for so long but we grew apart—as friends can. I miss the bright and shiny feeling that you can have, flying with your cape on. I miss her ‘I can do anything’ attitude. I miss her endless energy. Life is quieter without her. But, she kind of leaves a hole behind when she goes.

But in return for the loss of her I have gotten to know parts of myself that had been hidden away—the parts she worked so hard to protect. Yes, I can miss feeling bright and shiny, but I have come to appreciate a steadfastness and calm I never knew. And yes, I miss the endless energy, but I can now sometimes operate within an energy budget that has me feeling like I can give so much more than I could before—to myself and others. And mostly I am struck for Wondergirl, like all superheroes, that they never really get to hear how much they are appreciated. They are always gone before everyone realizes what has happened. How they saved the day. The citizens all stand around thanking Superman and he is already back in the Office of the Daily Planet, typing. And so it is for Wondergirl. She’s gone and I am left in gratitude for the hard work and protection that she offered me. I hope she knows.

© 2024 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 

To fall patiently...

“This is what the things can teach us: to fall patiently, to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly”
— Rilke

I wish had met Rilke: I think he would have a lot to say about healing and growth because his poems really get to the heart of healing and growth. That heaviness, that wobbly-ness- which he somehow elevates to a sacred place. It’s so much more comforting to feel like your wobbly-ness is sacred than to feel like it's some sort of a character flaw.  It’s amazing how much we all want solid ground — the solid ground of experience of knowing exactly where we are. And yet, the very definition of growth and healing is to move into a new beginning—a new space that you have not yet inhabited.

Initially this wobbliness can feel like those first tentative steps you take on ice in the winter where you tap your toe out ahead of you, unsure of whether to put your full weight on your feet. Will this new ground hold me? Can I really put my weight into this new way of being?

Many years ago I was on a walk to the woods and came upon a Goshawk in a dead tree. I was captivated by his regal stance, and stood watching— trying to keep my dog still. When I started to move again it seemed I caught the hawk off-guard and he leapt off the tree and instead of launching up, he fell for a bit and then caught his stride and began to fly. just like Rilke tells us, sometimes you need to fall before you can fly.

The big myth about healing from trauma is that it is some sort of linear process where you are ‘done’ with that. Whatever that is for you. I am not saying things don’t change, or that you don’t really shift in how you understand and approach the world. But I can say that there are plenty of times when you think you are just going to solidly launch from your branch and instead you must fall patiently.  Yes you won’t know when it will happen, but eventually you are able to catch the wind under your wings.

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2024/2016

Sometimes it's only darkness that helps us see our light

Sometimes the only way we get to see what is real or true is when we are thrust into the dark. Only on the darkest of nights, and in the darkest of places can you suddenly be in the presence of the Milky Way. When it gets so dark you aren’t sure you are going to be able to walk back to your house or the car—you are suddenly caught off guard. When you feel disoriented and wobbly because you can’t see even one step in front of you—so you look up in an attempt to get oriented—and there it is in shades of white, pink and yellow: our universe –suddenly visible. So big. So vast. So ungraspable.  And you realize that it’s always been there, even though you rarely see it. The way you suddenly see the sun on a rainy day when you are traveling by air and the plane shoots up above the clouds. Reality and our perception of reality are really affected by filters of light and weather.

I am starting to recognize that the emotions I struggle with the most: grief, despair, and disappointment are the emotions that make my world go dark. I can’t see my way forward. I feel lost and disoriented. I want to stay put and find my footing.

This darkness feels alien to me because my normal state is one of optimism and hope. Optimism and hope can be great things, but for those of you who have lived through trauma or grief—sometimes this optimism or hope has an extra edge or energy. It’s survival hope—‘new good childhood hope’ – ‘American dream’ hope. It has a manic energy that pushes back on reality testing. It gears up in the face of disconfirming data.

Hope has been massive source of energy for me as well as a source of protection against grief and despair. But eventually it doesn’t work: you find yourself face to face with a terrible loss or the endless fight against violence or injustice—against something so very wrong—and whether that injustice or loss happened just to you, or someone you love, to a group you belong to or all of humanity—you see it for what it is and you can’t imagine how you are going to live in a world and know, really take in, that injustice, that loss, that grief. That level of sorrow for knowing that you can’t change it. The helplessness of seeing just how big it is and not having any idea of how it can be changed. You believe it is impossible. Your world goes dark. You are brought to your knees.

And paradoxically that is often the turning point of despair. At my most despairing I have gone in to talk to my therapist and chosen to sit on the floor, instead of the chair. I wanted to sit on the floor because I wanted to be where I was—at the very bottom—the place ‘you can’t fall below.’  And in admitting I was at the lowest place possible, I found the ground. I found something that felt real and solid. The healing part of despair is that it can actually be incredibly grounding: you know where you are, you see the world as it is, and you can get some clarity about what is wrong—what is really wrong at the root of it all.

In grief and despair we find the most pessimistic parts of ourselves. And we can find the both the most tender and the most hardened parts of ourselves. And in despair we find the most pessimistic and tender and hardened parts of our communities. In finding our darker sides we can be, ironically, more whole. In being able to sit in the dark for a bit—we can see more clearly what is there—see the universe we actually live in, not just the one we aspire to.

John Lederach who has worked with communities post-conflict on peacebuilding talks about the fact that the pessimism of the people who have lived through the worst cycles of violence may be one the biggest sources of true change. He calls their pessimism a gift, not an obstacle. Lederach calls pessimism grounded realism: “grounded realism constantly explores and questions what constitutes genuine change. For people who have lived for long periods in settings of violence, change poses this challenge: How do we create something that does not yet exist in a context where our legacy and lived history are alive and live before us?”

Grief and despair brings us in contact with our most authentic selves and it compels us to demand that authenticity from the relationships around us. When we are feeling grief or despair we cannot in any way tolerate fakeness, clichés or bullshit. When we are despairing we need authentic, we need real. We need it from ourselves and we need it from others. Hope is the fuel that helps us keep moving toward healing, toward the better imagined state. But hope often keeps us from being able to see and take in the trauma that has occurred- and it keeps us from seeing how we protect ourselves from knowing this truth. Hope can obscure what is really there—it can keep us from becoming whole.

Grief and despair can be turning points. Suddenly you can see the bigness of it all—and because of that you are freed from a world of simplistic duality—of there being an easy answer. The Milky Way is approximately 890 billion to 1.54 trillion times the mass of the Sun and contains between 100 and 400 billion stars and at least that many planets. The darker emotions force you to hold the complexity, which actually provides the only real hope of healing.

So we need to sit with our despair which means sitting on the ground if necessary. And we need to tolerate the dark enough to see the light that is actually there—and see the size and edges of our universe as they are, and not just how we wished they were. Seeing what is really there is ultimately how we will get where we hope to go—and the dark may be a painful, yet effective aide. In some languages the name of the Milky Way is translated as the “Bird Path” or “Way of the Crane” because it is the Milky Way that guides the birds to safety and nourishment.

 © 2024 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD


 

 

 

 

 

 

The milky way contains from