My Inner Child is Braced

/ To watch this post via video - scroll to the bottom!/12.5.24 Journal entry“I feel the lowest I have since starting my SSRI. It’s freaking me out. I feel so lost. I’m afraid of losing my resiliency, my boo, my sense of self and drive, my purpose. I feel like I’m just here floating. I hate it. I’m so lucky to have everything I need and more, but I’m struggling. Struggling.My spiritual spark is gone. I don’t recognize myself anymore and I can’t believe it’s come to this place. I feel like people are just moving on and achieving things and I’m left behind.”I felt this nagging in my spirit, and it didn’t make sense until I pulled out my journal from a year ago. It’s boring how we all say our bodies remember, but it suuuure does. At this point, it barely feels consensual! Every f*****g month my body remembers a trauma from 1, 2, 3, 5, 35 years ago. God damn being alive is exhausting.As I read my journal entries from last december, my body involuntarily ached right behind my sternum and a sob rose up. I forgot. I forgot how deep in the grief and sadness hole I was. I forgot what it was like to look in the mirror and see a shell of a person. Not one ounce of motivation within a 100 mile radius.Witnessing genocide in Palestine broke me in ways I had no idea were possible. The documentary-worthy betrayal and violation that my ex committed against me…who even knows how it has changed my DNA. It baffled me that anyone was able to get up in the morning and do work and take care of kids and have fun.I surrendered to the waves washing me further into the sea. That was the only thing that made sense.Underneath it all, I remember so vividly that I knew for sure that things would change. I knew change was constant. I couldn’t feel it, but I knew my purpose here on earth in this lifetime. I knew the cold fact that I (and I believe all of us) have the responsibility to do our part in demanding the dignity of all humans, where no one is left behind. While I was drowning, I knew where the water would lead me.I’m about 2 or 3 here in this photo. The feeling of excitement at that age is like champagne bubbles traveling up to the surface so fast the container might not even make it in one piece! All I can do is jump up and down flapping my hands.“I don’t remember the last time I was excited,” my mom said this right before a family trip, and it has crystallized into a core memory.As a young kid, I learned that paying the cost of excitement towards something I was looking forward was too costly. Like clockwork, important dates like birthdays, holidays, and trips were high risk days. I could almost predict that something would set off my mom, and things would be canceled. Even if things weren’t canceled, the tone of the day was probably tense. In the miracle chance things weren’t canceled and she was in a good mood, I would hold a tense smile braced from it all falling to s**t at any moment.Every day was a negotiation, a bartering, a betting if it was worth feeling excited about.Being braced and then bored that things didn’t work out has been seared into my body. Every time the other shoe drops, it deepens the track.Fast forward to now, my body remembers and is braced.For the past 15 years, I’ve been slowly working on healing my nervous system to be open to the possibility that things could actually work out. I could actually experience safety within myself and in relationships.Slowly working on my capacity to receive true care and love. Slowly working on showing up for myself first. Slowly working on separating things not working out from it being some kind of punishment.Talking about punishment, one way christianity has really fucked with me is carrying the weight that everything bad that happens to me is some kind of lesson from the heavens. Somehow, if I were more obedient to God or more faithful to the bible, things would work out more often. That’s such a sad and twisted way to see things, being that the people don’t choose to be poor, unhoused, or have their land colonized. God is so much more expansive than being a bully waiting to teach me a lesson.Sometimes after enjoying a few days with my boo, I look around as we are dozing off…astonished and terrified that things are working out. It’s a miracle. I mean, it is a miracle our souls found each other, but the fact that we both have chosen each other out of love for ourselves threatens so much of my wiring.It’s an offront to my baby-me assumption that nothing is worth being excited for.It’s offensive to this deep body wiring that I have rooted and safe friendships where I feel seen and known.It erodes the assumption that being bored of things not working out is better than hoping.My besties, my boo and I try to get out of town a few times a year, and EVERY TIME there’s a part of me that freezes. My inner child is like “you won’t get me this time…it won’t work out and I’m already over it.” And then when we are almost home after a cute time away…I’m confronted with how it turned out exactly how I dreamed. The first time, and then the second…the third time too. This kind of love and connection with soul-aligned people stretches my imagination of what is possible.When they say love heals, I had no idea how treacherous it would feel. The battles that I had and have to fight in order to feel at home and at ease in my body are dramatic…like a sword fight where you gasp at every movement because you can’t tell who will win. And sometimes I lose to the fear and the potential loss. But sometimes I win and I get the satisfaction of feeling settled in my body even if it’s for 30 mins.I have been fighting for my life in order to feel safe within myself…let alone in the company of other people. What a wonder.Free falling last year into not knowing when things will change was healing. I let things fade away trusting that change is constant. I let go of trying to smile my way through the crumbling. I let go of trying to hold onto the semblance of myself. In turn, I squeezed out of that version of me and revealed a translucent skin me that is more vulnerable to different possibilities. Things haven’t all worked out and they will continue to defy my wishes, but all I know is that it won’t be every time.The next time I’m called to fall back into the water, I’m going to surrender quicker.Not out of doom, but out of deep trust.What does Liberatory Imagination spark in me today?I wrote this in my substack “Today my Body Remembers,”A future where we can be soft puddles. Where tenderness is abundant and afforded to everyone. Where vulnerability is respected and honored. Where ingenuity and creativity aren’t spent on how to survive, but on art. Where a leisurely pace is just the default. Where communion with the land is a common delight.Yes! And where being braced converts to being alert for more possibilities.One thing I have learned is that our nervous system reads stimuli in a very unbiased way, whether it is dangerous or not. The stress of running away from danger and the stress of running for fun read similarly to our bodies. The stress of confronting someone is similar to the stress of flirting with a crush.Liberatory imagination sparks in me the ability to discover more possibilities. I don’t need to deny my body, my lived experience, or my defense mechanisms. I just need to get rooted in who I am and what life is about, and jump off tracks I’ve grown out of.How to support me (thank you in advance):* Buy me a cup of coffee. Every bit counts! You can venmo me at @tiffanywongart with note “From substack!”* Subscribe for free (all my posts will be available to the public), but set up a monthly or annual recurring payment with me directly on venmo - @tiffanywongart. Attach the note “Recurring substack subscription.”LIBERATORY IMAGINATION is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to LIBERATORY IMAGINATION at tiffanywongart.substack.com/subscribe