Beyond Broken

Wendy’s Writing

Uncovering Lost Resources

When trauma occurs we look straight ahead. We cannot see left or right. Time seems to stop and our bodies hold our breath. In this myopic, shut down place we often miss the people who were there, who did see our pain, who tried to help. We carry this narrative forward in our psyches and in our bodies ¬– we were all alone, no one understood. This is the story we tell ourselves for the rest of our lives.

This narrative holds us in a grip of expectations of what life has to offer us and we repeat the story over and over again with slightly altered scripts and new characters.

Until…… we go back to the moment of the trauma and ask; what happened next? We move the narrative forward now and look around to see what we might have missed….

Read More

Our Investment In Our Grievances

“Holding on to my grievances give me a sense of power, which protects me from feeling vulnerable. It’s a way of standing up for myself and defending myself from being hurt, disappointed, or rejected again. It keeps me vigilant”

This hardening of our hearts is the ‘beast’ in us. It is the wounded beauty that has lost faith in itself because it was never fully seen or recognized.

“What keeps the wound and hardening from healing is not knowing that we are lovely and loveable just as we are while imagining that other people hold the key to this.”

…

Read More

Understanding Is Not A Luxury

We are so often misunderstood that we begin to believe that understanding is a luxury. Even our closest friends or partners who listen attentively but then quickly try and fix us feels mis-attuned.

I am not sure how we come to live without understanding and stop our protests. Do we just assume we will be misunderstood and give up?

We might find a slight postural stance and freeze in our bodies. A small shrug – one shoulder up higher than the other – our head turned to the side – the body clearly saying, “whatever”.

…

Read More

Celebration

Here is how it works! When you are little anyway.

You are almost two and have a ‘first’ moment.

Your first moment down a very steep slide, “Get ready, get set, go.” And you are flying. At the bottom you crack yourself up and then do it again and again and again. How smart you are.

How did you know to stretch out the moment of ‘firsts’ and until they land in in you?

How about the next ‘first’? When you can blow a bubble from the wand and watch it float on the wind. Again and again laughing wildly each time the bubbles stretch from the wand and take flight.

As we get older we take our ‘firsts’ for granted. A new insight in the therapy office, a new move at the gym, the first signs of spring, they barely get a nod, before we move on to what is next. Firsts get left in the moment as we speed on to the future.

…

Read More