Telling the truth is where we must begin
Origin stories, love + next steps
One beautiful truth about life on the internet is how we parachute in to someone’s story in progress, with rarely a clue as to what chapter our new internet friend is living. We sense something in their story that resonates with our story. We lean in to hear more, curious as to how got to this chapter.
Origin stories shed light on the chapters we missed in this human’s unfolding. They did not magically arrive fully formed knowing the stories they now share.
They learned that stuff. Probably the hard way. It’s why they now have something to share.
I keep trying to learn the easy lessons, hoping it’s the ladder that instantly lands me at the top of the Chutes & Ladders game. But no. Seems the only way to healing and wholeness is right through the heart of the scary stuff.
Today I share a few origin stories with you, especially for my new friends who join us in progress. May something in my life sound a bit like yours. Because, really? We’re all walking each other home — together.
Why am I so afraid?
My body walks my tree-lined neighborhood, winding past familiar homes and cracks in the road. Music fills my headphones and tears stream down my cheeks.
Why am I so afraid?
I cannot do this anymore. I have to pull back the covers and shine a light on my fear. I must figure out what I’m so afraid of.
I’d experienced panic attacks while preaching several times in a three-year span but something about this latest one broke me. I knew I could no longer exist like this. This isn’t the kind of person I want to be. I hid the anxiety as best I could from my children, my husband, and the people in my church. But I simply could not do it one more day.
Like a lifeline in the freezing ocean, a thought appears at stage left. What if I finally told the truth?
So I did. First, to myself. That one is the hardest. I fidget in a chair at therapy and bumble through my story on how long I’ve been an anxious wreck, while being confused that people think I have it all together. I write brutally honest things in my journal, talk to the clouds as I walk, and cry out the true stories locked up in my shaking body.
I tell myself the truth every day. No more hiding. I close myself in the bathroom and listen to soothing music while the truth barrels out of my body like a freight train. Once I start listening, I’m overwhelmed by everything that tumbles out. I see what I hid without knowing I was hiding it.
I start to tell the truth to my closest people. They try to understand. It probably doesn’t make sense. I’d hid everything for so long that the dissonance is real. But their nods and hugs help me believe myself.
One day, a panic attack hits in the middle of another sermon. Instead of pushing through, I stop. Looking up at the eyes of my congregation, I tell them the truth. “I’m having a panic attack. I need a minute.” My head drops and my eyes close. Tears flow. Awaiting their rejection and disappointment, my body jumps when hands touch my shoulders and back. The voices of the people I serve start praying for me. For my body and heart. For the fear that overflows. I don’t think I’m the only one crying in the sanctuary that Sunday morning.
I tell the truth. I both hate and love it. I want to be sick with the vulnerability and shame of it all. I also feel free.
Now, I know telling the truth is where we must begin.
What if loving her can heal me too?
My daughter is a week or two old and I hold her in my arms while rocking her to sleep. Her long eyelashes graze her ruddy cheeks as she rests. Knowing what is ahead when she wakes up, something invites me to pause and sink into this quiet moment.
A thought emerges. What if I show up to her life in a way that heals us both?
I know my anxiety is bad. I know becoming a mother will challenge every ounce of my mental health if I don’t explore my inner chaos. I hold her at night, shaking with panic, trying to soothe her, when truly — I’m soothing me.
One night, I sink to the ground next to her crib, terrified of the energy I know her sweet body feels radiating from my fearful self. What if loving her can heal me too?
Over the next few years, mothering her becomes my training ground for my mental health. I learn everything I can about conscious and mindful parenting. I learn to observe my triggers and regulate my emotions so I can show up to her with the energy that supports her beautiful life. I forgive myself when I lose my mind and she sees the worst of me. I take a deep breath and begin again because I’m determined to break the cycle of my anxiety. I know she’ll have her own issues to take to therapy in her 20s and 30s, but something about loving this little human awakes a desire to love the unhealed parts in me.
Now — at almost eleven years old, it feels good to pause and notice the relationship we’ve created. Yes, we argue and disagree. We raise our voices and feel frustrated. We know this is part of being human and we do the work of repair and connection. We forgive and take responsibility. We’re honest with each other about how anxiety lives in our bodies, what brings it up, and the different strategies the work for us. We talk about our emotions and how they show up as physical sensations that feel overwhelming. We cry together. We draw hearts on our hands so we have each other all day long. She draws pictures of her emotions and thoughts. She’s curious about her inner world and is learning to trust it. She’s learning to see her sensitivity as a super power while also learning to manage it so she can show up to her one life.
I don’t know what’s ahead in her teenage adventure, but I’m radically grateful for the choice I made to show up to my inner chaos just as her world began. It turns out those wild questions out of nowhere can come true. Loving her is healing me too.
A different kind of listening
I hated meditation in seminary. My teacher rang a bell and we sat in our chairs for ten minutes in silence. Looking back, my compassion for my undiagnosed ADHD self bubbles over, but all I knew at the time was that someone forced me to be quiet and I hated it. There was nothing I wanted to notice or see about my inner life in that season. Anxiety was at an all-time high, medications made it worse, and our discernment about where to move after grad school loomed large. Sitting with my thoughts? Hard stop.
But there’s nothing like desperation to make you try something new. A few years later as I intentionally engaged therapy and started believing this chaos in me could be tamed, I got to know my favorite new app, Insight Timer. Full of thousands of meditations, I listened to soothing voices talk about stillness, worry, the body, fear, and surrender. Sarah Blondin’s voice saved me in those early years of inner work. I borrowed her belief when I didn’t yet trust it was possible to heal.
One morning, I sit on the carpet in our living room scrolling the app for a new meditation. “Inner Child Meditation” appears on the screen and my heart leans in. I settle my body and hit play. A gentle voice helps me tune into the present moment. Entering into the imagination of the meditation, I’m invited to sit on a bench with my younger self. In my mind’s eye, I see five-year-old Jenny swinging on the swings. She looks up at me a few times and I gently smile. After a few minutes, she approaches my bench. We begin a fascinating exchange.
I introduce myself and ask if there’s anything she wants to say today. I feel her hesitate, wondering if she can trust this older version of herself. I nod. “I’m here. I’m glad to listen to anything you want to offer.”
To my utter shock, tears rise up in my body and pour out my eyes. I have no clue where these tears come from but I quickly put two and two together. This younger self still lives inside me. She carries confusion, hurt, and pain that I assume was in the past. Maybe it’s not.
In my imagination, my younger self now sits on the bench next to me and holds my hand. She repeats over and over and over, “I just want to feel safe. I just want to feel safe. I just want to feel safe.”
Growing up an ultra-sensitive kid in a large family, I understand her five-year-old longing.
Instead of dismissing her, I lean in and comfort her. “I see you. I believe you. Life must have felt uncomfortable and disorienting at times. You didn’t know how to navigate daily life and you did the best you could. You’re safe now. I’ve got you. We’re still learning but it’s a lot better.”
Tears still pour and my body pulses with emotion. The kind of emotion that feels like it’s been lodged in parts of my body for 25 years.
As the tears subside, the meditation voice invites me to ask my younger self if there’s anything she wants to say in return. She offers two words that make my soul smile, “Thank you.”
Wow.
The meditation ends and I blink my eyes open. The sunlight lands on a pile of tissues on the carpet next to me. I feel lighter. My body feels at peace.
This is the moment I learned we don’t have be scared of adventuring into our inner world. All the pain we fear we assume we’ll find simply wants to tell us something. When we know it, we’ll be free.
I visit my younger selves frequently now. We’ve had conversations at the edge of my crib, with my 9-year-old self in her room, with my 21-year-old self as she got married, with my 39-year-old self navigating challenging realities a year ago. They’re all ready to speak the pain they hold, if only we’ll trust them enough to listen.
My dear reader, what about you?
What origin stories point clearly to what matters to you now?
What threads long for you to pull them because your healing, your wholeness, and your joy rests inside them?
How do the stories of others connect to your story in this season?
These three origin stories are why I do the work I do. Here’s the God-honest truth:
There’s nothing we could uncover in your story that scares me. Nothing.
Because I’ve touched the bottom of my story enough times to know we won’t die from facing our pain.
In fact, we might just live more abundantly and courageously and beautifully than we’ve ever dared to imagine.
***
We’ve been at this newsletter for a month or two now. I pause to recognize the work we do here can stir up things. Sometimes, the simple noticing is what we need for now. Other times, we’re ready to pull a thread but we don’t know how or where to start.
I believe in this inner journey so much that I’ve created three solid next steps for you to explore.
A 1:1 Thread Session
If you have a thread you’re ready to talk about — let’s set up a Thread Session. It’s a spacious and brave space where you can feel held as we work through a question or situation you’re navigating. Book a Thread Session.
The Palms Up Path
This self-paced, on demand video course guides you as you befriend your fear, question the stories you’ve been handed, and deepen trust in yourself and the love that holds you. Check out the free preview and enroll.
The Thread Retreat
Let’s spend the weekend together! We’ve booked a lovely AirBnb for January 6-8, 2023 on beautiful Camano Island here in Washington state. Bring your places of tension and frustration. Curiosity and wonder. That nagging question that won’t let you go. We’ll explore them together and discover the vast beauty awaiting us inside.
This two-night weekend retreat will feel slow and deep, restful and intentional, clarifying and restorative. There will be time to rest, play, connect, reflect, and eat nourishing food together. All the details + register.
Choosing to gaze inward when every part of our conditioning tells us to look outward is a massively brave step.
I honor you, my reader. Wherever you are on your journey, may today breathe you home.
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