An Ode to Those Who are Healing Gogo Nomadlozi aka Rebecca Rogerson

Sometimes, when all the feelings surface and memories intermingle with grief, others' pain and rage, and I feel the need to liberate myself from tiring and tired family dynamics and unhealthy patterns; the dam floods. Generally, it happens around the holiday period, or, when physical pain comes out of nowhere (but from somewhere) and takes me down, at best only for a few days. A generic TV show can pull up my old scripts until I dust off loosely buried sadness and succumb to The Sob. (Trauma survivors understand this.)

I let IT up and let IT out but letting go is another matter.

Holding IT-- the pain, self-defeating negative beliefs, attitudes and behaviours, not feeling good enough or lovable etc, etc. is hard, but holding on to IT and holding IT in, is worse, yet, it's what I learned and what I know.

Unlearning is hard and requires time, self-compassion, patience, kindness, effective tools and double-doses of care.

If I’m lucky and willing and loved and supported; then, I let IT go. I let my body fully feel, express, unload, release and breathe again. As Adam Cohen sings, I finally “put my bags down.”

These healing processes can hurt like a bastard. Bit by bit, baby-step by baby-step, argh, some days "progress" can feel sooo slow.

But I know that if I don’t make room for me, all of me, in my life, then the isolation, fragmentation, and stuckness prevails, and that familiar dark and neglected well filled with ghosts and goblins furrows me deeper into The Hole. A place of despair that offers no healing. The Hole, a place that I no longer fear that I'll fall into and can't crawl out of. (Trauma survivors will understand...)

I let me, me, now, even when the ugly, wounded and stinky parts of me rush forward.

"Hello! Still here!", it bellows with its bad breath and unyielding (and sometimes) all-consuming manner--which thankfully, is temporary. All storms end, eventually, and waiting them out is part of the process but so is doing a lot of damn shovelling. Storms make us get off our asses! (Folks living in rural spaces will understand this...)

Oh, this healing journey...how it calls the unintended and unwilling warrior to fill with bravery and courage that's too gargantuan for any external battle or superflous war.

The truth of truths floats up, packing a rancid punch with the old messaging of, “I’m not good enough”, “I’m truly alone” or, “no one cares” and it only subsides after I've held all of the things up to the light and melted the mass. Then, suddenly, the voices of reassurance and kindness bring brightness back again. “Kindness is everything”, “it's okay to do what’s best for me” or, “everyone deserves a space to feel safe”.

Ah, finally, loving, caring and in-order ancestors and other forms of divine intervention sever my near-impenetrable fortress (that only serves to lock me in.) It's then that my unseen helpers hold me accountable and responsible and remind me not to engage in harm. Falling into an abyss of unhelpful, untruthful and harmful beliefs and messages born out of painful experiences is self-harm.

I sit with the medicine of vulnerability and feel all of the ways that I am unbroken and wholeness is near my grasp.

It’s in these moments that I’m forced to exercise self-compassion and acceptance and to reflect on what still holds me captive and keeps me from healing.

I won’t maintain this inherited prison. I will set myself free from trauma bonds--of all kinds. For in my one hand is a wrecking ball and in the other, keys to my liberation. We certainly are brave souls doing this--our healing work.

The healing is found in the same place where it hurts and bleeds. The elixir--the anecdote-- is in, or near, the poison (just like how wild plants grow together!)

Let us lovingly lean in and sit with IT. The aiding voices will get louder and subdue or replace the “you can’t’s...”, “you aren’t’s”, and the “you won’t’s”.

Those of us doing the arduous, exhausting and sometimes, I’m-getting-nowhere-work of tending to intergenerational wounds and fears, and surrendering to the process of cracking open--all the while trying not to bleed on anyone, everyone and everything--are siting with, preparing and applying the healing balm. Sometimes it is terrifying, yet, we're doing the heavy lifting, the back-breaking work, and asking for help, and facing survival mechanisms that no longer serves us.

We are fighting for our lives, fighting to stay alive, fighting to stay here--in our bodies, in the now--despite the all-consuming pain that is often invisible to others because our bodies, hearts and personalities are seemingly intact.

We have suffered in silence for too long.

I sit with you now brave souls who are up too late succumbing to grief. Those forced to welcome the agony of our deepest (lack of) attachments. Those who sit on the bathroom floor weeping silently. Those who can’t get up. Those left with the constant... “growing up I didn't have...”, or “what I really needed was...” and, “what I still need and want is...” So...we sit with IT, even though IT often doesn't always make sense, and we may want to flee, fight or freeze because our bodies remember and our bodies know.

We are learning to discover and reinvent safety in our bodies, and in our hearts, and eventually, with others, even when some days feel impossible.

We give in without giving up.

I sit with those that start doing the work for someone else but continue for themselves. For those who want to feel worthy but don’t know-how. Those that endeavour to serve others, even when they should be honouring themselves.

I feel you in your house that may not feel like a home.

We are not healed, we are healing. It is not finite and that's okay. Practice makes progress.

I feel you and I feel me. I feel us rising, growing and transforming: each one that rises helps us all to rise. My healing is interconnected with yours. Your shifts help me too. Your courage reminds me to be courageous. Thank you for your courage, and thank you for healing.

These growing pains may keep you up all night, for a while. Your nightmares may get worse for a little bit. It may be hard and harder still; but you aren’t alone, not this time.

Somewhere within the unseen healing realms--we are called to collude and collide with these floods, squalls, viruses and storms.

I'll meet you in the healing places and spaces threaded together with the ancestors and their culminating kindness, care and love. I'll see and feel you in the nourishing waters that hold our stories and share our memories.

Let us witness one another with unwavering tenderness and raise each other up so high that we all grow a little taller, and we kiss the stars and fill our ears with the honeyed and halcyonic wisdom of our dearest elders.

We ARE healing and mending.

©Rebecca Rogerson, 2022