All glory, honor, and credit to ***you***, Christine! You did it! Congratulations every which way for taking your level of awareness of the mental game up several notches with this marathon.
My favorite concept from this post was your pondering on the possibility of too much good behavior, and how that can backfire for us humans when it comes to our mental health and therefore our physical health. Sooooo relevant to me for leading my life, a (very likely autistic) female exvangelical with preverbal attachment wounds. The church I grew up in pounded the message home every which way that safety must continually be earned, that you show bad faith, and so shame on you, if you ever let up or take a break from all the strive, strive, strive, striving. You've got to remain in earning mode continuously. I grew up in a totalitarian dominance hierarchy ruled over by people claiming to know the mind of God (an obvious error of logical reasoning by their own &%$# theology) and to whom my body had to figure out a way to demonstrate submissiveness to to keep me alive. Striving fit the bill so nicely, my body still does it automatically. I'm sure I'd feel the need to "re-earn" any 26.2 sticker, as well. Every year. I feel your pain. It's all about redemption, isn't it? And how can you ever be enough when the standard is "perfection" [sic].
Leading a lifestyle of striving 24/7/365, efforting, depriving yourself (I mean, self-denial is holiness, right? punitive much?) is a great way to convince threatening authority figures earthly and ethereal that you are doing your best to flog yourself, so please, please may they not feel the need to flog you as well.
I feel gratitude to your body and mine for how they figured out a way of keeping us alive during our respective childhoods. Now if we could just communicate with the time-keeping modules in our injured agranular prefrontal cortices that that was then and this is now and that it's probably a better idea than not to just go ahead and drink that beer the day before race day.
Much empathy, compassion, gratitude and all good healing vibes to you, Christine. Thank you for what you bring to this sweaty, messy, broken world that is ours to change. May we set this world ablaze with all things unapologetically hippie: awareness, self-compassion, empathy, attunement, connection, and unconditional love.
Thank you, MK! Can I just do the "what she said" / ⬆️ [arrow emoji]?? So much underscoring for all that you wrote. The good behavior thing resonates so much (obviously, and as I've been processing in some other posts!). And the line "to whom my body had to figure out a way to demonstrate submissiveness to to keep me alive" -- WHEW. That is SO powerful (whoa -- ironically? Powerful in feeling impact, but also think of how MUCH power is contained once you/we realize we no longer have to demonstrate submissiveness to keep ourselves alive!)
Luckily, my (and your!) adult selves are ready and willing to learn new things, even if those prefrontal cortices take awhile to fully catch up. But I'm grateful that it's within *my own power* to observe, learn, and change (to whatever extent is available to me). And as I'm in the middle of this preverbal trauma training, it strikes me that SURELY our world is turning to be more "unapologetically hippie" and we have so so many more ways of healing, and ways of understanding our own wounding, than we did in the past! Thank you as always for your kind words ❤️
Anything coming to mind for you about an area where you had more power and control than you originally realized?
Yes. That I have more control over how I think about and respond to memories from traumas from the past. That I've actually come so far since then and it's basically been done on my own.
I'm so glad you have replaced god-willing fatalism with your own agency, Christine. It's exciting to watch your achievements considering how disempowered you have said you felt as an evangelical. You did it! Congratulations on your marathon!
I'd love to hear more about what you learned about Unmasking the Autistic Female. I think everyone should hear more about it.
Oh good I was hoping for a vote for this because I really wanna share my learnings!! 😆 I agree that everyone should be more aware of it!
Yes, please. Infodump is welcome :)
I love the way you reflected on this race with self-compassion! What an accomplishment all around!
Oh good I'm glad the self-compassion came through too -- thank you for naming that for me! And thank you! 🥰
All glory, honor, and credit to ***you***, Christine! You did it! Congratulations every which way for taking your level of awareness of the mental game up several notches with this marathon.
My favorite concept from this post was your pondering on the possibility of too much good behavior, and how that can backfire for us humans when it comes to our mental health and therefore our physical health. Sooooo relevant to me for leading my life, a (very likely autistic) female exvangelical with preverbal attachment wounds. The church I grew up in pounded the message home every which way that safety must continually be earned, that you show bad faith, and so shame on you, if you ever let up or take a break from all the strive, strive, strive, striving. You've got to remain in earning mode continuously. I grew up in a totalitarian dominance hierarchy ruled over by people claiming to know the mind of God (an obvious error of logical reasoning by their own &%$# theology) and to whom my body had to figure out a way to demonstrate submissiveness to to keep me alive. Striving fit the bill so nicely, my body still does it automatically. I'm sure I'd feel the need to "re-earn" any 26.2 sticker, as well. Every year. I feel your pain. It's all about redemption, isn't it? And how can you ever be enough when the standard is "perfection" [sic].
Leading a lifestyle of striving 24/7/365, efforting, depriving yourself (I mean, self-denial is holiness, right? punitive much?) is a great way to convince threatening authority figures earthly and ethereal that you are doing your best to flog yourself, so please, please may they not feel the need to flog you as well.
I feel gratitude to your body and mine for how they figured out a way of keeping us alive during our respective childhoods. Now if we could just communicate with the time-keeping modules in our injured agranular prefrontal cortices that that was then and this is now and that it's probably a better idea than not to just go ahead and drink that beer the day before race day.
Much empathy, compassion, gratitude and all good healing vibes to you, Christine. Thank you for what you bring to this sweaty, messy, broken world that is ours to change. May we set this world ablaze with all things unapologetically hippie: awareness, self-compassion, empathy, attunement, connection, and unconditional love.
Thank you, MK! Can I just do the "what she said" / ⬆️ [arrow emoji]?? So much underscoring for all that you wrote. The good behavior thing resonates so much (obviously, and as I've been processing in some other posts!). And the line "to whom my body had to figure out a way to demonstrate submissiveness to to keep me alive" -- WHEW. That is SO powerful (whoa -- ironically? Powerful in feeling impact, but also think of how MUCH power is contained once you/we realize we no longer have to demonstrate submissiveness to keep ourselves alive!)
Luckily, my (and your!) adult selves are ready and willing to learn new things, even if those prefrontal cortices take awhile to fully catch up. But I'm grateful that it's within *my own power* to observe, learn, and change (to whatever extent is available to me). And as I'm in the middle of this preverbal trauma training, it strikes me that SURELY our world is turning to be more "unapologetically hippie" and we have so so many more ways of healing, and ways of understanding our own wounding, than we did in the past! Thank you as always for your kind words ❤️
Preverbal EMDR! Yes, I want to know more! And congrats on your race! ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you! And it's WILD what knowledge gets contained in the body (re: preverbal trauma) -- I will have to write about it!
Anything coming to mind for you about an area where you had more power and control than you originally realized?
Yes. That I have more control over how I think about and respond to memories from traumas from the past. That I've actually come so far since then and it's basically been done on my own.
I'm so glad you have replaced god-willing fatalism with your own agency, Christine. It's exciting to watch your achievements considering how disempowered you have said you felt as an evangelical. You did it! Congratulations on your marathon!
PS: Yes! to preverbal EMDR posts!