Posted on by palmtreemomma

Creating Your New Normal

One of the greatest gifts of the pandemic has been clarity. Clarity of who and what gives life meaning and joy…who values my life and makes me feel safe…what gives me true rest and fills me up again. While I hope to never go through anything like this again, I am grateful for the gift of clarity it has brought me.

As things open up again and mask mandates are being lifted, it gives me pause. I know that many are ready to get back to the life that was normal before the pandemic. But I find myself in a different place.

Life before the pandemic was exhausting. For real. There were way too many things I was doing because I thought I should. Not because I found them life-giving. The pressure, the expectations. A calendar packed full of activities.

I find myself in a place of needing to create a new normal.

Create a new normal

Clearly, we are being given a new chapter of life. Never, in my lifetime, has there been such a clear pause between stories. A full stop. Period. A place to take in a breath and slowly, mindfully let it out again.

I imagine us all on the edge of a precipice. We’ve been waiting a long time for the signal that we can move forward. Everyone is given the option to cross on the drawbridge that is being let down. The one that has been used for generations and that feels normal.

Or we can build our own bridge across.

The first is easy. Mindless. Falling in place with the moving stream of folks headed in the same general direction. To the American Dream. Whatever that is.

The other is going to take a lot longer. You may have to scavenge for supplies. It may get lonely. The unknown of it all may feel unsettling.

But you are not lost and you have more tools than you realize. If the old way was not your dream life, than pause with me and dare to dream of building a new and better way. One that is sustainable because it sustains you. One that is lasting because it fits who you are. Let it become the stage for the best season of your life.

choosing life

You get to decide. How to move forward. Who to move forward with. If the gift of clarity has revealed people in your sphere who are not safe, who did not seem to value your life during the pandemic, pay attention to that experience. You are under no obligation to show up for them now.

Family is not flesh and blood. It is those who see you. Those who show up for you as much as they expect you to show up for them. A family is a melding of safe people and a safe place. It is not a place where you have to bargain for your place of belonging. Or explain yourself or prove anything at all.

Some of us were privileged to be born into safe and kind families. Families where thriving happens naturally. Many of us were not. While that brings up its own set of issues to process, there is something beautiful about choosing to show up in places of belonging.

I think of the butterfly from my dream years ago, that had just emerged from the cocoon. Who had struggled to pump life-giving blood into her new wings. This butterfly realizes with startling clarity that she no longer fits in the family of caterpillars. While she may not know where her story ends, she knows where the next chapter begins. So, with the beating of new wings and the following of her heart, she rises and flies, drawn by life itself. From the nectar of one flower to the next.

Follow the nectar of life, not the crowds. Dare to veer off the beaten path and create a new normal. Your new normal.

Want to hear more?


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Find me on Instagram @maritajmiller and Facebook Beyond The Cocoon.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Growing Old Together

I love to spend late afternoons in my kitchen. When the sun begins to dip just low enough to shine through the kitchen window and the stove shimmers in dancing waves. It’s the perfect place to let the irritations and heaviness of the day slide off my shoulders. As the oil splutters its welcome to the garlic and onions in the cooking pot, my soul does its own little dance and in that golden light, lightness becomes a little more possible.

The other day I grabbed my kitchen shears and made my way to my front garden plot to snip the first of the chives. Sometimes, when we least expect it, we bump into the sacred. This time it was in the form of a young woman, walking past on the street at the precise moment when I needed to cut chives. And while her story is not mine to tell, I will tell you that being present to my own grief and trauma was my only hope for being present to this woman as she struggled to navigate her own grief and trauma.

At one point in our conversation, our talk moved to marriage. She was surprised to learn we were celebrating 23 years of marriage. I told her it wasn’t always easy. But somewhere along the way, we had decided that we wanted to grow old together.

growing old together

I recall that once in the days immediately following his coming out to me, that Austin turned to me and said, “Marita, I want to grow old with you.” At the time, I was too hurt and confused to know whether or not I wanted the same thing. In fact, it took me a long time.

I can’t point to a particular moment and say, “That’s when I knew”. I do know that I did not try to convince myself or believe that I needed to grow old with him. That I had to stay, no matter what. Given my religious upbringing, this was a little shocking, and yet looking back, that freedom to figure it out was an invaluable gift.

It’s hard to believe we have been married for 23 years. Our gray hairs and wrinkles are only a small part of the map that tells the story of us. We have a castle full of memories, stories born of crazy adventures. A past that binds us together because we want a future filled with the same.

From discovering watermelon shakes on the beach in Thailand to climbing a volcano in Bali with our boys. Sleeping under the stars in Nepal to balancing the 5 of us on one rickshaw in Dhaka. From remodeling a little house in Ohio to birthing a business together. We have traveled the world, literally and metaphorically.

And we’ve come home, in the best way possible, to each other. It’s been a long walk from that spot 23 years ago where I stood with tears rolling down my cheeks, promising to love him forever. To the place where I can’t not love him forever. Because when I look ahead and imagine the future, there is only one pillow I can see myself laying my head on when my hair is completely white and my steps have lost their spring. It’s on the one beside his.

help with the sifting

While I think this question can be helpful for anyone in a relationship, I think it can be especially helpful for those who find themselves in a mixed-orientation marriage and are wondering if they should stay together or not.

Do I want to grow old with this person?

Wherever you find yourself today, whether a mixed-orientation relationship or heteronormative one, the question begs an answer. It can be helpful to sift through the highs and lows that are normal to any relationship.

Can we grow old together? Do I want to grow old together?

If you don’t know the answer right away, it’s okay. Give yourself time to figure it out. Keep being honest with your feelings, even when they are in conflict with each other. Eventually, the answer will make itself known to you.

Find me on Instagram @maritajmiller and Facebook Beyond The Cocoon.

Want to hear more?


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Leaving Toxic Places

I find myself feeling a lot of things these days. Sadness. Happiness. Grief. Hope. Anger. Relief. Waking up in a polarized world that keeps getting a little more chaotic every day has given me the gift of clarity. So many places once familiar are now strange to me. Places of belonging that have turned toxic bring me no small amount of sadness. Keeping the raw edge of grief sharp. I look around me at people I once categorized as “my people” and it is as if I am looking at a crowd of strangers.

It’s unsettling. Waking up in a strange place. The grief is nuanced and layered. But at the heart of it, there is a loss of belonging. And when that loss is realized, brought to the surface and given space to metabolize and flow, I realize there is not much point in staying connected to a place or a relationship where I no longer belong. Especially when that place has become toxic.

The word belonging means happiness felt in a secure relationship. It is rooted in the idea of being suitable or fitting to something or someone. Toxic comes from a Greek phrase that literally meant poison used on arrows.

Toxic places

Arrows harm. Poisoned arrows destroy.

It’s more than a little startling to wake up in a place that is toxic. Where there is intent to harm and destroy. What is even more disconcerting is to see people you had imagined were safe and good, dipping their arrows into poison. Metaphorically speaking of course.

Some of us still have a painfully difficult time attempting to leave these places behind. Belonging is so deeply wired into our DNA. We need “place”. Safety. Belonging.

But when a particular place is no longer safe, you no longer belong there. Your relationship is neither happy nor secure. You might as well leave.

leaving

Give yourself time and space to grieve the loss. But whatever you do, don’t remain in that toxic place. If your church, marriage, family, friendships, workplace, social group, whatever, has become a place of poison instead of a place of safety, get out. It’s okay to leave. Okay to risk disappointing others. To make waves. To let down the people who have long ago let you down.

You matter.

Your safety matters.

Happiness and well being. These things matter.

Let your gut be your compass. The beautiful thing is that there is a place you belong to. If you are leaving toxicity behind, you may not yet know that new place. But it is there. And the only way you will find it is by leaving behind all that would poison you.

You may have to create it. Build it. Find your own people and start anew. But you can do this.

some extra help

I recently began EMDR with my therapist. Simply put, EMDR is a psychotherapy that enables one to heal from emotional distress that stems from past experiences. The thing about trauma is that when it is physically over, a part of our brain stays stuck in the event. This causes our bodies to react to current day events as if we were still experiencing that past trauma.

For me, it’s seeing my husband lay back and close his eyes. Particularly in the middle of the day. Or the middle of a conversation. It may be a normal reaction on his part. Of simply being tired. Or having a headache. But my body goes into a flight mode and I have an irresistible urge to leave the room. It takes everything I have to remain physically present.

Such a simple thing but it has a very powerful effect on my body. It subconsciously transports me back into an old trauma, as if that were the event happening today instead of my husband just being tired and needing to withdraw for a minute.

My therapist described EMDR as a way to connect the right side of our brain to the left side. So that the part that thinks it is still in the traumatic event can finally and truly understand that it is over.

my own way out

We began the EMDR process by creating a safe space in my mind that I could go to if it became too much to bear at any point in the therapy. Then, we chose an event from the past, to begin with, using tapping instead of eye movement. Part of the process involves fully entering the memory and all the feelings that go with it. We identified the negative cognition or thoughts that went with the event. For me, it was “I’m not good enough.” But when it came time to replace the negative cognition with a positive one, all the while staying in that past event, I really struggled.

But then I had a light bulb moment. I knew that my positive cognition had to be this – I am my own way out. I knew that what I was feeling was not so much that I wasn’t good enough, but that I was trapped. Using tapping, I was able to re-tell the story of my past. I gave myself a voice and freedom. Became my own way out.

I cannot, simply cannot, in the language of mankind, tell you how powerful this is for me.

changing the past

When my Grandpa passed away, I was processing another memory on my own. That phrase came to me again and I went back into the memory and found the little girl that was so hurt and confused. I talked to her and showed her who she would become. I told her how she was her own way out.

While we cannot change the past, we can change our perspective of it by changing our relationship to it. It is possible to bring an end to past trauma.

To the little girl I meet in my memories and to all of you who find yourself stuck either in toxic places or toxic memories, you are your own way out. You belong, not to those poisonous places, but to a new place that hears you, sees you and values you.

The world is big and wide and beautiful. There is enough. You are enough. If you are not in a place that tells you this every day, then go and find that place.

You are your own way out.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.