Anami Grace | Made Up Life

I put my hand over the crack in my cutting board the other day, and I cried because I love it more because it is broken. I felt deep gratitude for its presence in my life because it tells the story of all of the vegetables we’ve chopped together. That it’s been with me through every relationship I’ve ever been in, and that it somehow has become more lovely through its use.

My most prized possession is this cutting board, and I have no idea where it came from, only that it has become the tool I reach for every time I need to chop a vegetable, and we’ve created some wonderful things together.

And the value of things is lost when we are so quick to replace something broken, rather than to value that its experience may have lead to some brokenness.

Same goes for my life. Y’all. I love my brokenness. I love everything I’ve been through because it has made me a more dynamic and wonderful human.

Stick with me here. Trauma causes brain damage, right? Like, when you experience trauma and get stuck in a loop of cPTSD from your experience your brain disconnects and withdraws itself as a form of protection because it has to survive. Survival is key.

But. What if…Healing not only repairs those neuro pathways, but expands them because you’ve learned something new?

One of the most effective treatments for cPTSD is to have a similar experience with a different outcome. So when I developed cPTSD from adopting my oldest, the medicine was in the adoption of my second child and having a completely different experience. Now, granted. I had no idea what PTSD was or that I had it because I was too high on the Jesus juice, but. It still worked.

So, by going on my shadow work healing journey and integrating all of the lost parts of me that splintered off through my experience of life, it connected things for me that I had no idea could be connected, and it enhanced my life experience exponentially.

Y’all. Healing made me smarter. I cannot prove it. But, I can SEE it in every piece of my life. And now that I love all of the broken bits of me and have healed them – they’re the parts that sparkle most in the light.

For example. Last night I was writing about how I’m so thankful that my kids get to hear me sing. I love that they get to see me happy. And I always loved as a kid seeing my mom happy. I thought she was beautiful, and I’m so incredibly glad that I look like her. I got all of her best features and even though it was really hard when I hated her (and me), to hold her face on mine, with love. Now, that I love myself so wholly, it’s my favorite part about myself.

And, I’m so thankful for the experience of having a challenging childhood with her, so that I could love the brokenness of holding her DNA. I always hope that it’s a wave of healing that goes backwards 5 generations, and forward just as many.

The thing about healing is that it’s HARD work. Probably the hardest you’ll ever have the pleasure to do, because it’s all your nonsense that you’ve collected over the years. Right? But when you hold it, witness it, grieve it, move it through your body and soul, and come to the other side of it? It changes your relationship with it so that you can hold it with square shoulders and a skip in your step.

So if you ever only learn one thing from me – it is this: stop trying to make your life perfect, instead take excellent care of yourself so that you can hold your brokenness in safety so you can love it too.

Anyway. Love and light to you all. Take care! Bye.