If it was as simple as letting go, wouldn't we all have let go by now?

I’m sure a lot of us can relate to this one. Working with a practitioner who seems to think it’s as easy as loosening our grip. Seeking support from someone who tries not-so-gently to unfurl our fingers. Sharing our story with someone whose words roll their eyes at us - why aren’t we over it, by now?

(See also: what’s specifically wrong with us that we aren’t over it by now? And you can bet folks have some ideas about that, and maybe even a solution they could sell us. See also also: We should really be over it by now, by yesterday, by months ago.)

And here’s the thing. Our beings are so fucking wise. We let go when we can, and not a moment sooner.

Our choices are powerful, mindset can matter, and so too does the nervous system woven through our body - and this world we’re living in. These things often dictate our choices, help us to know when it’s safest to let go, and also when it’s safer to hold on.

In this world we are living in, safety can be hard to come by and letting go isn’t as easy as just deciding to do it. We are powerful, yes, and so are the systems we live in.

Being rushed to just let go can bypass the wisdom in holding on.

Being rushed to just let go might assume we can make this choice in a vacuum.

Being rushed to let go can assume a level of safety that may not exist yet.

Today I’m wondering if we can hold space for the brilliance in grasping as well as the release, not rushing either one, just trusting that ebbs eventually flow, and flows might stand still at an ebb every so often.

And what if there is wisdom in the tide going both ways?

And what if there is wisdom in us going both ways, too?

And what if the letting go is a thing we grow towards, all the while holding tender the parts of us that are holding on?

What might it feel like not to be rushed?

What might it feel like to be trusted in our timing, our holding, our grasping and the slow unfurl of releasing?

Asking the big questions gently,

Jess

Gratitude is not required on your chronic pain journey

Gratitude is not required in your journey with chronic pain.

Sure, folks will foist it upon you.

Tell you your pain is a gift.

And it might be.

But the truth, as with most things, is that you get to decide.

And often it’s not as simple as a gift with no sharp edges.

Perhaps it’s easier for someone else to declare your experience a gift when it isn’t theirs to hold.

Your gratitude is welcome. Same as everything other feeling (and there can be so many).

But it’s not required, even if you’re repeatedly told otherwise.

There can be glimmers of gifts and beams of gratitude and even the occasional appreciation for a lesson, but folks often paste these bright spots over the intensity and immensity of the pain you might experience.

Today, I’m here to say that wherever you are in your experience is okay.

You need not fastforward or find the silver lining in the storm cloud that threatens a flare.

Sometimes we just sit on our front porch as the clouds hang low, limbs restless and heart thudding deep, and whatever we feel is not a thing to usher in or push away, it’s just a thing that’s there and true because our bones sing of it. Maybe it’s a cloud, and it might float on or stick around. We might not know yet. And whatever we see in it or make of it is ours, a thing that can’t be lassoed by someone else’s hollow words because they’re not the ones on the porch in the weather, eyes toward the storm.

Sending care though the clouds,

Jess

Dear Coaches: Mindset Isn't Everything

I am beyond tired of healing and coaching models boiling complex circumstances down to mindset work & emotional/mental/healing blocks. There is no way this is the full picture. However, this is a great business model if you want someone to believe they are the problem and they can only change themselves and their circumstances via your program or services.

If a client feels aligned with and inspired by mindset work, breaking through blocks, and doing inner work - yahoo, go for it!

But I’m not talking about that.

I’m talking about mindset work that doesn’t acknowledge systemic oppression, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, try harder, get out of your own way, don’t be a victim of your circumstance language and approaches.

I’m talking about reducing a complex, holistic, messy situation into a wholly personal problem.

I’m talking about a client bringing a coach (business, healing, life, whatever!) a criticism (of the coach, a methodology, life, whatever!) & the critique being turned right back around onto the client as a block they need to clear/work through/whatever!

I’m talking about where we are pointing our fucking fingers, and can we please be more thoughtful and careful & intentional about it?

This narrow approach of “you are the problem/I am the problem” can feel empowering, sometimes! We often turn to this when we feel out of control in a situation we need to survive. If I am the problem, then maybe I can solve the problem, and things will get better. Seems easier than changing all these shitty external out-of-our-hands things.

When we look at our selves, we are powerful - yes. When we look at our world and the systems we live in, they are powerful too.

I will not rally behind coaches distilling complex issues into client’s personal problems. It is gross, it is negligent, it is misinformed, and it is harmful.

So what can we do as folks in healing and helping spaces?

Can we follow our clients’ lead on the approaches that best serve them?
Can we strive to be anti-oppressive & learn about systemic injustice?
Can we stop teaching & preaching mindset as a way of bypassing tough realities & collective states?
Can we? Please?

Love/I’ve had it,
Jess

It is not trauma informed to tell survivors to “stop playing the victim”

I understand why we say the things we do. And still, I’m going to call us in about it. Here’s one:

It is not trauma informed to tell survivors to “stop playing the victim”.

⋒ Stop playing the victim

⋒ Drop the victim card

⋒ Stop victimizing yourself

How many of us have heard this?

How many of us have said this?

We might say this because we have heard this before (this is common for so many spiritual bypassing phrases- we repeat the lines we have heard), or we have needed to believe this in order to survive a situation in which we were harmed (another super smart-wise-brilliant [and okay yeah when it comes to spiritual bypassing, harmful] survival strategy).

Today I’m here to tell you that:

⋒ IT’S UNDERSTANDABLE

to want control, agency, or empowerment in a disempowering, violent or harmful situation.

⋒ & YET, IT’S STILL NOT

trauma-informed, kind or appropriate to say to someone. It implies someone chose the harm they suffered. And they didn’t! I repeat: and they didn’t! This is gravely offensive & insensitive. May we watch our language.

I have so much compassion for the reasons we say the things we do, and so much compassion for folks who are harmed by the things we sometimes say. If you’d like to explore with someone (me!) who holds both empathy and accountability, and will invite you into a somatic journaling process of unlearning spiritual bypassing and discovering kind and just language — you might just love the guide I made for you! If this calls to you, you can find It’s Not All Good here.

With the boths & the ands but none of the bullshit,

Jess

Just because something is helpful for you to hear does not mean it won’t harm others

If I could distill everything from It’s Not All Good, my digital guide unpacking spiritual bypassing, into one sentence: this would be it.

Just because something is helpful for you to hear does not mean it won’t harm others.

Something can be supportive to us in our process, and it can feel harmful to others at the same time. This doesn’t negate its value to us, and this doesn’t pardon its harmful impact others might feel. Both can (and often do) exist at the same time.

We might also find that the things that we need to hear change. I know I’ve found this (and am still discovering these shifts!) as life spirals its way through me and my healing journey. Feel free to let me know below if that rings true for you.

If you’re feeling curious, you’re invited to explore how spiritual bypassing phrases might have been a buoy on your journey and contributed to your survival, and make space for the possibility that they can also cause harm.

In this guide there are invitations to explore somatically, using your felt sense and journaling prompts, and together we unpack 13 phrases and discover new compassionate language to use.

Creating this workbook has been one of my greatest joys. I strive to be gentle, trauma-informed, and anti-oppressive. I also strove (strove? hm okay I dunno but we’re going with it.) to make it pretty cute. Did it work? Click here to find out.

🌈✨ Jess

May We Not Fastforward

Often in our own healing, we want to fast forward to an easier part. So doesn’t it make sense that we also want to fast forward other people to an easier part?

Can we have a bit of self compassion for ourselves that it might be difficult to sit with pain? Our pain, other people’s pain, worldly systemic pain, so many kinds of pain.

And from this place of compassionate awareness, can we be open to learning the skills we need, both internal and relational, to expanding our capacity to be with and navigate the pain that comes with aliveness?

To show up for the world and for people and ourselves knowing that this means showing up for pain, too?

To not hold too tightly either to finding silver linings nor despair. To be with what is there, and gently holding as if cradling a small bird, the possibility of transformation and truth along with the heartbeat of hope?

May we deeply listen. May we press pause if we need to. But let us not fast forward.

⋒ For more support in compassionate listening, check out my virtual guide, It’s Not All Good! ⋒