healing — Blog — Miss Magnolia Says

I am normally a morning person, but I don’t think I need to tell you that when I woke up morning after the Taylor Swift concert for the opening night of the Eras Tour, I decided to go right back to bed. It does not take much to make me feel hungover, and never has. I have the party stamina of a goldfish.

I knew how my hangover would progress and I knew exactly how I would respond to its progression, because we had been here many times - me and the effects of last night’s beer. When I got to the end of the day, I realized many things about myself that I think are worth noting. So here it goes:

He's Not Here Anymore: The Case for Sitting Still

You know, that frustrating endless middle stage of enlightenment and growth where you know exactly what your problems are and why you have them, but you simply cannot stop doing the problematic things and you drive yourself absolutely pistachios?

That’s where I’m at. I’m sitting right smack in the middle of island Can’t-sit-still-but-definitely-really-want-to.

My therapist asked what my self talk sounds like when I sit down on the couch and get right back up after six minutes because I can’t stop picturing the dishes in the sink and also I just remembered that if I throw in a load of laundry now, I can have it finished and folded before bedtime. She asked me what thought runs through my head that makes me get up and do and sit down and then get up and keep doing.

I told her that it isn’t a thought at all. It’s a feeling, a prickle.

An anxious current of have-tos and shoulds and how-dare-you-relax-when-I-have-been-working-all-day? And while I know the prickle is anxiety and guilt and shame handed directly to an unsuspecting child me in a package labeled “HERE!” that was shoved into my arms by my father and his father, still, up I go.

Emily RoseMarch 6, 2023moving on, healing, healing trauma, healing childhood trauma, progress, therapy, EMDR, EMDR therapy, trauma therapyComment

Empathy and Absorbed Trauma - How to Stay an Effective Healer

Empathy is the foundation of real human connection, but there is a big asterisk here.

Some of us who identify as empaths or “feelers” might have a hard time not taking the full weight of the heavy thing and putting it on our own shoulders.

We try to help others by absorbing their trauma and in a way, making it our own. This is evidence of great love and good intentions for our friends, as well as flimsy boundaries that reveal our own wobbling self love.