Truthful Stories: Connecting to Our Voices

The Girl With the Louding Voice, part 3

For a summary, and first point, read part 1 here.

For a second point, read part 2 here.

What Sustains Us: Connection to Our Voice

Obviously voice is a central theme of Adunni’s story, as evident from the title of the book, and I really did appreciate the way in which her voice and her wants for her voice carried throughout. From the beginning, Adduni is clear. She says from the get-go, “I don’t just want to be having any kind voice … I want a louding voice” (25, emphasis mine). Her knowing carries her, and continues to grow. She hangs on to her want, adding to it as she goes: “I want to enter a room and people will hear me even before I open my mouth to be speaking. I want to live in this life and help many people so that when I grow old and die, I will still be living through the people I am helping” (263-264).

Her story is not in any way smooth or painless; rather, it is fraught with peril and agony. Again in her voice: “It is not so easy when you are born into a life of no money and plenty suffering, a life you didn’t choose for yourself. Sometimes I wish I can just believe for a good life and it will magic and happen for me, just like that. But maybe, to believe it in my mind is the start, so I nod my head, drag it real slow up and down as I am saying: ‘Tomorrow will be better than today. I am a somebody of value’” (264). She uses her voice to remind herself of her innate worth and value. “I am not a wasted waste; I am Adunni,” she says, “A person important enough because my tomorrow will be better than today. I talk to myself … “ (278).

Adunni remains committed to her voice — to her thoughts, her feelings, her wants, her needs, her worth.

What about Me, and What About You?

Taken altogether I am left to wonder what good Adunni prompts in me. What does she inspire me to do? How does she inspire me to be? The specifics of my answers will continue to unfold, but here’s what I know for sure right now:

• I want to be connected to others.

• I want to be connected to my body.

• I want to be connected to my voice.

• I want a louding voice, too.

• A truth-telling voice.

• A kind voice.

• A courageous voice.

• A voice that hopes and helps and heals.

Today and however many days I am able, I set my intention to foster my voice, and to send my voice out into the world. How about you?

Truthful Stories: Listening to Our Bodies

The Girl With the Louding Voice, part 2

For a brief overview and my first post of this book, read part 1 .

What Sustains Us: Connection to Our Bodies

Bodies (especially black bodies and female bodies) are largely devalued in our culture — we are taught that their worth is in how they look or what they can do for us (and not for the people who inhabit them). And yet we are in our bodies. We are our bodies. Our bodies are a critical part of our humanity. Our bodies are us, and we can learn to relate to this part of us (and of others) differently. Paying attention to the sensations within our bodies is one of the primary ways in which we know and understand our emotions, and in which we hear our own voice and wisdom. Listen, in Adunni’s own words, to a sampling of how she describes herself at various points along the way.

• “The sky clap a thunder, and it feel as if it strike me, right inside of my heart.” (47)

• “Shame make itself a hand, squeeze my throat tight” (55)

• “My stomach is starting to tight itself” (83)

• “All my body have collapse” (121)

• “I strong my face” (140)

• “Her honey voice is like medicine, her laugh like cool water on my hot head” (201)

• “When I smile, it climb from inside my stomach and spread itself on my teeth” (248)

• “My eyelids feel like they are full of wet sand” (316)

• “The hairs on my hand are standing up, as if rising to fear” (332)

Our bodies are how we feel, how we know, how we soothe. Adunni’s knowledge of and respect for her body serves her well. She can describe what’s happening in and to her with concrete words. She can name and express her experience, and can know with what action she might respond. We can learn to do this, too. It takes practice. 

Learning to Connect to Our Bodies

A simple (but not easy) first step is to take a few quiet moments every day to be in your body and see what you notice.

Start with your breath, just for a minute or two. Don’t try to change it or do anything different, just notice what air feels like moving in and out of your nose or mouth. Notice how far into your throat or chest or belly you breathe. Notice expansion and/or constriction, and where that is. Focus on the in and the out. If your mind wanders (and it will), just notice that you’ve gone away from your breath and come back to it.

Then, take two or three minutes to be in and to listen to your body. This can feel strange or boring — or even scary — as we so rarely spend time here. You might try a slow scan from your head to your feet, or from your feet to your head. As you do so, notice what and where are the sensations in your body. You might notice space in your chest, tightness in your shoulders. You might notice pain in your feet, tiredness behind your eyes. There is no right or wrong with what you notice. When you find a sensation, use your breath to breathe through it, or into it. See if you can send your breath to that place, with kindness. The goal is not to change how you feel, simply to bring awareness to it. Ask what each feeling might have to say to you now.

Thank yourself for breathing and feeling in your body. Thank yourself for taking a few quiet moments to welcome your wisdom.

Be sure to look out for part 3, which will be posted next week!

Truthful Stories: Characteristics of Healthy Relationships

The Girl With the Louding Voice, part 1

Early during the coronavirus pandemic my friend (and fellow therapist) Maggie and I were on a FaceTime friend date trying to decide on a book to read together while apart. It was (and definitely still is) social distancing time in Nashville, but friendship and reading and informal book-clubbing are priorities. When she suggested The Girl With the Louding Voice, by Abi Dare, I looked it up online. As soon as I saw the cover art (I know, I know. Don’t judge a book by its cover.), I was hooked. Yes. Based on the art and the title alone, I had the sense this novel is something special, and that proved to be true.

Summary

I fell in love with the main character from the start. Adduni is a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who knows so clearly that she wants to go to school and become a teacher and grow into a woman who has money enough take care of herself and to help her loved ones. We meet her three years to the day she’s been forced to stop school. “I tell you true,” she says, “the day I stop school and the day my mama was dead is the worst day of my life” (3).

Her father comes to her with what she knows to be more bad news. He opens by reminding her that her mother has died, leaving Adduni to wonder, “Why is he telling me something I have already know? Something that have cause a hole inside my heart and fill it with a block of pain that I am dragging with me to everywhere? How can I ever be forgetting … ?” (5) He goes on to tell her she will be sold as a bride to Morufu, whom she describes as “an old man taxi driver in our village with the face of a he-goat” (5) who has two wives and four children who have not been to school. She is curious what this means for her, why her father didn’t keep the promise he made to her mother, and what will become of her.

At this point, only 10 (of 300+) pages in, I was riveted. I wanted to hear more from Adduni. I won’t spoil the rest of her journey for other readers (please get this book and read it immediately), but will say that I was struck by theme after theme after theme that show up in my world as a counselor and a human (as if the two can be separated). The terror of poverty. Violence against women. Violence against black people and other people of color. Pregnancy, barrenness, life, death. The value of education. Fear and hope. Dreams. Voice. Commitment to self as much as (and not in exclusion of) commitment to other. The absurdity of prevailing “junk values” around power, wealth, individualism, privilege, and whiteness. There’s more to be said about each of these, but what stands out to me in this moment are some of the pieces that sustained her along her way in the face of enormous difficulties. We’ll look at the first today, and a few others in subsequent postings.

What Sustains Us: Growthful Connection to Others

The first is what Jean Baker Miller and other feminist theorists with whom she collaborated identified as “growth-fostering relationships.” In essence, these are relationships in which each person feels:

1. A greater sense of zest (or energy, or vitality)

2. An increased sense of self-worth

3. More clarity (a deeper knowing both of oneself and of the other)

4. Expanded productivity (ability and motivation to take action both in and outside of the relationship)

5. Desire for more connection (both with that person and with other people outside of that relationship).

Adduni’s growth-fostering relationships tend to be with other women, primarily her mother who has died. She holds her mother in her heart, calls her to mind, remembers her words and her actions, sings to her. And she does the same with others who come into her story, some for a season and some for longer. Start to finish, these are with her, and they are life-giving. She has energy, a sense of her worth and value, and the ability to take action in the direction of her wants.

Take a Look at Your Relationships

What about you? Who are the people with whom you currently spend the most time? What do you all do together? How do you feel with you’re with one another? How are you with each other? What do you notice? How do you feel when you’re apart from them? What do you notice? In these relationships, what catches your attention and energy?

When you compare what you’re aware of to the list of growth-fostering characteristics above, do they fit your relationships? If so, you’re on track — keep going; keep investing in these folks, and letting them invest in you! If not, that’s okay, too — you’re at a point of awareness with room to grow. It could be that you and some of your friends could cultivate these things with one another. If, however, you try and are met with immovable resistance or ridicule, then it may be time to do some relationship pruning.

And if you’re low on friends (this is an oh-so-common report I hear from women in their mid-twenties, thirties, and forties, who often wonder: “How can I make new friends?!?”), maybe even feeling rather isolated, you might start to think about how you could take a step or two toward someone or several someones of interest. One of my graduate school friends used to joke about “target friends,” which made me laugh but is also something I have carried as a useful frame for myself and for others. The idea is simple. Who do I see around me that I want to move closer toward, and how might I take a courageous step to do so? This could range from a text or comment on social media all the way to a casual conversation or more formal invitation to hang out — all are fair game here. The important thing is to take action, on repeat. It doesn’t happen overnight. Little by little, friendships grow.

Take a Step Toward Healthier Relationships

Connection is good for us. We need other people in our lives, and we especially need those who help us to grow. Adunni certainly had her people, and we can, too. I encourage you and me both to take steps today toward good people in our lives. What’s one thing you can do to move that direction right now? Consider, and then take action!

If you’d like to read more, part 2 and part 3 of this series will post in the weeks to come!

Listening to Those at the Center

The Rabbit Listened is the story of what happens after a child named Taylor builds something — something new, something special, something amazing — and then out of nowhere it comes crashing down. What follows is the attempt of various animals to make Taylor feel better. Talking. Shouting. Remembering. Laughing. Hiding. Throwing away the mess. Knocking down someone else’s thing. None of this is helpful to Taylor, who doesn’t feel like doing anything with anybody. Eventually when Taylor is all alone, a rabbit moves closer and closer until Taylor can feel its warm body. They sit in silence until Taylor invites the rabbit to stay, and the rabbit listens. From there Taylor does end up talking and shouting and remembering and laughing and making plans to hide, throw things away, and ruin someone else’s things. All the while, the rabbit listens, including to Taylor’s plan to build again.

This story, in children’s book form, speaks to me in these days of protest against police brutality, racism, white supremacy, and the years and years and years of ongoing oppression of and aggression toward black lives.

The Circle of Grief

This morning I’m holding The Rabbit Listened alongside clinical psychologist Susan Silk’s ring theory, which I’ve also heard described as the circle of grief. The idea is that in any crisis, the person or people most affected are at the center of a series of concentric circles. Those at the center get to dump out (scream, cry, complain) to those in any larger surrounding circle — dump OUT. Those in one of the surrounding circles get to dump out (scream, cry, complain) to those in any larger surrounding circle from themselves — dump OUT — but do not get to do so to those in a smaller circle. What goes in toward the smaller circles, and ultimately most to the people at the center of the trauma, is comfort — comfort IN. The idea is to avoid dumping into any ring smaller than your own. In a 2013 LA Times Opinion article, she and Barry Goldman describe it in this way:

Draw a circle. This is the center ring. In it, put the name of the person at the center of the current trauma [...] In that ring put the name of the person next closest to the trauma [...] Repeat the process as many times as you need to. In each larger ring put the next closest people. Parents and children before more distant relatives. Intimate friends in smaller rings, less intimate friends in larger ones. When you are done you have a Kvetching Order.

…

Here are the rules. The person in the center ring can say anything she wants to anyone, anywhere. She can kvetch and complain and whine and moan and curse the heavens and say, “Life is unfair” and “Why me?” That’s the one payoff for being in the center ring. Everyone else can say those things too, but only to people in larger rings.

When you are talking to a person in a ring smaller than yours, someone closer to the center of the crisis, the goal is to help. Listening is often more helpful than talking. But if you’re going to open your mouth, ask yourself if what you are about to say is likely to provide comfort and support. If it isn’t, don’t say it.

Listen …

In the world at large, and in the corner of the world where I live, I know there’s action to take — for example, here’s a concrete to-do list: 75 Things White People Can Do For Racial Justice — of that I am clear. And yet there is so much more listening that that I … that we … need to do. Many of the things on the list linked above are a form of listening to those at the center of the circle. I aim to do my part.

Self-Care for Anxiety—Healing Through the Dark Emotions, part 2

In my last post, I noted that I’ve been reading Miriam Greenspan’s Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair, and offered wordplay as a way to begin to believe differently. Tending to our language is a way to undo and talk back to some of the ongoing cultural messaging we’ve gotten about our fear, worry, sadness, disappointment, despair, grief, and anger. Believing—or at the very least changing our language—is a good first step, but it’s important to remember that beliefs aren’t just things we carry around in our heads. They’re in our bodies, too. And we can reinforce old ones or create new ones when we move into action with our bodies. When stuck with old beliefs and moving toward the new, people often ask: “Yeah but even if I tell myself emotions are good, even if I believe that to be true, I still don’t know how to actually feel.” Or they say, “I can’t deal with the feelings. They’re too much. What am I supposed to do when it hurts so much?!?” We have to learn to listen to our bodies.

Sadness, Anger, and Fear are Essential

In my experience, many of the women I know in my personal life and many of those I see in therapy are often quite skilled at considering how others might feel and at caring for others’ emotions. It’s when fear or sadness or pain show up in our own lives that we tend to turn away the fastest. We’re afraid that if we start feeling, we’ll never stop, or that we won’t be able to function, or that we’ll be completely overwhelmed. We hold tightly to false beliefs that we can “completely eradicate [our own] emotional suffering” and that our negative emotions are “a dangerous hindrance to the good life.” I cannot begin to count the number of clients I’ve seen over the years who (or the number of times I myself) have said, “I don’t want to be mad about this,” or “My goal is to be happy” (and what is meant is happy at the exclusion of sad). We want our emotions to be gone. But sadness, anger, fear, grief—these are appropriate, healthy, essential ingredients of a good life. We can’t keep them at bay, nor should we. Brene Brown talks about this in her work: when we numb ourselves to one side of the emotional range, we also numb ourselves to the other. If we cut ourselves off from pain, we cut ourselves off from joy. If we learn not to be sad, we are never truly happy.

The Essence of Healing Lies in Listening

One of Greenspan’s most important early points in her book is this: “The essence of healing from emotional pain lies in listening to what hurts—in both knowing how to listen to oneself and being listened to by another.” Good listening is a key ingredient of good therapy and good relationships in general—as parents, as spouses, as friends, as roommates. Again, many women I know are quite skilled at listening to others, and that’s a lovely relational gift. But the piece I want to focus on in this moment is how we might listen to ourselves. This is where I see lots of women struggle. How might we stay with our own emotions? How we might honor what we hear? How we might come to know our own wisdom?

We have to befriend our dark emotions and stop thinking of them as a sign that we’re sick or that something is terribly, horribly wrong with us. Instead of continuing to avoid what scares us, we can choose to lean in, and we can learn to find our way through. By leaning into our feelings, and listening to them, we can increase our hardiness and our tolerance for them, and we can heal. This way of healing might sound backwards — wait, I have to feel sad to feel better?—but intuitively we know it to be true.

Self-Care Exercise

Today I’d like to offer an exercise that comes in part from Greenspan and in part from so many of my teachers, mentors, and leading voices in the field.

Listen to Your Body, Using Your Breath as a Support.

To feel and be with and befriend our emotions, we have to learn how to listen to our bodies. Our breath is one of the primary ways in which we regulate our energy and emotions. Our breath helps us locate our feelings, in our bodies, and soothe our feelings, in our bodies. One of my therapy heroes and mentors said in a graduate school class: “The simplest form of self-care is three deep breaths.” I used to think that was sort of a throw-away, but the more I’ve done this work, the more I’ve understood her to be right and have seen how supportive it can be simply to breathe.

• Start with your normal breath. Just for a minute or two. Don’t try to change it or to do anything different with it. Just notice. See if you can feel air moving into and out of your nose or mouth. See if you can feel how far you breathe into your throat or chest or belly. Notice what expands and what contracts, and what doesn’t. Focus your attention on the in and the out. If you get distracted and move into your thoughts—what am I having for dinner tonight?, how am i going to get all of my work done with the kids here?, why won’t the dog quit whining?—just notice that you’ve gone away from your breath and come back to it.

• Try some square breathing. Again, for a minute or two. Breathe in for a count of four, hold for a count of four, breathe out for a count of four, hold for a count of four. In four. Hold four. Out four. Hold four. This kind of breathing is intended to slow and deepen your breath, and to create a rhythmic pattern that can help to transform what’s happening in your nervous system.

• Take a few moments to listen to your body. Again, for a minute or two. What are you feeling? How do you know that’s what you’re feeling? What are the cues from inside you? In particular, notice what and where are the sensations in your body. Becoming familiar with your body’s experience of fear, for example, is how you can begin to listen. When you find a sensation, use your breath to breathe through it, or into it. See if you can send your breath to that place, with kindness. The goal is not to change how you feel, simply to bring awareness to it. Ask what your feeling might have to say to you now.

• Thank yourself for breathing and feeling in your body. Say to yourself: “I honor my breath and my body. I listen to my feelings. I welcome my wisdom.”

I know it seems small on the surface, and somehow “not enough,” but I strongly believe that slow is fast and less is more. A regular practice of this kind of listening is vital to self-awareness, and to a healthy relationship with self and others. What about you? Would you be willing to try? Or is it something you already do? I’m curious. Let me know.

Occasional Gardener: Musings from a Nashville Therapist

I am an occasional gardener, and by occasional I mean almost never. More than a decade ago during my first true adventure in gardening, I discovered that knowing what will grow and being able to help keep it alive is a matter of trial, error, time, and effort. I quickly learned that plants involve sun, soil, water, and temperature—not to mention the bugs, weeds, and poison. (Ohhhhh the poisonous plants. Poison ivy. How can one plant be so mean?!?) A true novice, I had no clue what I was doing; I needed help. I needed more skills, knowledge, and faith than I could muster on my own. I needed someone to come alongside me.

What Grows in Nashville?

I turned to my dear friend Betsy, who loaned me all her best gardening books. (Confession: It took me years to return her books. A grave mistake from a bibliophile like me. Sorry, Betsy.) She told me what grows in Nashville. She made me memorize the last frost date for this region — April 15. And then when I was ready, she took me to Home Depot and showed me what I needed to use to amend the soil. She bought me plants and gardening tools; she brought me seedlings from her yard. Most importantly, she brought her shovel to my house, and together we dug out the rocks and the weeds rooted deep in the ground. We tended to the established plants that were already doing just fine, thank you very much. And with tender care, we placed bare hands into the soil and planted what would be new. When she left that day, I watered and watched with anticipation for signs of life and growth.

Shortly thereafter, life sprang from the ground. In seemingly no time at all, fiery orange and yellow marigolds and sky-high, golden sunflowers rose happily in my yard, speaking as clear as can be about the beauty of possibility and hope fulfilled. Through those hot, summer days my yard was alive with all sorts of good things, leaving me with smiles and sweet dreams of life beyond the fence. Flowers are magical that way.

Life changed, several times over, and I’m a little sad to report I did not keep up that garden. In fact I’ve not gardened in years, hence the occasional gardener label. Nevertheless, that first adventure has stayed with me. Its lessons remain.

In the Therapy Room

I think about gardening often when I am outside and when I am in the therapy room. Just as flowers push up from beneath the dirt, so growth often comes from underneath. I see my clients tending to that which is already doing fine, digging out the rocks and the weeds, planting new things, and waiting to see what will arise. Sometimes I come alongside them with a shovel and dig. Sometimes I plant seeds. Sometimes I share something I know about the acidity of the soil, or the way in which the sun will come over the yard in the afternoon. Sometimes I notice something unfamiliar or troublesome poking up from the dirt or hovering around the plants. Sometimes I jump up and down and say, “Look at what beautiful thing is emerging over there! Look what you have grown!” And sometimes, I wait with hope.

Is there something you’re hopeful for?

I’m a therapist in Nashville who works with women to cultivate all kinds of beautiful growth. If you’re interested to learn more about how I can help, please contact me.