JanBerry

Yesterday’s post was a little different..it was an audio narration and a diagram that I did on the process of getting unstuck..

This is a follow-up, in that another very essential component of healing is those periods when you’ve got to make a hard left – a turn – based on what you discover about yourself whilst recreating your narrative. Those moments are often embarrassing, because you go, ‘Wow, that’s what I was doing?! That’s how I looked doing it?!’ 🤦🏾‍♂️

It’s okay. You’ll survive. Break your shame button..and go ahead and grow. You don’t have to stay the same and you are more than worth the difficulties involved with changing.

This is my favorite post to repost..never gets old.

#Repost @janberrywrites

Think of losing your front tooth at age 6 or so, and having to go to school the next day with a big gap in your smile, with the other children laughing at you.

Your new and permanent tooth will replace it soon but in that moment, you either wish to stop going to school altogether or stop smiling.

Growth is embarrassing.

And if you want to grow, there’ll be times when you want to hide from the world because you are ‘under construction’.

I’ve been embarrassed so many times, I think my shame button is broken.

Nobody wants to walk around grinning for people to see their tooth that fell out..but, I don’t see any other way to get a new tooth. Do you? 🤷🏾‍♀️”

#growth #thehardknocklife #knockingoutteeth #growthishardwork #growthisembarrassing #growthisgood #growthisaprocess #growthisbeautiful

She hadn’t seen me in 16 years so she cried
and I imagine now it must have been like the pain she felt when she died
A feeling of yearning
hopes detached from living
all the while feeling searing
shots of pain
in the dying body that’s living
She hadn’t seen me in 16 years so she cried
and I imagine now it must have been like the pain she felt when she died
Arriving 16 years too late
to a vision of your life as it walked through the gate
All your hopes boiled away in the heat of a temper
And never having the space to remember
Remember…my only connection to you has now lost a bit of her mind
And I can no longer rekindle the sands of your time..
Oh Ma, this was the daughter you knew,
and I’m so glad I got to know you too
even if it was 16 years too late
..through that gate
because too many of your entrances were filled with pain
homes, hospitals, hospices..
I’ve sealed your wounds Ma..
No longer exposed.
Rest well now,
our love still grows,
as I heal those parts of me with these words
Hospice prayers and chants
“Mummy, I can’t..”
Gut torn from inside
The disease of pain pierces your side
And grimacing you came to see us one last time
One last frame held in thin air
As a memory, it lingers there
Static and binding
this dissolved feeling of yearning
hopes detached from living
all the while feeling searing
shots of pain
in the dying body that’s living
Mummy, look, see, I’ve healed us
Covered us
And this is the smile you will always remember
“Don’t cry Ma..”
I’ve solved us like mysteries
of pain’s root/route to dis-ease
I know you tried so hard to see this smile again,
and it took 16 years, so you cried
and I imagine now it must have been like the pain you felt when you died
…

— JanBerry © 14Sep2021. 4.05am

🖊 This poem reflects on the short life my Mum had and how it was intersected by the hopes she had for happiness whilst feeling the deep, dying realities of pain – both physical and emotional pains.

📸 This picture was captured by Emily, who befriended me as a fellow commuter in college. 21 years later Emily and I are still friends and she recently sent me this photo.

Here in Trinidad (Caribbean), there is a slang term for forcing friendship. It’s not as popular as it was when I was in secondary school, but it’s still fresh in my mind. It’s “fallin’ – pronounced fah-lin not fall-in”.

Fallin’ is when you are desperately trying to become a friend to someone that is not especially interested in you. They are rejecting your efforts and yet you continue to offer your friendship.

Have you ever found yourself on either end of this?

There is a memory I have about the first time that I can recall trying to make friends. It didn’t go well and I see now how many ways the experience has stuck with me. It’s lodged in there, like the dancer who practices and rehearses early in their career, until some moves become stuck in their very bones. It had become an ingrained part of me..an eagerness to engage, a childlike tendency to be overly forgiving of obvious red flags, fallin’ – pursuing people in to places that I haven’t been invited.

It’s the type of thing that can also freeze you at the age you were at when this rejection took place. Childlikeness does not traverse my entire adult experience but it shows itself in specific ways..in those ways that I still recoil inside, like the hurt child that first experienced the rejection.

I see it and can give that version of me a hug..for trying..failing’ became fallin’..

Now I can submit myself to a process of growing up in that area.

Pasting again, the question that I asked earlier..
Have you ever found yourself on either end of this?

The #forty series is an exploration of the good F-words that have been helping me to craft a more joyful and productive life.

Future

Based on the F’s that I’ve dropped so far (all the puns intended), I think my future is gonna be bright as F?$%.

…as bright as this sunset.. 🤔 or is this a sunrise?

Beginnings..Endings..
Past..Future..
Now..
Sunset..Sunrise..
Same..

Same..

📸: me

The #forty series is an exploration of the good F-words that have been helping me to craft a more joyful and productive life.

Freedom

This was the day I decided I was going to remove my breast tissue and begin testosterone treatments.

Every new decision that has come as a result of that one would work itself out. And so far, it has indeed worked out, every new consideration.. every time I learn something new about myself because of my chosen life path..my road..

This day was a Saturday – I had gone on a long drive, because I just really love those..plenty road to think..5 hours of driving from start to finish – one way.

To me, freedom is like that road..a moving target, an actionable noun. If I am too attached to what I envision, I tie myself to those expectations and lock myself in. I become trapped instead of free. Freedom for me, feels like allowing myself to grow and change, arc to new desires and goals, expand and be changed by the road even as I move along it.

#freedomisaverb

The #forty series is an exploration of the good F-words that have been helping me to craft a more joyful and productive life.

Focus

Ha! I took forever to choose a photo for this post, but I landed on this one, and it stuck. When I face painted, it was both hobby and work. One day I realized that I loved it more than work allowed me to enjoy it so I stopped.

They say you gotta love your work, but some loves are better off as hobbies.

I *can* do many things, however, I also cannot *do* many things (get it?). I used to think that I would get more done by doing many things. I held on to that for a long while, until this year I began doing the opposite. I learned that for me, I get more done when I do less.

Dialing in.

The #forty series is an exploration of the good F-words that have been helping me to craft a more joyful and productive life.

Forgiveness

Forgiving yourself is so important. Letting go of your past mistakes can be the turning point between you growing and you devolving. There is energy attached to mistakes that you don’t release. You can be carrying them as a burden. You did it, okay. Now, let it go. You’re a changed person, okay, now walk in the stance of that new person instead of tethering yourself to the shadows of your former self.

Now that I’ve begun setting the boundaries that I needed to set, I have so much more energy and bandwidth to do this kind of self-forgiveness. There were some things that were tightly packed together – placed in blurry places – not knowing where my responsibility began and others ended, and it was all because of ‘boundaries’. This extends as powerfully to my business as it did and does to my personal life. Learn. Let go. Move on.

Forgive yourself and get better.

The #forty series is an exploration of the good F-words that have been helping me to craft a more joyful and productive life.

Fear

I started to look at fear as a starting point instead of an ending point. Once I learn what my next step should be, it has become a matter of doing it. Fear is simply unfamiliarity. I haven’t done this before, so I’m afraid of it. It doesn’t matter how anxious I am about doing what needs to be done or how uncertain I am of the outcome or my chosen method. If it has to be done, then even, trembling, I will do it.

I recently disengaged completely from my father and brother. I have done the same with other relationships, but most of those were not as central to how people view you as a person when you don’t hold on to THESE specific relationships…familial ones. Once you experience the massive improvements in your life from evolving forward into expanding energy spaces, it becomes harder to reconcile those energies in your orbit that try to manipulate you into staying at their vibrational level.

Most people will never get it and will disagree with my choice. That is an unfamiliar place for me as a recovering people pleaser. I have become more connected with the wholeness and health of doing what needs to be done. Fear, redefined as unfamiliarity, means I am not angry, I am not broken, I am just done – a new and different action is now required.

#andthewordisNo