Silly bitch: lost & found

This isn’t about suffering, this is about hope.

I think one of the saddest things about going through trauma is how far it can push you from yourself. But one day you will wake up and you will be you again. I promise.

Healing happens through your story being heard, your heart being held and your body feeling safe again. It happens in quiet moments of peace finding their way to you and people showing you how lovely the world can be again.

Because what happened, whatever it was, was dark, but there is so much light cracking through. And healing is about delving into the darkness so it can fade into the light.

Over the course of time, lightness can crowd out the dark and in this process a photosynthesis occurs where your lightness and joy come back to you.

For years I felt heavy, every stressor felt like an attack on my body and I wear its scars as illnesses I now carry with me. Because the trauma will attack you through your nervous system until you learn to dance with your body again. But one day you will.

Even if your nervous system and you continue to carry scars like mine which I’m sorry if you do, I promise life is still full of lightness and it’s okay if you still panic at nothing occasionally, it doesn’t mean you are failing it means you are still here.

For me healing happened and happens in many ways. I use both because nothing is truly every linear. And your body and mind are not an open and close case the way people sometimes make them out to be.

For me healing occurs in  therapy, breathing, mantra, yoga, rapid eye movement, sobbing, singing, walking, poetry, dancing, laughter, sauna, rest, running, hugs, sex, holding hands, meditation, weightlifting, pilates, writing, holidaying, being in the presecence of people who love me, being in the presence of my higher self who loves me, being present here and now. Healing happens in living, as well as processing. Please never forget to live.

In the seriousness of the work it can be easy to get stuck in all of life’s seriousness. But the joy and the silliness are what will save you.

My friend and I spoke on the phone in lockdown and through tears she told me I don’t feel silly anymore. I didn’t understand what she meant, I hadn’t felt silly in years.

Now I know what she means.

It took half a decade for me to feel silly again. But I feel silly again. And in the silliness there is so much space for joy. Don’t get me wrong my sense of humour never left me, infact it was all I had. It was my coping mechanism and my only way of processing. So much so, I completely immersed myself in the word of stand up comedy and wrote an entire show about it. And I loved it and I’m so grateful for it.

But there was a jaded perspective that laced so much of my art in that time because I felt so stuck in the depths of myself and what had been done to me. And I needed that time, this anger needed to be felt and expressed through art and life. It was part of me coming back. And I’m so proud of the art I made in that time, it was brave and biting and cleaved through a meekness that wanted to take me over. But I feel differently now.

I left stand up because I didn’t know how to be sincere and silly on stage. All I could be was who I had conjured in the pits of my healing. And one day I woke up and I couldn’t be her anymore. I didn’t want to be angry anymore.

And so I left, after taking my hour show - not a chill girl. The birthing place of this newsletter, on a tiny two city tour ahead of Edinburgh fringe. My room fell through and when it did, I cancelled the booking. I was in Brighton for the day with a friend and realised I didn’t want to do the show again, I didn’t want to even perform again at that time. When I sent the email, I felt flooded with relief. My breathing slowed, my muscles softened, my mind stilled- my body let me know I was listening to it.

And then from stand up I fell into a period of rediscovering who I was and how I wanted to spend my time. There were hiccups that occurred along the way- relationships that made me feel disconnected from my centre and housing nightmares that I wish upon no one. But I gave myself time to be a person again.

I took a year and a half off creation of any kind. I needed to be a person whose only job was to live again, no goals or ambitions other than to live. Because besides anger, my focus had been that if I just achieved this thing I would feel whole again. But I didn’t, and so I focussed on nothing but living. And I lived.

I ate pasta every week and holidayed often, I slept in and found new ways to feel strong in my body. I fell in and out of lust and love and took time off dating. I played around with words and jokes occasionally but for no reason other than my own desire for joy.

And in this low pressure storm, I didn’t feel angry anymore. I didn’t feel silly yet either but I could feel the ground beneath my feet again. My axis was returning.

And then I decided to finally do it, to move cities. For years I had yearned to move to Brighton. I solely blame Angus thongs and perfect snogging and my dreams of the seaside for this pipe dream (and yes I know it was filmed in Eastbourne). So I planned for it and told everyone I was going to do it.

But I was scared, was it a coping mechanism? Was I running from myself, running away from my life? The fear clouded my judgement, but my body said no. My heart said thank you for finally listening.

And so I moved. The extra sunlight that glittered off the ripples of the sea. I watched as one man threw pebbles and missed and I laughed; as the sun set in one of the most magical ways I have ever seen. And it was in this moment I knew joy was back and it started to paint the world with its light.

I noticed how different I felt in this new city. Whether it was with my old friends or my new ones I felt freedom within myself and an ease in my being that can only be explained by my ability to giggle at nothing and everything again. Silliness had come back to me.

My friend and I now find ourselves laughing at nothing and everything again and acting like the world is a playground, because it actually is.

I sat in therapy last week and we celebrated. Neither of us cried, instead we smiled. After years and years of rediscovery, I’ve found myself again and she is still the silly bitch I lost there for a minute.

And if you are reading this and you are in the pits of serious healing work or so stuck in yourself that that isn’t available to you yet. The light and its laughter will find their way to you, as long as you keep putting one foot in front of the other and listening to your soul when it speaks to you. Oh and occasionally watching videos of dogs singing and babies trying lemons.