A Gristly Mess

Not any more; I'm no longer choking it down to be polite.

*Thwack. Thump. Thwack.*

“What are you doing mom?”

My seven year-old stomps into the kitchen as he hears the rhythmic pounding.

*Thump. Thump. Thwack.*

I raise and lower the metal mallet on the pork, for once taking the extra step to pound out and tenderize the meat before turning it into pork medallions for dinner. I am trying a new recipe as I work my way through an actual paper cookbook.  Another step I have been taking in trying to continue to lessen my attachment and over-reliance on my phone. It’s also an excuse to let out the pent frustrations about how all the systems and all the structures seem to be falling apart and failing.

*Thump. Thwack. Thump*

“I am pounding out this meat to make it taste softer and better. Want to try?”

An explanation and invitation… my best effort in connecting in this moment. My son took a few whacks at the meat and walks out of the room evidently satisfied.

I’m left curious. How does pounding the meat actually help? I look it up. “The heavy force from banging the meat breaks up the connective tissue and collagen around the muscle fibers, causing the muscle fibers to separate and the meat to be more tender.”¹

///

“I’ve never told anyone this before.  These words are hard and awkward to say out loud.”

The over-achieving, perfectionistic, high-performing, oldest daughter is sitting in therapy with me following the thread of her story, unburdening her shame and secrets, learning that there really is no shame for her to be holding.

She didn’t do anything wrong.

She didn’t ask to be abused.  Her leggings didn’t cause it.  Her innocent play with her neighbor didn’t invite it.  Her inability to tell a grown up and ask for help wasn’t her childhood self’s fault.

So I tell her, “You are not bad for having this happen to you. It was not your fault. You are strong for holding this within you for the majority of your life.  I am so sorry you have had to be so strong.”

*thump, thwack, thump.*

We end session and I step outside to ground myself. I take deep breaths and feel the sunshine on my skin. I put myself physically in the light; I remind myself that there is light.

///

I was four months pregnant sharing with a mentor therapist about openly weeping in a therapy session with a client. “I can’t wait to have my emotions back in check.  I feel everything so intensely right now. I couldn’t keep my tears from flowing as this client shared.”

My mentor asked “What was really going on for you in that moment?  What are you feeling about feeling feelings with your client?”

(Yes, feelings about feelings. Welcome to therapist life.)

“Well, shame mostly.  Why couldn’t I keep myself in check? Her therapy session should be about her.  It is not supposed to be about my feelings.”

“Did you make it about your feelings?”

“No.” I answered, realizing that I remained regulated while feeling my emotions and simultaneously allowed her to remain the focus of the session.

My mentor went on to share how one of the most therapeutic and healing moments in her life was when she was a therapist intern sitting in her own therapy. Her very seasoned therapist cried with her and allowed her to feel her emotion in its immensity.  The therapist felt it with her, alongside her.  “Maybe your tenderness and your literal physical processing of the emotion with your client was the most therapeutic thing you could do in that moment.”

*Thump. Thwack. Thwack*

///

I step into the church we have been attending for the last few weeks. One thing I have loved about this particular church is that it emphasizes inclusion. There are different shelters and inpatient/outpatient therapy centers that it supports. Many of the participants of those programs choose to voluntarily attend on Sundays. The congregation doesn't seem to be made up of people who have it all together or who are putting on an act. It is not a white-washed, upper middle-class suburban utopia. There are girls from a therapeutic wilderness program, participants of the in-house 12-step group, and men who are in a rehabilitation program down the road. We all attend together and worship together. It seems as though we all are aware that we have things to learn from one another.

We’ve been on a journey of trying churches. For many (valid) reasons, we last at a church for a few weeks and then move onto another. I have never been a “church shopper.” I still am not a church shopper. I am, however, unwilling to remain in spaces that are emotionally and spiritually unhealthy, spaces that wound people, spaces that cause people to leave more wounded than when they arrived. I am unwilling to remain working and serving within systems that perpetuate binary thinking, narcissism, toxic group dynamics, and power differentials.

The pastor stepped up to the pulpit. Throughout the previous 3 weeks, I have loved hearing what he has shared. He seemed to be speaking from a place of grief and authenticity; sharing about the depth of his emotions and the truth and the depth of love and felt presence he has experienced with God. He has recently navigated the loss of several close friends while simultaneously helping the church grieve and navigate the sickness and death of a few long-time members. He spoke and taught from a place of authenticity, curiosity, and woundedness.

This week he showed up wearing his preaching pants. Gone was the tender, compassionate, connected, and emotionally present leader. Instead we were being admonished about our sin, about the sanctity of life, about how anxiety, addiction, and abortion were sins; evidence of our lack of trust in God. We are all flawed, sinful, and broken… our flesh not to be trusted. I imagine he got to The Gospel somewhere in there. Maybe he told us that Jesus died to forgive that awfulness of our humanity. I don’t know; I couldn’t hear that. I was frozen, burdened for the young girl who feared for her life, inclusion in her family, remaining loved, and having the ability to care for her unborn baby because of the lack of access to resources and adequate support. I was heartbroken for the man who had lost his children to the unrelenting grip of his past addiction. I saw flashes of faces of my clients who were wrestling with their mistakes or past choices, caught in a place of shame, who were now being further shamed by Mr. Preaching Pants. I don’t understand why some preachers think we need to feel awful first before we can receive the truth of the Gospel. It’s not true. It’s akin to narcissistic abuse.

I didn’t make it to the car before I was sobbing. “THAT IS NOT HOW LOVE WORKS!” I screamed at my husband. “JESUS DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY! He approaches gently and with questions! He has relationship. He doesn’t just yell at people about their brokenness. He tenderly sits beside them. He loves them through to the other side. That pastor…. it doesn’t work that way. Anyone who struggles with addiction, who had an abortion in the past, any person who was ‘given up for adoption’ just left that room feeling further from God than when they arrived in the church building. That is the opposite of what the church is supposed to do. That is the opposite of the gospel. God draws near. God doesn’t shame. I’m too tired of preaching pants, absolutes, and shame.” Time for another break from church.

*Thump, Thwack, Thump*

///

This past week I was at dinner with a group of friends, I was sitting next to a newer friend who also happens to be a therapist.  As we chatted, we learned that we both “can’t handle” dramatic TV or the true crime podcasts all our friends were connecting over as we ate our appetizers.  As they talked about the latest episodes- the red flags in a person’s history that obviously are the signal to the audience of the identity of the arsonist. My new friend and I looked at each other shrugging.  “All those stories are too heavy. I have to be reminded that there is light, that there is hope.” She says.

“Yes, why do you think I am on book 19 of the Virgin River series? I can’t handle any more real drama.  I need all the happy endings.  I need predictable and mindless easy reading” I respond.

We continue eating and chatting and reflect on how life as a therapist seems to be getting heavier and heavier. We talk about how we have both taken on side-hustles to help balance the emotional weight and workload- her’s a local consignment sale franchise, mine an Etsy shop.

Why is it all heavier and heavier though?

Is it our life stage of both having three young kids?

Is it our nation/politics/election year/social justice/human rights/everything being forever more and more polarized?

Is it that we now know how to pay attention and listen? Is it that we are no longer disconnected from our emotions and disembodied?

Is it that we’ve been thumped and thwacked too much? Have we become too tender?

///

I recently had a client (who was also a therapist) finishing working with me. She came into therapy with specific goals in mind: to resolve past trauma and the related anxiety symptoms she had been experiencing. We worked together for 2 years, and the time had come. She achieved her goals. We agreed that was time for “graduation.”

We were reflecting together on her learnings through the therapy process: what was helpful, what was harmful, the ways that she had changed and grown.  She shared with me, “There was one time in session when I was grieving a loss. I was folding and unfolding the tissue in my lap… like I do. Eye contact was hard to maintain in that moment. I was looking at that tissue and the patterns of mascara and makeup discoloring the soggy, decomposing mess. I looked up and saw you were crying. You cried with me. I never realized how I hadn't experienced that before then. It was in that moment that I realized my feelings were valid. I realized how much you truly care.  That was such a new experience.  I so rarely allowed others to see my emotion, and when I did, I was pushed away.  You let me experience the opposite.  You taught me how to do the opposite.”

Well, that went full circle. 

*Thump. Thwack. Thwack.*

///

We sit around the dinner taking bites of our pork medallions.  Pounded out pork tenderloin, lightly dredged and pan fried, finished cooking in a white wine and green chille-cumin sauce, served over mashed potatoes.

“This meat is cooked perfectly! It’s melting in my mouth! No wonder you married me! I am such a good cook! Ugh- this is just incredibly good!” I voice a stream of complements as I enjoy my dinner, verbally giving myself the accolades I clearly earned by pounding out the pork first.

Tender is what you want.  It took a beating to get here.  It is incredibly good.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Tender."

1. https://www.seriouseats.com