Jon. This is my husband. When I think about the last six plus years, I literally cannot believe it's already been that long. I love this man the way I loved him before he was mine. He still makes me smile when I want to not smile. I get excited every day when he comes home from work. I want to scream when he claims he's organized. I want to bang my head against a wall when he says "I don't know how to say it" or some other communication breakdown. Jon is a lover. He is a lover of helping people. He is a lover of his babies. He is a lover of nature. He is generous at the expense of himself and his family. As much as this has pissed me off at times, it's something I really admire in him. Talk about physical strength. This man has the strength of Samson but without the hair. I've never known someone to work as hard as I remember my father working in my young years. Jon can work anyone under the table. I fail him so much. I want to say that what he offers me is enough. But I frequently struggle bc I want more. I want more emotion and more passion. I want him to dance with me in the kitchen or turn me around and tell me that I'm amazing. Stupid romantic things that he would vomit if I even said them out loud. Oh well. He is so much more than my silly box of wishes. I am grateful on the daily bc of you. Thank you for letting me be your wife.
Monday, April 21, 2025
Attachment, EMDR and the Deer
04/18/2025: In order to speak about what I want to say - I've got to set the stage with a couple of things.
First of all, I had an experience on Oct 6, 2012 that was etched into my mind. it didn't seem that big of a deal at the time but sure did burn into my memory because it seemed so sacred if to no one else but me. It was my second 100 mile attempt of which I had no business running. I was coming off of my first hundred mile finish in May 2012, severe marriage problem the summer of 2012 on top of a bad flare of asthma requiring several days of prednisone to get my peak flow back to minimums just a day before the race start. I was beat down at the start of this race and was just trying to muscle my way through, like I did with most everything that came my way. Just power through. After an aid station stop at mile 30ish, I set out ready to climb through the thick forest area up to another high mountain lake/aid station. It was mid day but the brush and pine were so thick, it looked kind of dim outside. Because the pitch was so steep, I had my head down and was just grinding through the climb. For some some reason, I just stopped and felt like someone was watching me. It wasn't a scary feeling but just one recognizing another was there. I looked up and less than 10 feet away from me was a beautiful deer. It did not have horns so I guess that made it a girl, maybe? I knew it was hunting season but this deer looked me straight in the eyes and I was looking at the deer straight in the eye balls. It peered at me like it might say something or was taking inventory of my soul or something. The moment seemed to drag on for a very long time. I finally had to go since I was in a race after all. So I told the deer I hoped it made it through hunting season and good bye. That was one of the most sacred close encounter moments I've ever had and it somehow felt like an important moment. I just didn't know why. Three days after I saw the deer, the most heinous violence would break out in my home resulting in jail, police, judges and court rooms. I was divorced less than a year later and my entire life fell apart after that race.
Fast forward to Jan 2023 and I finally began to attend serious mental health therapy to include EMDR - which is really amazing and scary at the same time. I've been attending therapy now every other week for over TWO YEARS!!! I know it's such a long time and I do wonder every now and again if I'll ever graduate. Some very incredible things have happened and I know I've grown some. Nonetheless - during EMDR sessions, a safe space was created. I know this exact place in my mind and it exists in real life too. It's a place I've been backpacking. There is water, alpine mountains, forest, boulders and grass and all the rugged beauty found in the high mountain lakes of Idaho. I remember one session being in this space of peace and shalom - and the deer was there!! The same deer from IMTUF. It looked at me, but it observed from a far. Sometimes it was running with me on a trail but always at a distance. This didn't strike me as odd because deer don't really become friendly with people. I came to understand this deer to be The Lord.
In Aug 2024, I was running a 50K in Eastern Idaho, Harriman 50K. In counseling I was really in a struggle and on the edge of what would be a huge relational healing just two months later. But I was wresting huge emotionally and wasn't sure if I was on the right track or not. During that race, I encountered the deer in real life AGAIN! Realistically, no way was it the same deer. But it looked at me the same way and acted like if it could say something to me, it would. I knew that the Lord was with me. This is what I knew from encountering the deer there. It was something just extraordinary to know that God was going to be with me.
Last week my counselor recommended a book to me. Sacred Attachment by Michael John Cusick. In this book he defines the 4 S's. Seen, Soothed, Safe, Secure. One builds upon the next in a most divine way. I cannot help but see some sort of irony or maybe it's God's gentle way of laying down new neural pathways as the author Curt Thompson suggests in Soul of Shame by stating "Our attachment patterns, translated into and through our neural networks, not only affect our relationships with other people, they are the primary forces shaping our relationship with God. Whatever our dominant patterns tend to be, we will relate with and assume things about God through those same neurons networks. (After all he created our brains and doesn't bypass them when he invites us to a personal encounter with him)." What if God has been working to lay down new neural tracks so that I can obtain a secure relationship with him, even back to 2012?!
What if God showing up as a deer in my life has somehow been an opportunity for me to understand the being seen and understood is okay? It doesn't have to be scary. It doesn't have to anxiety ridden. God can be trusted, like the deer. What if God is showing me the basic foundation that He DOES see me and understands me all the way. So when I think of the concept in this book Sacred Attachment "of course", I can BELIEVE God when she says "of course" - when I picture myself in the worst and darkest places of my past and somedays, my present.
The next question I have is - what if I stop striving to be enough? What if I stop striving to be good enough to be loved? What if I stop striving to be noticed in my home or at work or as a mom? Who am I if I'm not doing those things? The only thing I've come up with is how tired I am. Every fiber of my being is just exhausted. Exhausted from striving and exhausted from the beat down of life. From working a full time job, maintaining a home - mainly cooking, cleaning, organizing, scheduling sports, keeping track of and taking kids to all appts, school activities, etc etc etc. It's a freaking lot. Not to mention I would like to have a life outside of all the stuff I do. I would really love to be in shape again and have time for a good work out more days than not - instead, I'm relegated to getting up at 3:15am if I want to get a run in. Like I said, I'm just tired in all the areas, on all the levels and feel like most things I love get the worst of me.
I recognized the biggest pattern I have going right now is that I generally solve issues by adding more to my plate. The do more things, manage more things, organize more things, control more things way of coping with life has brought me to this point. I just want to sit down for once. My worry is that if I take a nap or sit down or stop for just a short bit, I will never get up again. That is FAR more scary to me than the idea of keeping going. Maybe that just means, I haven't hit rock bottom or something?
Anyway, I'm am signed up for Bear 100 in 22 weeks. it's extremely unlikely I'll toe the line. I'm so out of shape and overweight. I'm not ready to give up yet. If what this author of Sacred Attachments says is true - then the physical and emotional and spiritual are all connected and disembodied selves are not effective. So just focusing on the straight physical aspect of it is probably not the way to go. Not sure what I'm saying here but I know I don't want to quit on myself yet.