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  • Allowing God’s Business, Minding my Own

    Recently, I watched a video put out by Hoedspruit Elephant Rehabilitation and Development Trust (HERD). Loving all things elephant, I’ve been a follower on YouTube for several years now and get notifications when new vlogs are released, often watching first thing in the morning. For me, nothing beats watching an elephant elephant-ing to get the day started. 

    While most of their videos serve to educate the public and showcase their 16-elephant herd, the day-to-day operations at the homestead, or to fundraise, yesterday’s was none of those. Israel Shambira, one of their senior elder elephant carers, had died. The video was both a memorial and a tribute; a remembrance of a life given over in service of caring for rescued endangered elephants and a deeply heartfelt expression of respect, admiration, and gratitude for the wise, loving soul that he was. Apparently Israel had been one of the original carers at HERD, arriving from Zimbabwe in March of 2002 and was regarded by many of his colleagues as a father figure, uncle, and friend. 

    What wasn’t mentioned in the video was the cause of death, only a reference to a ‘tragic incident’ between Shambira and elephant Limpopo. Unable to imagine, I watched with tears in my eyes as fellow carers gave testimony to Israel and the indelible mark he made on their lives. My curiosity ever growing, I finally decided to pause the video and consult google to find out what happened. Several keystrokes later, I found the answer; Limpopo, HERD’s first to be born in their care, who had just celebrated her 19th birthday a month earlier, and who Shambira himself had helped raise, had, after knocking down a tree while out in the bush, unexpectedly and unprovoked, turned her attention to Shambira, goring him to death. Fellow colleagues were unable to save him. 

    On their Instagram page, with full transparency, HERD announced that after the incident they attempted to relocate Limpopo with several companion elephants but that she continued to demonstrate uncharacteristic aggressive behavior, posing risks to both the carers and elephants around her. As a result, after much deliberation and consulting with additional experts, the decision was made to humanely euthanize her. It was heartbreaking to hear. And while there was a large outpouring of compassion and deep sadness at the loss of both Shambira and Limpopo from their followers, some were not so kind, expressing judgment and outrage at Limpopo’s euthanization, with one follower exclaiming, “They killed a healthy 19-year-old elephant, for acting like an elephant.” 

    I decided to watch the YouTube video again. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for but found I could not get the story out of my head. I kept thinking to myself, This is it. This is what it means. This is what it looks like and who’s to say what that is. I’m referring here to author and spiritual teacher Byron Katie’s famous teaching, “There’s your business, my business, and God’s business.” 

    As I sat, eyes transfixed on the screen again, I thought, Israel and Limpopo were God’s business. Beyond that we cannot know. And I sighed deeply, a feeling of eerie calm washing over me. 

    When my husband Nelson died last year at age 53 from complications that developed while undergoing treatments for stage 4 urothelial cancer, like that angry Instagram follower, I felt like a crime had been committed, an injustice had occurred. A sufferer of chronic illness his entire life, he was forever vulnerable to a multitude of different conditions, propensities born from the root condition of warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia. And yet, even with knowing all the vulnerabilities that were his normal, I was always still grasping to control, a part insisting I could somehow reverse what nature – what God had put into place. 

    Learning to Accept the Unacceptable

    In brain retraining circles there is this concept of coregulation. Rooted in attachment and Polyvagal theory, it asserts that humans are social creatures and therefore respond to the nervous system states of those in their presence. Coregulation is seen as a dynamic, bidirectional process where each person’s emotional and nervous system state affects the other. Our calm has the ability to bring a measure of calm to those around us and vice versa. 

    Having been brain retraining for several years for my own chronic illnesses, through the filter of an overly active fear based brain which already believed I was responsible for the challenges and difficulties experienced in life, further exasperated by an individualistic culture that says we are the sole creator of our reality, and in the face of loss, I took this bit of coregulation science to mean that had I done a better job of regulating my own nervous system, Nelson’s nervous system would have come into regulation too, and the conditions that gave birth to the diseases that ultimately took his life would not have occurred. 

    For many months afterwards, I vacillated between feelings of sadness, frustration, grief, and varying states of confabulation as my mind tried to make sense of his health journey, the how and why of its unfolding a perpetual mystery. Preferring anything else other than the ocean of tears that greeted me like a tsunami most days, I raged inwardly, my mind wanting to believe that something had been under my control; that supposedly knowing all the facts, I should have somehow been able to change the course, that had I done and said certain things differently, I would have changed the outcome…that he should be alive. I found guilt, self- blame, and vilifying myself easier than accepting the truth: Nelson died and nothing on my part could change that.

    Hearing of Shambira’s death and the manner in which it occurred stopped me in my tracks. Whatever insistent and habitual guilt had been holding me hostage up until then finally began to loosen. With each subsequent viewing of those testimonials and statements on HERD’S Instagram page, I found myself humbled and silenced. My attention arrested by the horror of it, the sheer unpredictability, the painstaking decision by HERD leadership to euthanize Limpopo, and the full awareness that there are certain things in this life we just cannot know. 

    Whatever caused Limpopo to impale Shambira will never be known, at least not from this side of the veil. That Nelson developed an E.coli infection, suffered organ failure, and developed edema and ascites while his cancer was in remission will be something I will never understand. But it is something I must accept. Recognizing that we are not in control is not easy. We can do our best to meet each moment with equanimity, set intentions to act with intelligence, care, and compassion. And then it’s out of our hands. 

    I still have moments of ‘what if’ and ‘if only’. That’s my trauma history on display. It has been my conditioning to believe that when things go wrong or cause me pain, that I am at fault, that I am to blame. I am responsible. And then I look at the facts. I spiral back to Shimbira and Limpopo, to the whole of human history and remind myself: Living things die. People die. Whether by disease, famine, war, natural disasters, accidents, or old age, if it is alive, it will eventually die. And while we can take actions to mitigate challenging circumstances, to intervene and support, to prolong death – no amount of human effort, analysis, or blame can alter this inevitability. That is God’s business. 

    In the meantime, I grieve. I brain retrain. And I think of Nelson. I think of the time we shared and the love between us. I remind myself I did my best. That is my business. 

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  • What a Whale and an Elephant Taught Me About Loneliness

    This morning while on the train I was reading from my latest book choice, Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel. In a short chapter ‘Holding Back, Letting Go’ on the subject of interspecies communication and understanding, I came across a particularly moving passage. In it, author Carl Safina shares the reflection of zoologist, botanist, and anthropologist Lyall Watson’s “extraordinarily poignant encounter” while out whale watching on South Africa’s seacoast. 

    It reads:

    “The sensation I was feeling on the clifftop was some sort of reverberation in the air itself…The whale had submerged and I was still feeling something. The strange rhythm seemed now to be coming from behind me, from the land, so I turned to look across the gorge…where my heart stopped…

    Standing there in the shade of the tree was an elephant…staring out to sea! A female with a left tusk broken off near the base…I knew who she was, who she had to be. I recognized her from a color photograph put out by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry under the title “The Last Remaining Knysna Elephant.” This was the Matriarch herself…

    She was here because she no longer had anyone to talk to in the forest. She was standing here on the edge of the ocean because it was the next, nearest, and most powerful source of infrasound. The under-rumble of the surf would have been well within her [hearing] range, a soothing balm for an animal used to being surrounded by low and comforting frequencies, by the life sounds of a herd, and now this was the next-best thing. 

    My heart went out to her. The whole idea of this grandmother of many being alone for the first time in her life was tragic, conjuring up the vison of countless other old and lonely souls. But just as I was about to be consumed by helpless sorrow, something even more extraordinary took place…

    The throbbing was back in the air. I could feel it, and I began to understand why. The blue whale was on the surface again, pointed inshore, resting, her blowhole clearly visible. The Matriarch was here for the whale! The largest animal in the ocean and the largest living land animal were no more than a hundred yards apart, and I was convinced that they were communicating! In infrasound, in concert, sharing big brains and long lives, understanding the high investment of few precious offspring, aware of the importance and the pleasure of complex sociality, these rare and lovely great ladies were commiserating over the back fence of this rocky Cape shore, woman to woman, matriarch to matriarch, almost the last of their kind. 

    I turned, blinking away the tears, and left them to it. This was no place for mere man…”

    As I read this account, I found myself holding inner awe, amazement, and deep compassion for the impulse that drives the living towards one another, to seek out the company, if but only from a distance, of other living souls. 

    In one week, it will be fifteen months since my husband Nelson passed and six months since I’ve been living in my apartment alone. Since arriving, I notice I will often get on the train to just sit in public spaces in the city. On occasion, I’ll buy a cup of something decaffeinated to sip on while I read, write, or just contemplate this life situation of mine. Sometimes I’ll sit and do an IFS parts work session or engage in some research related to neuroscience and brain retraining. But mostly, it’s about being with fellow humans, even if it is just wordless presence in a public space. 

    I’ve known loneliness before, but the loneliness of grief is qualitatively different. Both haunting and piercing, I experience it as a cellular knowing that Nelson is forever out of reach, gone into the ether, never to be found. 

    In her book The Grieving Body, professor and psychologist, Dr. Mary Francis O’Connor says, “the death of a beloved is an amputation.” I return to this analogy often as it is as complete a description as I have ever come across. I think to myself, “Yes, it’s an amputation. Nelson has been removed from the world of the living. The end.” 

    After reading Watson’s account of his encounter, a part of me sighed with relief. I felt seen in a way I had not up until now. Ever since I moved into my current apartment, I wake up daily in a perpetual state of unease. Grief whispers lightly in one ear while another part urges healing, wanting me to hurry up and figure out how to get my nervous system to regulate, fall in line quicker despite rewiring tools and practices, wondering when I will finally hit the Mount Everest of rewiring and claim myself fully recovered and symptom free… while another part is ashamed; judging and inwardly persecuting me for not being able to do more, better, and faster on my own – for feeling lonely. 

    But then I reread that passage again and all of sudden I feel like I was – I am, simply put… okay. I think to myself, “surely if a female whale and a lone elephant matriarch can be so intuitively and innately drawn to seek each other out amidst their solitude on the seacoast of South Africa and find some solace or comfort in each other’s distant presence, then certainly me taking train trips into the city to go and spend whatever time my system will allow to sit in the company of strangers can’t be anything less than normal.” I’m alright. I’m not weak. I’m not broken. I’m not failing at grief. My healing is still happening. I’m just feeling the loss of my beloved. How oddly comforting it is to know that whales and elephants get lonely. 

    There is something in our culture that insists that we are the ones we have been waiting for, that you only need you. It is born of the myth of rugged individualism that commands we pull ourselves up by our boot straps and soldier on. But I beg to differ. Living beings need the company and community of other living beings. It’s is the life force energy within us, calling us up and into itself to a place of belonging. We commune, collaborate, create, and comfort each other. In relationship we grow, heal, and thrive. That is love. 

    My husband died and I feel lonely. But it’s okay. I am alive. And being alive sometimes means I will feel lonely. 

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  • On Grief…Briefly

    Yesterday, taking pride in the previous day’s accomplishment of finally buying and assembling a much-needed baker’s rack to create storage space absent from my tiny kitchen, I decided to journal about it.  I had been procrastinating with the purchase for months, and completion of the task seemed to call for some sort of celebration, and if I wasn’t going to have one outright, then I ought to at least jot down a few words to record the moment. It wasn’t just that I had gotten it done, but that it was the first furniture assembly of any kind that I’d completed without my husband in over a decade. I’d channeled my inner task master and inwardly felt quietly heroic. 

    Over the years, Nelson and I had moved several times; together to an apartment in the Bronx, apart to separate spaces in the Bronx and Brooklyn, together again to North Carolina after we got married, and eventually to DC. Each move was accompanied by the usual packing, unpacking, and reassembling of furnishings with Nelson helping every time, even when apart. 

    The baker’s rack lives in Brooklyn now, where I reside with our cat Lima. Nelson has died. Needless to say, the self-congratulatory journal entry I was trying to write got hijacked by grief. It happens a lot lately. Just when I think I’ve made it past a particular threshold, it happens upon me again, ever insistent, waving me in yet one more time, forcing me to the ground. 

    Throughout his fifty-three-year life, Nelson had many close encounters with death. His body had been touched, prodded, and poked by many; people, plastic, machinery, and metal. But this was his normal. Living with Warm Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia takes its toll. It was the price of his life. 

    A rare form of anemia, WAIHA affects approximately 1 to 3 in every 100,000 people and is characterized by the body’s immune system producing antibodies that attack the red blood cells, leaving one in a constant state of hemolysis with chronically deficient red blood cells and chronically weak. While it can be managed, occasionally, and unpredictably, the condition will worsen, leading to severe hemolytic episodes where the heart rate shoots up, the eyes and skin jaundice as bilirubin levels rise, breakdown of red blood cells accelerate, and the urine darkens as the kidneys attempt to clear excess hemoglobin that has been released into the bloodstream. The condition also makes one vulnerable to blood cancers and blood clots in general. Needless to say, Nelson had suffered both; surviving a blood clot in his brain and Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. These were in addition to the lung nodules that were ever present, the collapsed lung that followed a biopsy, the multiple bouts of pneumonia, a double hip replacement due to avascular necrosis from excessive prednisone use prescribed to manage the anemia, a full splenectomy, and a titanium cranial replacement as a teen after being struck by a bus while out bike riding. This is the abbreviated version. 

    On June 24, 2024, after several days’ unconscious, my Words with Friends self-named Man-of-Titanium husband took his last breath. The cause of death: an E.coli infection and organ failure, conditions accompanied by edema and ascites that developed during three concurrent hospitalizations for a hematoma at the site of his mediport implant to facilitate his immunotherapy treatments for stage 4 urothelial cancer. 

    At the time of his death, the cancer was in remission. 

    While fumbling with the parts of the baker’s rack, I found myself feeling a mixture of hope and frustration. On the one hand there was pride that I’d finally not only ordered it, but also generated enough chutzpah to actually put it together. Just lifting the components out of the box made me feel like my life was somehow moving forward, even if that just meant I’d finally have a couple of extra feet of counter space that I could wheel around the kitchen area. But when the top shelf failed to lay flat after being put into place three times, demanding to be removed repeatedly to get it level, the low-grade frustration that has been a constant companion since living alone these past five months quickly gave way to anger, followed by a slow, warm, steady cry. I cursed the air. I cursed Nelson for dying. And I cursed God for taking my person from me and the potential that would have been our future together. 

    This is life with grief. It is the assassination of hope, a shattering of dreams that leaves one with an emotional canyon of injury that is outside of language. 

    Like life itself, there is no instruction manual for grief. And unlike life in general, where humans constantly seek to control, master, and achieve, – in grief we are brought to our knees, its finality a barren landscape that can leave one feeling uprooted, bewildered, and hopeless.

    For the entirety of my life, I have found a way to plough through and white knuckle my way forward. Even in the face of my own chronic illness, I pushed, driven by the ghosts of traumas past, residual fight/flight patterns and feelings of worthlessness and shame casting a constant shadow. 

    But not so anymore. For whatever I thought I was healing initially, has now, by necessity, changed shape. Grief does that, taking us out of our element, spotlighting old wounds, tapping on the door of traumas past demanding to be let in – and gotten out. It is the assault of an invisible barrage that arrives unexpectedly, spurred by mundane tasks and seemingly benign events, placing a vice-like grip around the present moment, weighing on the heart and pushing in on all we urgently want to let go of; all we wish to be done with. In grief I am traversing foreign terrain, a minefield of the unpredictable that is anything but smooth, my view continually obstructed by visceral memories and the ideals of where society thinks I should be by now. 

    It’s not Nelson I wish to be done with, just the pain of the loss. And yet, in grief, there is no such thing as ‘just’… It is an all or nothing affair. The only way over is through. And there is no finish line, either. Grief expert David Kessler has commented how the bereaved often want to know, “How long will I grieve?” His response, “How long will your loved one be dead?”

    Sigh…

    Kessler also says that the pain of grief doesn’t diminish with time, but that we grow our love around our grief, so that eventually the love we carry in our hearts outweighs the pain of our loss. 

    Although not what I want to hear, it feels right. 

    I’ve since loaded up the shelves of the baking rack, the appliances sitting neatly arranged and easily accessible. We had a similar one in our Bronx apartment. It does what it is designed to do. Beyond the convenience of it, my life is no more now with it, than it was before without it. But it is indeed remarkably less bright without my beloved.

    And so, I grieve. Working to grow my love around the pain, it is a process. I’m not there yet. But I’m inching forward. Slowly. One self-assembly project at a time. 

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  • Getting to Know My Inner Victim – A Love Story

    As with all of us here on the retraining journey, I have an inner victim. I know… this is a tough one. Just saying that, the word itself, ‘victim’, makes something inside me cringe. There’s an immediate yuck factor that arises, a bitter taste in the mouth, a disdain and disgust bellowing deep down. 

    And yet, I must face it. If true healing is to happen, I must be willing to look at ALL parts, even the ones I judge as yucky and unsavory (sigh..). 

    Initially, I resisted this. That little victim part would come knocking and I’d treat her like an unwanted stepchild, “Oh, it’s you again… ugh.” That resistance alternated with ignoring, attempts at overriding, distracting, shaming, and belittling. All automatic reactions. And of course, in typical limbic system fashion, she’d persist. Little did I realize that all of those reactions, from the disgust and disdain, to the shame and belittling, were all taking up residence in the same space. Those were my victim’s playmates – they were all on her side, in her camp. They were and are her known family, and while they all are triggered by each other, they also all work to strengthen and support each other by trying to whip me into shape, to keep me presentable and likable to those around me. Never mind how ‘I’ feel about it, this is the how of who they’ve been conditioned to be – team Limbic System in action. 

    Now, what?

    Recently, after a strong ebb, my Extinction Burst ebb (if interested, read here), I noticed she was sounding the alarm at a deafening level. A few days later after the EB subsided, some other ITs showed up and she was ringing bells and blowing whistles once again. And in response to her urgent summoning, I pulled out all the familiar tactics.

    This time, thankfully, a bit of grace stepped in. I slowed down a bit and noticed that the inner adult (or so I thought) that was showing up to manage her, was in fact a BULLY! And that bully was another one of her playmates that was trying to shut her up because it believed that she was just an attention seeking whiner and complainer. After all, isn’t that what we’re told? In our suck-it-up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps individualist culture – what is one to do?

    But if I accept that these parts, the undesirable personality traits and characteristics, all rest in the neurobiology and behavior of the limbic system (and they do), then I must accept that somewhere in their expression is something trying to protect me, even if I do not yet understand what that is or how it works. 

    Committed as I am to slowing down during these days of recovery, I am starting to hear with new ears. And when I listen closely to my inner victim, I notice she has a specific script: It’s not my fault, I don’t know how this happened, Why am I being punished?, I’m doing everything I’ve been told to do, I’m good, Stop hurting me, Don’t you hear me?!, I’m telling you the truth. And from that proximity, quiet and up close – I realize, she really does sound like a child. In fact, she is saying things that would have been appropriate to my life situation decades ago. 

    Feelings follow Behavior  

    Despite a couple of decades of therapy, I have found that my victim part still feels compelled to show up uninvited, a fact that has been a great source of shame and embarrassment. But since having begun my rewiring journey, I’ve come to understand that although therapy helped me intellectualize my experience so that I could rationalize that things were not my fault, the tools offered did not penetrate deeper. So, while the process added some neural circuits connected to reasoning out and reassigning blame, it never untangled the wires where it all began: the limbic system.

    The neural chemistry of blame can often feel vindicating and energizing, but it comes with its own team members of indignation and self-righteousness. And although momentarily invigorating, it hardly promotes healing. Even should we witness our assigned perpetrators (no matter how small or egregious the infraction) brought to our best version of justice, once again, it is hardly a remedy to an impaired limbic system because guess what? They’re all in it together. The grudge holder, the victim, the bully, the blamer, shamer, belittler, critic… yup – all team Limbic System. 

    Finding what helps

    So, once again, I had a consult with my inner subway mom. I wondered, what she might do or how she might respond to her child if she knew that it was in great distress, not temper tantrum “I want what I want” stress, not CAN (cortisol, adrenaline, norepinephrine) chemistry seeking withdrawal stress, but the stress that arises when a little child really believes its discomforts are danger, unable to discern the difference. 

    After reflecting back to that subway moment once again, I pictured that mom – only this time I gave her my adult face. I asked her, What can you do? Recognizing that this pattern doesn’t serve healing, yet also seeing how much this inner victim is hurting, What would be best here? I chose to believe that she could be kind and compassionate, without being enabling. I chose to believe that she would choose to be soothing and comforting while guiding attention to something engaging or fascinating. I chose to believe that she would listen and validate without a trace of pity or charity. In short, that she would reassure that child that it was heard, that its voice and experience mattered and that it was loved – and then choose to feel better by shifting attention, by implementing our retraining tools. 

    And so, that is what I did. I sat down and closed my eyes. I pictured that little girl at the age she was when it all started. I apologized to her for all that she experienced all those years. I told her I understood how difficult things were then and that I understood that something in her present discomforts were eerily familiar and creating fear. I told her I understood why she believed that they were here to stay, and I understood that she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to control the discomfort or make it stop.  But then I also gently, and lovingly reminded her that the past situation that was so harrowing was all over, that there was nothing to stop anymore, that yes, there is discomfort but it is not danger. I spoke out loud with my hand on my heart and said that our current experience was actually here to help us and the present discomforts weren’t the same, even though something might feel familiar, that they were an opportunity to course correct and empower ourselves. I asked that little victim part to trust me to take care of her and to trust that the choices I would make going forward would bring us to good place. She seemed to like that. 

    I imagine I will have many more conversations like this with that little victim part. I will have as many as it takes. In the meantime, I am grateful for the realization that she is not just having a pity party and she’s not just seeking attention. She wants LOVE. She wants to know that there is an unfaltering someone at her side that is committed to her/our wellbeing, and that she can feel badly from time to time without those feelings being a threat to being loved, or a predictor of what’s to come. 

    As with many of the tools and principles introduced during this journey, it has taken me a while to recognize all the behaviors and patterns my limbic system expresses. It has also taken me a long time to realize that each and every one of them that I have spent so much time hating and beating myself up for, all those insistent and persistent voices, impulses, urges, mental rehearsals, defenses, and so forth, are all part of a system (a brain structure, literally) designed to protect me. In some form or another each unwanted characteristic or trait and the behaviors that come with them are an injured part run amok, trying to keep me free from physical, psychological, and emotional harm, discomfort, rejection, abandonment, and simultaneously connected to whatever situation, person, or resource I’ve been conditioned to believe is necessary to stay alive – even if my higher self sees them as harmful.

    And for whatever reason, it and they, my inner victim and all of her playmates will not yield to anything but love. This has been the greatest lesson in all of this. I can implement all the tools, do the rounds, and study the science, but if there is a trace of anything in the tone of my inner landscape, any actions or words that speaks to those parts in way that is anything less than fully accepting and kind – they will rise up like an army of miscreants to defend themselves and are willing to injure the greater me along the way for they are unaware of consequences. They do not have foresight. And it’s not their (the limbic system’s) fault. 

    In this way, I now see the limbic system is not like a child – it IS a child. And I have not always been kind to mine. 

    But I know better now. And now that I know better, I can do better.

    All must be met with. Nothing but LOVE.

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  • Ebb or Extinction Burst

    Yesterday, my major IT (DNRS speak for symptoms related to a functional neurological condition) was loud. In response to nothing in particular but a willful good mood, it turned up the volume, spending most of the day on FULL blast. It was the second day in a row and to say that it got my attention was an understatement. 

    In the past, as per our training, I’ve labeled this as an ebb. And on the outside looking in, that explanation lines up well. There are other words that also come to mind too: dip, spike, surge, peak, valley, and so on. But no matter what the word du jour, it was anything but flow. And as I gave myself the morning pep talk in the mirror, my new habit of starting the day with self-love and gratitude… I couldn’t help but wonder, “Is this just an ebb?” 

    Enter: The Extinction Burst

    Several days earlier, I read about this phenomenon called Extinction Bursts. The term originates in psychology and parenting circles and refers to the manifestation of increased and intense emotional and physical tantrums when parents are attempting to change and train their child’s behavior. Eventually, the child will tire and cease from pure exhaustion. But it is a long road, and an admittedly a bumpy ride.

    After reading the article, I recalled a memory from long ago. I was on the train coming home from work. A young woman and her toddler were sitting across from me and he was having a tantrum of EPIC proportions. Several stops into the ride she decidedly got up and stood by the door, her little one screaming at the top of his lungs, twisting, and flailing his body and arms, jumping up and down whilst tears streamed down his face and onto his t-shirt. He tugged at her clothing and pounded his fists into the air. Although now at the opposite end of the train car, I could hear cries of “Pleeezzzee,” amidst his screeches and wails. It was insufferable and I was utterly arrested and humbled by her strength and resilience. This was a crowded NYC subway car during evening rush hour. There were side glances, snide remarks, and expletives uttered. Heads nodded, leaning in, looking around, speaking in hushed tones. And yet, she stood untethered, holding her child’s arm, occasionally looking down at him with quiet calm, a decidedly stoic expression on her face, her total commitment to being in the moment evident, choosing to not engage with him negatively – or to change her approach for us. 

    Reflecting on this further, I thought, “Is it possible I am having an Extinction Burst at 54?” 

    Progress

    Throughout this journey, I have often noted the inner push and pull, an inner mental friction; call it a competition if you will; neural energy being driven in opposing directions creating resistance, mood swings, fluctuating emotional and physical ITs, and periodic reversion back to old coping behaviors. I have been a late bloomer in this process and my progress has come in turtle steps, at a truly glacial pace. 

    But alas, in recent months I’ve made much progress. My PTSD triggers, while still present occasionally, are significantly diminished and less life disrupting. That alone is a major victory. The dysautonomia that was once a constant companion for over two years is now just an occasional guest. And the false beliefs and automatic negative thoughts that were once so convincing and capable of hijacking my attention and focus within milliseconds now have to do quite a bit more mental arguing to get a rise out of me and even then, there is now an adult in the mental room to take me out of it. This was not always the case.

    And so, what is a set of maladaptive brain pathways that are weakening and dying going to do? 

    You guessed it:

    Enter: My own Extinction Burst

    My EB (or ebb) – heightened my symptoms in ways I thought unimaginable at this point in my journey (my perfect storm happened back in 2017). For several hours, fluctuating in strength and degree, it seemed that every limbic system impaired pathway was clamoring for what they had been deprived of and tried to create whatever inner conditions they could to get what they wanted: maladaptive coping behaviors to kick in, negative thoughts to run amok, attention, victim thinking, urgency and impulsiveness – in short, those neuron receptors all over my body were trying to get all the familiar chemistry that arises from tending to my ITs as if they were danger. 

    But they did not.

    I am proud to say – I channeled my inner subway mom and held steady!  And although I did shed a few tears during rounds… let’s face it, symptoms (or ITs as DNRS calls them) are real and discomfort ain’t easy – I didn’t stay there. There was no rumination. The ‘Woe is Me’ tapes didn’t play. It was a moment of genuine self-compassion and I returned to my rounds and achieved the inner calm I intended. Not bad, eh?

    The Non-linear Path

    Today, when I woke, the ITs were there once again. 

    And so, I welcomed them. Out loud! I decided to roll out the red carpet. I went to the mirror for my usual morning self-love meet and greet and told them to come on in. I let them know that I understood that they had things to say and that they could. I then marveled at all of the neurological effort and energy being generated in an attempt to get back to that old familiar self. I could feel the inner tug of war to get me to engage with the maladaptive coping behaviors, negative thought patterns, victim identification trying to take center stage, urgency and impulsiveness trying to get me to obey the false alarms and ‘fix’ myself. And then I lovingly told them yet again, “I see you. I hear you. And it’s okay, you can stay. But I have plans to mount pictures on the wall,” an activity that would most certainly trigger all of them. 

    And guess what? 

    They softened! They – ALL – softened! I moved furniture, measured, bent, tilted my head, used a step ladder, and hoisted. In short, I did everything that would trigger them all the while telling myself, “Look at you. You’re in an Extinction Burst! Shazam!” and I just paced myself and kept going. And now, my pictures are mounted on the wall and I’m typing this post, on a screen with eyes focused – yet another activity that used to trigger ITs. But it’s alright. I’m alright. Lingering discomfort is still there. My ITs are still whispering in the background. They may even start to scream. But I’m my own mother now, holding my inner child by the arm while we go through this Extinction Burst. I am calm. I – AM – CALM. 

    And while my little one has not ceased completely; she is quieter in this moment. 

    She is most certainly tiring. 

    I am healing. And I am grateful. 

    I wrote the above several months ago with the intention of posting it on a personal blog. But alas, fear of failure kicked in and procrastination and paralysis soon followed. In recent weeks, I decided I’d take a turtle step, a term borrowed from Wayfinder Life Coach Training founder, Martha Beck. And so, I downloaded a wordpress theme to start this blog. Does it make sense that this should be the inaugural post? Nope. I can see that it hardly conveys what the name of the blog would suggest. But I’ll kindly ask you to bear with me and do come back, again. Thank you for reading.

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