From the edge to the center

The longing to let love in

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A song I’ve been enjoying:

Between Boulders, Joshua Tree, 2017

I have over 460,000 Instagram followers and not very many close friends. I get dozens of messages from strangers on social media every day — way more than I get on my personal phone. I am virtually connected to hundreds of people, yet I at times go weeks without meaningful in-person connection. Sometimes it feels embarrassing — like it shouldn’t be that way. It feels like I should know or do better, like I should have friendships figured out by now, like I’m so admired by people from afar but up close, there’s an open space waiting to be filled with more of the connection I long for.

It can be extremely lonely to feel like I’m seen on a pedestal by many but rarely seen eye to eye, human to human. It’s also an ongoing practice for me to even let myself be seen in an intimate, up-close way.

I can’t think of anything that’s been harder for me than letting love in.

I mean really letting it in — in the crevices I’d rather leave unseen by anyone but me, in the nooks I’m sure would make someone turn the other way, in the cracks I’m certain are better camouflaged as being full.

I’ve done so much “inner work”. Decades of therapy. Coaching. Graduate school. Countless books, courses, and trainings. I’ve acquired so much awareness of attachment and connection, vulnerability and boundaries, somatics and relationships. I’ve done countless hours of processing, analyzing, meaning-making. I’ve supported others through finding more nourishing relationships. I’ve practiced so much. And I have had seasons where letting people in was easier. It’s never all or nothing.

But letting people in — I mean really letting them in — is still so hard to fully embody. To feel safe doing. To trust. I do many things alone that would probably be so much easier with help. It’s no wonder I’m a writer. It’s no wonder I’m good at holding space for other people. I’ve grown and shifted so much, yet I long for more people in my life to share my full self with. And I grieve for past versions of me who didn’t yet know she was worthy of that.

My adult self has learned a whole lot, formed incredible relationships, and journeyed with a long-term partner in ways that have transformed how I feel about love and being loved. It’s not that I have zero nurturing relationships… I’m so grateful for the people in my life who love me so well. And even still… I’ve avoided new friendships out of fear of disappointing people when they find out I’m not an Instagram personality but a real, flawed person. I have a track record of hesitating to reach out to people I feel connected to, bailing on events, cancelling get-togethers last minute, and leaving texts or emails unread. I’ve let long-distance friendships fade because keeping up with them felt impossible — some of which I now realize is probably because of my ADHD diagnosis, but also ties into a deeply-sown root story I’ve carried my whole life. There’s still the underlying fear that people will just leave.

My birth mother leaving my newborn self behind a rock 35 years ago continues to weave itself into the way I relate to myself and the world. Even when I pretend it doesn’t. It continues to inform that root story I’ve spent a lifetime tethered to and unraveling from. Even when I wrote an entire book about unlearning the stories that keep us from knowing what’s true. Even still. It is all practice, after all.

It has always felt safer to be alone. It’s felt safer to keep people on the edges of me while craving being seen at the center. It’s felt safer to let relationships fade instead of doing the vulnerable thing and putting in the work. It’s felt safer to leave before being left, to isolate before being hurt, to give give give instead of needing. It’s felt safer to be in a position of holding space, where reciprocal relating isn’t required.

I think this is why I turned to writing so young. The page was always there. It wouldn’t leave if I said what was true, or if I didn’t show up the way I wanted to. It wouldn’t judge if I was awkward or quiet or shy. I couldn’t push it away and it couldn’t abandon me. I remember being a child and feeling a kinship with my notebooks, feeling like they somehow understood me, like there was room for all of me.

After giving birth to my daughter and confronting the deep isolation of postpartum this past year, I realized how many of my keep-to-myself tendencies are still present. Even the ones I assumed had been figured out by now. I realized how many friendships have faded — how long it had been since I cultivated new ones — how hard it was to reach out to anyone, even when I rationally knew how okay it was to need people — even when I was the loneliest I had ever been.

Seeing my daughter’s innate needs expressed without hesitation has given me a newfound permission to honor my own — to practice trusting my deservedness of being held in the same way she’s practicing trusting the world to hold her. And seeing her get all of her needs met with so much love and tenderness has given me newfound compassion for my younger self who was carrying so many wounds, who was so uncertain of her own belonging, who learned how to go at it alone to the detriment of learning how to really let people in.

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As I continue emerging out of the cocoon of this past year and a lifetime of “working on myself” from a place of needing to improve or get “better”, I feel more ready to intentionally practice creating relationships, asking for help, receiving, being seen in intimate ways, cultivating community, letting myself be loved. Not from a place of fixing or earning, but because I know it’s what I deserve. It’s scary. And it’s important.

It feels sort of childlike or silly to declare to myself and to my newsletter that I’m committed to practicing connection with more depth and intention — that ending the cycle of Going At It Alone feels imminent. I don’t usually write about big things until I’ve found my own way through them, which is what we’re taught when it comes to “vulnerability on the internet.” But I think there’s actually something potent about inviting people into our process sometimes — about not always waiting to be seen in what we struggle with until the struggle is over or resolved — about letting the “open wounds” be witnessed as much as the overcoming is. Maybe not with everything — but when it feels right.

I’m pretty done with the idea of not letting on that we still struggle with certain parts of being human — pretending we’re supposed to keep all our challenges or wounds behind closed doors, quiet and secret — assuming we should wait until we’re a more ideal version of ourselves before we share, or show up, or say the thing, or be witnessed. Especially as someone who others might assume has it all figured out. I’m done with the idea of hiding, hoping no one sees past the image, thinking I shouldn’t talk about my struggle with friendship and letting myself be loved and supported. Why wouldn’t I? Because I know I’m not the only one… writing publicly for the last five years has taught me that… and I know sharing in this way creates abundance and generosity in ways I can’t even see.

Many of us have done the deep inner work to understand our tender spots, to know ourselves more fully, to reckon with what’s happened to us in order to emerge in the present more whole. And for many of us, the work of integration, of stepping deeper into the living of our healing, of letting ourselves move beyond what’s been and into what we long for, is the work of a lifetime. And it lasts a lifetime. And there is no arrival or short cut or quick fix. Yet naming to ourselves what we’re committed to and choosing to honor our devotion to what we long for is a gift that will only deepen our knowing of ourselves, our compassion for ourselves, our ability to honor what is true — even when what is true isn’t always easy.

Confronting these tender spots can be extra challenging when we’re in a position of supposedly being wise, being someone others turn to, being someone who holds space, who shares publicly, who went to school to learn about relationships. It can feel extra tender to acknowledge the longings still here and to let them be okay — to not let them mean anything is actually wrong with me, but a sign of just how easy it is to shut ourselves off from intimacy, even when all we want is to stay on. I want to stay on.

If you find yourself wondering if you’re the only one without a big crew of deep friendships… you aren’t alone.
If you find yourself feeling a tinge of embarrassment about how hard it is to cultivate intentional relationships… you aren’t alone.
If you find yourself noticing how good you are at truly seeing people, yet letting yourself be intimately seen isn’t as natural… you aren’t alone.
If you find yourself lonely, you aren’t alone.
If you find yourself more comfortable with the perceived safety of aloneness than with the thought of undoing it, you aren’t alone.
If you find yourself on the edge of letting yourself be loved in new ways, of letting people in past the edges of you, closer to the center… you aren’t alone.

I don’t have answers or a conclusion… just an offering of an outreached hand, a reminder of lifelong practices not needing to be turned into achieved goals, and a mirror to your own longings, asking to be looked at — to be seen.

May we find the connection, community, nourishment, friendship, and love we so deeply deserve, in all the ways we long for.

△ The Nap Bishop Is Spreading the Good Word: Rest

△ There are no five stages of grief

△ This beautiful and short listen:

△ Joy Harjo on listening and writing with intention

△ This sweet moment with my girl, the trees and the breeze.

△ Considering doing The Artist’s Way again… have you ever done it?

△ The new Plains album

△ This super (souper) simple soup — we use white beans instead of potatoes

△ So few people make it to this question: What do I really want?

△ I’ll leave you with these questions:

How kind can we be to ourselves when we come up against the same wounds, the same patterns, the same fears, the same behaviors, the same (fill in the blank)… over and over? The ones that might revisit us again and again for a lifetime?

How loving can we be to ourselves when we haven’t yet gotten to the place we think we need to be in order to be loved — and when we remember we’ve never really left that place — that we were born there and have been since, even when we can’t see it?

How curious can we get about ourselves so the tender parts get tended to with care, so the scary thing gets moved toward with compassion, so the longing gets seen with clear eyes and a willingness to try again?

With care and a deep breath,
Lisa