Practicing Pause in September 🌾
September meaningful musings, experiences, highs + lows and photos
QUOTES FROM MY DIARY IN SEPTEMBER
“But I so deeply need and want to share and express my specific experiences - I’ve felt it in my bones for so long, but the blockers and the logistics and the how to have always gotten in my way. I want to reclaim my identity, my reality and my sense of self. I want more connection and less isolation. And I think about the little girls out there who grew up and have felt like a nobody as much as I have and I want to do it for them, for us, as a love letter of validation, a warm hug of a “you make sense” and a tender but firm look in the eyes of “I see you and you are somebody special.”
“Where does my mind go to in solitude and stillness?”
“when things come my way that aren’t for my highest good, I push them to the side and don’t let them in and reflect back to the source with love”
Setback I experience: rushing, forcing, trying to push my way through life
Bounce back when that happens: pause, do breath/movement reset and remind myself I get to do this for fun and for me
Setback I experience: slip into believing others/looking to others over myself
Bounce back when that happens: pause, re-enter and remind myself that my way is the right way for me”
I have to be honest, September was emotionally very challenging for me. I have been experiencing the most anxiety, sadness, exhaustion and numbness that I have in a long time. For reasons I’m not ready to share fully yet, or maybe will never share, and it’s made life feel really hard in all the ways. So if you were going through it this month in anyway, know that you are not alone and I fully empathize with you. It’s been a doozy.
For me, it’s been a continuation from last month of more and more of my patterns, and my deepest fears confronting me. Mixed with more and more layers of the onion being shed; getting stripped away for more of my core, where the most vulnerable parts, and the most ugly beliefs about myself, can be exposed. A crumbling of sorts. A gentle forcing to surrender (which my favorite definition of that word is to move into something higher).
Can I blame the moon? I always want to blame the moon 😅
It’s always a shock to the system to experience the duality of life so clearly when you are going through things yet life keeps moving and you still have to show up in different aspects. And for this exact reason is one of the reasons why embodiment practices are so useful while you’re going through, or healing from, hard things. I’ve been majorly relying on my embodiment practices to keep me in my body, when so many situations could be a valid reason to leave my body and dissosciate just to get through.
Vulnerable share: I got so sucked into my pain and sadness this month that just a few days ago I had to have a really honest moment with myself where I said, “Gabrielle, your pain and emotions and experiences are valid AND there are horrible things going on in the world that you’ve never had to go through, let’s put it in perspective and find a moment of gratitude for that and let’s pull yourself out of your own shit for a second and tap into your compassion and empathy for others.” It got dark for a second. We’re all human, it happens, and it can also be damaging to be so focused on yourself without a balance of also thinking about the larger world around you. (I used to be only focused on others and didn’t pay attention to myself at all…then I swung to focusing a lot on myself for a time, which was necessary for my growth and healing…these days I do feel it’s so important for me to fine that fine line/middle ground with this.)
In the midst of all of that, September did hold some mention worthy moments that I want to share!
I spent 10 days in Nashville, TN practicing another solo adventure. If you saw my post from last month (check it out here) I talked a lot about my search for understanding autonomy and really learning how to practice that in my life. It’s been such a foreign concept in my life. For me, traveling solo is helping me center myself in my own energy and really get the full taste of how to BE in that, when my natural inclination is to leave myself and be in other’s energy. This trip was a mix of solo slow down + fun friend time! I did things I’d never done before like go out dancing on Broadway, went to a jazz club and did some salsa dancing!, and then went to a writing + embodiment workshop led by Jedediah Jenkins and Ruthie Lindsay (which I’m going to do a whole post on this soon!) It was full, it wore me out a bit, but I’m so proud of myself for challenging myself in this way. I have spent a lot of the last 5 years more cocooned and at home, which has been so necessary, and it’s really healing to see how my capacity has grown to be able to take on these experiences.
I played in my first pickleball tournament and it was a real LOL kind of situation…my friend and I accidentally signed up for a professional tournament that was only men…yes, we were the only females in our entire tournament! We definitely didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into and we just had to laugh our way through the absurdity of it. I am proud of us for showing up and being brave enough to try something new…but ya…we were definitely the William Hung’s of the tournament (infamous for how bad we did HA). And with both of us being former high level athletes, I’m proud of us that we were able to not lose our shit and laugh!
A MEANINGFUL REVELATION FROM SEPTEMBER:
I reallllly leaned into my humanity this month, oh how my soul was craving it. Over the last couple of months I have been repulsed by the “I’m an expert, I know the way, here’s your 5 step formula to achieve “x”, DO MORE” kind of posture people take on IG. I’m so burnt out from it all.
And I am guilty of it. I am guilty of coming off as the expert who has it all together, then the human who is also healing. For many reasons like, “who will want to work with someone who doesn’t have it all together?” and “no one wants to be friends with the girl who’s always sad” and when you run a business on IG you are taught over and over again to show up as the expert and authority. Which I am, but in the field of healing and emotional wellbeing, we are all humans first.
There are sooo many days where I am laying on the couch, not doing a ton of movement, my energy is tanked and I am not doing productive things. And it’s felt so shameful to share those things for me. I wish it weren’t true, but my shame in what I have believed about myself has stopped me from sharing those parts of me and has maybe left a false image of me seeming like I have it all together. And I hate that the most.
Because I don’t have it all together. I am a human with coping mechanisms like watching tv or getting lost scrolling my phone and I do those things.
It doesn’t feel in alignment to continue showing only the “good, healthy” things I do for myself without showing the human side of things as well. I need to start, and will start, expressing from this place more for my own sanity and wholeness.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk - IYKYK. I read this one very slowly, it’s DENSE, and there’s so many amazing nuggets that offer incredible validation and understanding for trauma survivors. Highly recommend to gain a deeper understanding of what’s going on in your body when it comes to trauma.
The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center - I gave this one 5 stars on GoodReads…I loved it! I tend to be burnt out a little bit on reading when September rolls around, so I usually tend to go for lighter, fun stories and this one definitely fit the bill and was such a fun, easy read.
I really leaned in this month to the summer to fall transition wardrobe and did a little refresh! Being in Texas, it’s still so hot, that I wanted to find pieces that were still summer-ish with a fall flare. These sweater tanks are my favorite things!
I updated my LTK and you can find links to all my fall staple pieces here!
DIARY OF A RECOVERING NOBODY™️ IS 28 DAYS OLD AND SO FAR…
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HOLY COW! Thank you, thank you, thank you 🥹🥹 I am blown away and humbled and teary eyed thinking anyone wants to take the time to read anything I’ve written. One thing about me is that when I have an idea, I usually sit and ponder it for months before I do anything about it. This idea for DOARN downloaded into my head on August 30th and I launched on September 3rd. It all flowed out of me so easily and naturally. It is my deepest desire to share and express more of me, the real stuff, my life and my learnings and so I’m so grateful for this safe space and for the people who are here reading what I’m writing. This space is for me, and for us, the ones who’ve felt like nobodies but want to reclaim our truth, our realities and the fact that we all have powerful stories to tell.
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