Breaking Free and Shedding a Skin – Part 1

Do you ever get that feeling? You want to break free, move-on but you feel trapped, you don’t know how to make the break, what to do.  Four years ago, I was in that place.

In November 2014, I wrote:  I wake today and the voices come from all directions in disarray.  I should have, why didn’t I, he’s so much better,  I feel cramped,  I feel trapped,  I’m not trapped,  I’m fortunate, lucky.  I’m stressed but I can’t be stressed,  I’m tired but I have no right to be,  I’m a failure but I was given all the chances. 

In December 2014 I wrote this poem:

 

ON SHEDDING YOUR SKIN

I was down and low.

My life an untidy room with

No Door.

But inside I’m growing

Like Alice.

The room is getting too small.

Way too small.

It has become an old skin

That has to go.

I shake my head and start to scratch.

[https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-snakes-shed-their-skin]

 

I didn’t know how my life was going to change or how I would shed this skin but it dawned on me that I had shed skins before. That last one with all the intricate interplay of lines – the choppy, changing patterns of young motherhood,  a stressed partner with his hair cropped short, religious certainties, Duplo bricks, primary school, children’s boots.  The smell of my daughter’s breath in her first bed.

My skin.

And now this one. By the end of 2014, my last child had turned 18, my partner had a beard and long hair and was sorting his stress through mindfulness. I’d been creating drama, organising alternative evening services in church, working with kids, chasing teenagers, worrying late at night, chafing at the theology of church, angsting at my age and lack of income.

Youtube videos tell me that to help a snake get started, give it a nice long bath or some E45 to soften the skin.

My preparation had been to practice mindfulness for the previous 3 years.  I’d started it because I wanted to ‘fall awake’ to my life (Jon Kabat-Zinn).  The thing about ‘falling awake’ is that you wake up both to the good and the bad.  Fortunately the non-judgement and compassion of mindfulness softened me enough to allow me to look at what was going on.  But where to start?

With snakes the shedding has to begin with the head.  They push their heads against any hard-scratchy surface to get some leverage, some motion.

I chose some sessions with a psychotherapist.

Snakes can get vulnerable and aggressive during the process.

Yup.

 

I’d been brought up in an ex-pat patriarchal setting.  There were 2 cardinal rules for a woman:

• Other people come first and
• Never openly confront or upset people even if they’re screwing you over – its rude.

Becoming a Christian and a vicar’s wife re-enforced these. Jesus said ‘love others as you love yourself’ but the second part of the sentence always got guillotined.

As I became more aware of this, the irritation grew and the skin felt tighter.  And tighter.

For several years I’d been angry with the Church’s attitude to women but now I also woke up to the realisation that all talk about God was male.  And I’d bought into this for over 30 years.

The shed had begun and it began in my head.

I was waking up.