“I noted that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.”
Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark
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Sweet child described what it felt like to sit inside of the seizure. Like being on the inside of a tornado, he said. There was shaking and not being able to use his words like he typically could. Knowing what he wants to say, but like what happens in dreams, or perhaps a nightmare - when you go to talk, yell or scream - no sound protrudes. He told of the inner workings of a seizure with such eloquence and particularity. And then asked, “why? I don’t understand why God would let this happen to me?”
We couldn’t only tell him God’s plans are bigger than our plans, and the other words of comfort that were once my go-to. His eyes couldn’t hold that, or at least I didn’t want them to. I imagined him, so shaken by the very out of control moments he had experienced time and again, that it was a real possibility that if we chose those words, he could hate God. He could see Him to be a tyrant. Paint Him as the creator of the tornado that he was thrown into. And that was not the God I had come to know. The God that I had felt face to face in the peace within myself centered on Gods presence.
I could feel the transformative opportunity of the moment. The peace found from all of my internal wrestling gathered in my heart center, as if I had been prepared for this moment, and words that bubbled over were, “I am not certain of God’s plans, and do not always know why things happen the way they do. But I know this. I know that Jesus went through this. Jesus went through pain on the cross. Jesus even felt abandoned by God. Jesus died on the cross, and then came back to life. With a story to share with others. With hope. And with resurrected life. Jesus promises to be with us in our inevitable challenges and pains in life.
God will be with us, and is with us in it.”
This is where we would begin. From a place of compassion and proximity. From here we would build upon trust, faith and the complexities and mysteries of life.
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A large number of parents with children with epilepsy display symptoms of PTSD.
Now I am not a doctor, but this label felt at home in me for a little while. Like the number of times when I bolted out of the bathroom mid shower because odd sounds told my ears - that told my brain - that sounds of seizures were happening in the living room. This label, and the commonality shared amongst parents in similar circumstances, put me at ease and helped me understand my emotions.
I let myself go into those feelings for a time. Like the way I went into anxiety and depression for a season. I went into them as a caterpillar does a chrysalis. They kept me safe while I worked through my transformation.
After a caterpillar has wandered for a while, it finds a spot to settle on the underside of a branch. Then, it sheds its caterpillar skin for the last time revealing the chrysalis. The chrysalis functions as a hard outer shell protecting the transformation on the inside.1 My body so ingeniously knew to make a hard outer shell out of parts of myself that would not be of service to me going forward. It used the anxious, the fearful, the heavy - to create space to process the inner workings of who I truly am and what I am created to be. They helped to protect me while I transformed. They gave me permission to rest and focus on healing. It gave me space from other people’s judgments, or perhaps rather maybe it was the judgment from myself. It gave me space and time to sort through my emotions and free myself from unnecessary demands to do the necessary growing to transform.
Everyone has a unique mental health journey and this is simply the best way I can think to articulate my own.
We often hear about the caterpillar to butterfly transformation as a metaphor for growth and change. My favorite part about that metamorphosis is that when the caterpillar reveals its chrysalis, the hard outer shell, it turns to goo on the inside. Like complete messy, almost unrecognizable from its previous form, goo. She then mindblowingly digests most of its former self.
Certain times of life ask us to grow outside of ourselves. To move beyond the space we used to contain, into a freer version that takes up more space. To use what we were given with the first half of our life in order to grow into something new. To get so messy, and often broken open, that the only next best step is to become a new creation made out of the messy goo of the former. I found my heavy, anxious, depressed and hard outer shell to be completely necessary to make space and safety for my own transformation. I needed my chrysalis, and death of my former self, in order to focus on my new true one. Without my hard outer shell, my messy goo would have felt too close to the surface. It would have been like walking around with an open wound, making chance for infection and pain more plausible.
My chrysalis gave birth to a butterfly in a simple moment with my child sitting on a couch in front of me. Child was simply sitting, watching a Netflix show, as I sat at our dining table just behind. I was casually snacking, and I caught myself in a state of terror. My mind was racing with fear, noticing every jerk, every movement and sound. Searching for signs of irregularity. Not yet panic, but utterly terrified.
My body was completely tensed. Tilting my head slightly around my child, just enough so I could not be caught spying.
I was petrified. I was terrified. By the grace of Creator, the juxtaposition of reality was clear to me. I was terrified when all was well. The reality in my mind starkly contrasted to the reality we were living and breathing.
A conversation with a powerful woman in our church community flashed in my mind. It took place on Easter Sunday. It was not long after my child had had two seizures in the same day, one of them ran so seamlessly into the postictal state, that I had trouble identifying the end of the seizure. My baby was then unresponsive for so long, that by the time he was, my body forgot to recalibrate appropriately. Anyways, I casually knew said powerful woman. From afar, my admiration for her always set her aglow in my presence. Her strength, palpable. As well as her positive vibes. I was the children's ministry leader at that time. A brief ‘Happy Easter!’ led to my ugly crying. Her open heart ignited a feeling of calm love in me. Her words, ‘Mama, you just need to go home and hug your baby for a long time and know he is okay. While you are hugging him, see and know that he is okay.”
I darted out of church. And because my church values human limits, it was encouraged to do so when needed. My mind so focused on holding my child, that within moments, home had become my new surrounding. His presence filled my arms and warmed my core and heart center. Holding him in, holding his okay. His okay sunk deep into me, and helped me find mine. The truth of the moment seeped into my being. I repeated the words until it was confirmed with my mind, spirit, soul and body that okay was our reality. All dimensions of me were on the same plane. Both he and I were okay, and we had made it through.
That teaching jumped into the moment of spying on my child. Kate, you just need to know you are okay. Standing behind sweet child, this teaching reminded me to let the terror simply dissipate, and my spirit listened to the beckon to give thanks. And, like a vortex, gratitude brought me into the present moment.
It was a true rebirth for me. That simple ordinary moment on an afternoon with nothing going on became sacred through a teaching from a strong woman and the practice of gratitude. The energy went from being sheathed with fear, to bathed in gratitude, and was transformed into a sacred seed of transcendence. That small moment transcended the workings of my mind. This moment of gratitude for the present invited me into pure awe. Like the old adage, the mind is an excellent servant, but a terrible master. This moment of awe let my mind out of its leading role and into the role of service. Inviting her to take her hands off the wheel, long enough to live, and to truly breathe. The mountains come to mind, or beauty so great and so big that we are left with nothing to do but stand in awe. This moment allowed me to step outside of my mind, almost fully, if I can describe it that way, and enabled me to see reality as a bigger picture. The dance from gratitude to awe to presence felt like transcendence. That seed of transcendence has since grown as it’s watered and tended to with more routine gratitude, mindfulness and awe. Of course, anxiety, fear and bouts of depressiveness knock, but this moment provided enough separation so that when they begin to flood my senses, they are recognized as messengers. Messengers pointing me towards the invitation to check in with my mind and body. Then the recognition of the little messengers becomes awareness, and mercifully dances its way back to mindful presence. In that presence, there is God with us, heaven on earth.
Gratitude is of course not the prescription for mental health, but it was the choice that ushered in the years of work and wellness. It helped make sense of the complete goo and years of wrestling. The awe welcomed in the moment by moment wiggling into my true self. The digestion of healing theology, the therapy and the slow changes over time, were invited to come to birth in this ordinary present moment.
After the shedding of our outer shell, we are a new creation. Transformed into an entirely new being. She is now a mesmerizing, captivating butterfly. Flying through the air as Creator had always intended. Her former self, inched across the ground. It was sturdy and safe as it moved. Now she is much more vulnerable than its previous form as it flutters through the air, but also, she can fly.
When we feel like we are breaking, may we look for the breaking open, and what is being revealed. When we feel like complete goo, like a messy unrecognizable version of our former selves, may we live in faith and hope of metamorphosis. What parts of you are an unrecognizable version of your former self wiggling with potential and purpose? What parts of you are in gooey mess and how do you envision God revealing your new creation? What parts of you are longing to take flight?
God does not prescribe suffering. Maybe it can get confusing as to the origin of pain and illness, because mercy is so gracefully intertwined. Again, I am not certain of God’s plans or sure of the purpose of pain, but I have faith that most often from pain, purpose can be revealed. I believe that our Creator is thoroughly compassionate and always working to reveal our truest self and most profound purpose.
We are most impactful in the present. In the gift of the moment. May your true nature reveal itself, and the vulnerability of your messy gooey goodness help to rebuild you into the woman in you that longs to take flight.
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Inspiration
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” John Milton
“We are broken open or willfully shed.” Mark Nepo, 7000 Ways to Listen.
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
“‘Those who try to make their life secure will lose it,’ Jesus said, ‘but those who lose their life will keep it.’ Later he reminded his friends that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it will remain a single grain- but if it dies, it will bear much fruit…Death is the door to new life. No one rises again without first being destroyed.” Barbara Brown Taylor, Holy Envy.
“She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom” Nathaniel Hawthorne
“This is part of the mystery, that the humane, the humanity, human bodies, are where we experience transcendence and God, restoration, the inclination to serve those who are suffering. We reach out as we were reached out to…Even a moment’s transcendence changes us. Everything is different afterward because we deep-dove, we’re there in downward, inward higher places. So we know now. We remember.” Anne Lamott, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy.
“It doesn’t have to be
The blue iris, it could be
Weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
Small stones; just
Pay attention, then patch
A few words together and don’t try
To make them elaborate, this isn’t
A contest but the doorway
Into thanks, and a silence in which
Another voice may speak.”
Mary Oliver, Praying.
a small note on this piece: The content here is all true, but some details were changed in an attempt to protect the privacy of my children. We are grateful to be raising three happy, healthy and intelligent children. As mothers, our stories intertwine in many ways with our children. I did my best to share my perspective and let their story be their own.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/