Transformed by Death

Rachel Cargle shares, “Grief is an Identity Crisis.” Rachel recently lost her Mom and all her descriptions of the unraveling that follows resonates in my bones.

After Dad died, I was afraid that losing my Mom would break me. And in many ways, it has.
My heart hurt so bad just from grieving Dad, that I was convinced I was having a heart attack last year. After an echocardiogram and stress-test, showed a completely healthy heart, I realized how important Somatic therapy truly is. Emotional and physical pain loop together— one effects the other. Somatics is acknowledging this evolutionary connection.

Only after I learned that my heart was in fact strong enough to with-stand this, I surrendered even more to the pain of Mom’s transition.

I am unraveling, unfolding.

There are parts of me that are dying along with my parents.

I felt the Ancestors calling me inward deep into my pelvis for some honest root work within myself since last year. I kept hearing, “Who am I?” This work was intensified and amplified by witnessing the genocide of Palestinians. The questions deepened, “Who are we?” What a tremendous amount of grief. I didn’t know how to cope, how to continue to witness what I soon learned to be multiple on-going genocides (Congo, Sudan, in fact there are I believe 14 worldly genocides presently) while my system was so pressurized.… Alexis Pauline, Rachel Cargle, Aja Monet, Dr. Jennifer Mullan, Amanda Seals, Bell Hooks, Angela Davis, Kaitlin Curtice, Adrienne Maree Brown, Prentis Hemphill — all brilliantly fierce, grounded with humanity at the forefront, versed in turning pain into power— they all guide me as true Mother-figures. The Motherly guidance that I’ve needed, came from their words, songs, and poems. I encourage you to know all of their names and buy their books/music/poetry. It’s still unfathomable to me that in the months leading up to Mom’s death, “Cease fire” and “love you Mom” were the most important words from my lips.

Witnessing. Witnessing versus bystanding. My body and this inner calling to investigate who I am lead me to confronting my internalized “bystander.”

Dr. Resmaa Menakem, healer, author and founder of Somatic Abolitionism, talks about racialized trauma, “white bodies haven’t built this agility, acuity, or grit, when they encounter strong energy or stress around race, their racialized trauma can easily get activated… shift[ing] into fight, flee, freeze, fawn, or annihilate mode. Often this means becoming anxious, or angry, or defensive, or tearful. They may then try to blow their pain through other bodies—especially bodies of culture.”

Though Dr. Resmaa’s work is not new to me, I recognized bits of it in myself even more recently— the bystander. What have I stood by and just watched? How has whiteness privileged me even in the last couple months? It took me time to really reckon with the parts of me that were confronted by my own fragility in maintaining my activism while facing profound loss. It lead me to think of all the ways I have harmed myself as my own bystander. So often, I stood by while my parents harmed me and I tried to hide it— it was a family secret. Bell Hooks talks about this hiding of abuse in homes that present themselves as loving. But ya, my truth is that I survived my upbringing by primarily dissociating, freezing, shutting down, and fawning— all of which happens in the system of a bystander. Dissociation including perfectionism, over-thinking, obsessive learning, fragmentation or numbing parts of our bodies, fantasizing or living in stories. I grew up learning how to protect the fragility of my parents and my family— taking it in as my job.

It feels clear that the bystander in me is dying along side my Mom, or at least is trying to. It’s hard to forgive myself for the times I learned truths and still remained quiet. And I need to forgive myself for the times I allowed my body, mind, spirit to be harmed by my family. Now as I look up even more, and try to take in the whole world, I’m confronted with overwhelm, rage, and grief. If I am letting go of the bystander’s way of surviving, then I am choosing to use my voice to speak Truths. The truth is that I deeply loved my Mom, alll the way down into my bones, and more truth is that she wasn’t kind to me.

As a queer kid raised in a homophobic family, I was so busy trying to survive without losing myself. But now I feel some shifting— its time to let go of the homophobia that I took into my body. Its time to let go of the transphobia that I took into my body. Those tools of destruction were never mine to begin with.

I am choosing to stay here. As my Mom and I untethered from each other, I wasn’t sure I could stay here without her. After all, who am I if not my Mom’s emotional regulator? Who am I if not my Mom’s protector?

There is freedom in that space… I get to be my emotional regulator. I get to be my protector. I get to use my body and my voice to fight for the world that is worthy of my existence. I get to rest, and celebrate and find joy. Queer people deserve to live.

My parents were very misguided. And their ideologies were enabled by Christian Theology, “Conservative” News Media, and a certain Catholic cult that doesn’t need to be named. Their behavior was accepted by too many people in their lives— including me. They dehumanized me. They held White Fragility close to protect their racism, Islamophobia, Xenophobia, Homophobia, Transphobia… My parents weaponized their fear and their shame.

Mom and Dad at their church, a month before Dad died. 7/2/22

I refuse to continue this pattern. I must break the cycle.

Thank you to some of my close friends who have called me out on my harmful ignorance and rhetoric while I was waking up to Truths and reckoning with the closed system I was raised in. In my teens and 20s, I had a lot of unchecked White Fragility. Mixed with my Autism, I had big melt downs when encountering shame for harm I caused. I learned that only someone who really loves you will trust and believe that you can and will do better. I learned how to ride shame spirals, and how tolerating it was a gift; I would come out the other end more aligned with who I know myself to be. My somatic abolition work remains at the forefront of my somatic practice. Thank you to the Ancestors for believing in me— for believing I have a role in this call to protect our children. Thank you to the children of Palestine, Congo, Sudan, both living and ancestors, who call us to overcome our limitations in order to speak up and out for their right to freedom.

I hope for more relationships that allow for corrections— authentic feelings, cause and affects, and repair. I hope for a government that starts the necessary process of reparations for a horrendous history and on-going pattern of violence and domination and greed. I hope for more people to come together on a shared vision of changing this mythical hierarchy and choosing a path of equity and equality.

The bombs need to stop.
Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, Arab, Jewish, Disabled, Queer and Trans kids need to be protected.

I feel deeply committed to this vision. All my gifts must go to making this place a little more accountable, kind, courageous, compassionate… I feel late arriving to a deep mission that was here way before me and will be here when I die, but there is no time like the present. What can I do now? And I think it starts with me practicing speaking more Truth.

My grief is what is driving this transformation. My feelings and my heart break remind me of my humanity, my courage, my power, my resiliency and my capacity for growth.

Now I get to see what my life could be like if I actually loved myself because of my queerness, my non-binaryness, my neurodivergency. What would it look like if I knew I was worthy of protection? How might my relationships shift?

My practice is in the healing arts— and I really identify it as my art. I’m adding more color and creativity. More truth. More authenticity. More Grace.

It all starts by breaking what I thought I knew, and uncovering my Truths. This takes time and I’m so so in it.

I can’t wait to celebrate the transformation, but for now, I grieve and I shatter so that I can be remade into who I was always meant to be.

I love you Grace. You are so incredibly worthy of this transformation. I believe in you and I’m sorry for all the pain you’ve endured on your journey home.