XYZ Holistic Therapy / Tina Merced LCSW

07/20/2024

This is what grief is.
A hole ripped through the very fabric of your being.
The hole eventually heals along the jagged edges that remain. It may even shrink in size.
But that hole will always be there.
A piece of you always missing.
For where there is deep grief, there was great love.
Don’t be ashamed of your grief.
Don’t judge it.
Don’t suppress it.
Don’t rush it.
Rather, acknowledge it.
Lean into it.
Listen to it.
Feel it.
Sit with it.
Sit with the pain. And remember the love.
This is where the healing will begin.

07/20/2024

A grown man looms behind my three-year-old daughter. Occasionally he will poke or tickle her and she responds by shrinking. Smaller and smaller with each unwanted advance. I imagine her trying to become slight enough to slip out of her booster seat and slide under the table.

When my mother views this scene, she sees playful taunting. A grandfather engaging with his granddaughter.

“Mae.” My tone cuts through the din of a familiar family gathering together. She does not look at me.

“Mae.” I start again. “You can tell him no Mae. If this isn’t okay you could say something like, Papa, please back up—I would like some space for my body.”

As I say the words, my step-father, the bulldog, leans in a little closer, hovering just above her head. His tenebrous grin taunts me as my daughter accordions her 30-pound frame hoping to escape his tickles and hot breath.

I repeat myself with a little more force. She finally peeks up at me.

“Mama . . . can you say it?”

Surprise. A three-year-old-girl doesn’t feel comfortable defending herself against a grown man. A man that has stated he loves and cares for her over and over again, and yet, stands here showing zero concern for her wishes about her own body. I ready myself for battle.

“Papa! Please back up! Mae would like some space for her body.”

My voice is firm but cheerful. He does not move.

“Papa. I should not have to ask you twice. Please back up. Mae is uncomfortable.”

“Oh, relax,” he says, ruffling her wispy blonde hair.
The patriarchy stands, patronizing me in my own damn kitchen. “We’re just playin’.” His southern drawl does not charm me.

“No. You were playing. She was not. She’s made it clear that she would like some space, now please back up.”

“I can play how I want with her.” He says, straightening his posture.

My chest tightens. The sun-bleached hairs on my arms stand at attention as this man, who has been my father figure for more than three decades, enters the battle ring.

“No. No, you cannot play however you want with her. It’s not okay to ‘have fun’ with someone who does not want to play.”

He opens his mouth to respond but my rage is palpable through my measured response. I wonder if my daughter can feel it. I hope she can.

He retreats to the living room and my daughter stares up at me. Her eyes, a starburst of blue and hazel, shine with admiration for her mama. The dragon has been slayed (for now). My own mother is silent. She refuses to make eye contact with me.

This is the same woman who shut me down when I told her about a sexual assault I had recently come to acknowledge.

This is the same woman who was abducted by a carful of strangers as she walked home one night. She fought and screamed until they kicked her out. Speeding away, they ran over her ankle and left her with a lifetime of physical and emotional pain.

This is the same woman who said nothing, who could say nothing as her boss and his friends sexually harassed her for years.

This is the same woman who married one of those friends.

When my mother views this scene, she sees her daughter overreacting. She sees me ‘making a big deal out of nothing.’ Her concerns lie more in maintaining the status quo and cradling my step-dad’s toxic ego than in protecting the shrinking three-year-old in front of her.

When I view this scene, I am both bolstered and dismayed. My own strength and refusal to keep quiet is the result of hundreds, probably thousands of years of women being mistreated, and their protests ignored. It is the result of watching my own mother suffer quietly at the hands of too many men. It is the result of my own mistreatment and my solemn vow to be part of ending this cycle.

It would be so easy to see a little girl being taught that her wishes don’t matter. That her body is not her own. That even people she loves will mistreat and ignore her. And that all of this is “okay” in the name of other people, men, having fun.

But. What I see instead is a little girl watching her mama. I see a little girl learning that her voice matters. That her wishes matter. I see a little girl learning that she is allowed and expected to say no. I see her learning that this is not okay.

I hope my mom is learning something, too.

Fighting the patriarchy one grandpa at a time.

By Lisa Norgren
Photo: TheGuardian

03/09/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/nKNkTLboTjsUtPKY/?mibextid=xfxF2i

Free Conference - Mindful Parenting and Emotional Wellness - November 10-14

11/04/2023

Marriage had been one of the greatest gifts in my life. It’s been a space for me to grow and evolve. A mirror to help me face many aspects of myself. It’s taught me things and changed who I am as a person. And it’s a big reason I’m doing this work and creating the access that I am.

Marriage also isn’t easy. It takes many emotional skills. It takes regulation and maturity. And follow through. It’s confronting and sometimes disappointing. Like all things, it takes intentional effort to keep the connection, humor, grace and an ability to know when to give and when to receive.

The older I get, the more I become conscious of the reality that so many marriages “fail” because so many people don’t know what marriage actually is. What to expect. And how to allow it to grow. They believe it’s a feeling. And when those feelings fade or change— they’re ready to run. They’re ready to replace them with something (or someone) else. Only to find themselves feeling the same way a few years later.

The more I work with honest vulnerable adults, the more I see the default to having children as a core issue in society. So many people raised by parents with unresolved trauma, lack of awareness, and few regulation skills (who are children internally themselves) are raising children. They’re having them to fulfill a missing part of themselves, to save a marriage, to have w “mini me” or to be loved in the way they wished they were loved growing up. The intention is not to be the open space to allow a child to become who they truly are— it’s an unconscious desire for that child to be something. To fulfill their parent’s unmet needs.

Our culture defaults to marriage and children. In a world where many people simply don’t have the skills, the awareness or even the true internal drive to have those things. They don’t know who they are. They just make autopilot choices, & lives are deeply hurt in the process.

May we wake up and make conscious choices. May we know who we are and what we actually want. May we know the gravity and responsibility of the choices we make. May we speak honestly about what those choices demand from us. May we mature to have realistic expectations

11/04/2023

“Once you stop clinging and let things be, you’ll be free. You’ll transform everything… And you’ll be at peace wherever you are.” ~Bodhidharma

Flow with life more. Connect with Nature's wisdom. Try to accept people unconditionally. Let love guide you. Be Grateful. Be kind. Trust the Universe... ((🙏))💕

09/04/2023

Via The Everymom ❤️

12/02/2022

𝗘𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲.

That is why, when you are able to triumph over your own weaknesses, you take this inner family along with you on the path of light and freedom.

Not only do you help all your ancestors, you also help your descendants, for you pass on to them the inner treasures you have acquired.

This is another aspect of the inner life it is good to know about.

Working on yourself is all the more important since, in doing so, you improve entire generations: you pass on the fruits of your efforts to them.

No one lives or acts solely for themselves; each person lives and acts for a great number of others, for whom they have great responsibility.

~ Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

art | Гайдамака https://www.amazingukraine.pro/pryvitannia-ta-lystivky/pryvitannya-z-dnem-angela-sergiya-znachennya-imeni-virshi-ta-kartynky/
#Гайдамака

12/02/2022

Affirmation for recovering people pleasers: It is a loving act to allow people to face the consequences of their actions. I am safe to allow people to make choices without fixing or rescuing. I am my own responsibility and I am taking care of me

10/18/2022

Via LR Knost ❤️

10/18/2022

09/08/2022

~Permission.

You have permission to inhabit your own life.
To say no
To say yes.
To inhabit your own knowing
Your own body,
And all you allow or do not allow
within it.

To love who you love.
To feel.
To inhabit anger,
contentment,
joy. And heavy sorrow.
To be full of strength,
and to know weakness.

Permission to stand for something. Or to walk away.
To find rest. To tell your story.
To give or take what is yours,
And to never explain why you leave --
Or why you stay.

You have permission, grand permission,
to have a voice. And to use it.
And to let others have theirs too.
To add your voice to the Grand Mosaic,
Your brilliant tile to humanity,
and not be silenced.

You have permission to tell the truth
and to let others tell theirs. Or to be in quiet.
To choose to engage in the old wars
To win the game. To lose it,
or to stand firm.
--Or to find something higher.

To know. --When to listen,
Or when to be cracked open.
To let the silver spores of being infuse your life
Or to watch your tender soul unfurl,
and come to flower.

You have permission to be Wild. So wild
To live in, under, to live *through*.
To experience belief. And what it is to follow.
To Lead,
Or to gather all you own, your whole being, if need be,
and take up your sacred path.

You have permission to live in your full truth today,
Even if it that truth is gone, tomorrow.
To be reborn.
Stunned like a babe, gasping from the womb,
only to find rest in the warmth and soft breast
of new Knowing.

You have permission to follow the call of your soul --
Even if it doesn't make sense.
Even if it is inconvenient.
Even if it only forms more questions --
Even if it only brings you freedom,
Or a heavy burden.

For you are not a herd beast.
*You are a Being of Light*
Individuating your way out of the sleeping tribe.
You are an archangel, exalted to human,
Spreading the great arms of your wings
into Life.

You are a Boat Builder,
A Clock Maker,
A Worker at the Compass.
Full of beauty. Complexity,
and magnificent contradiction.

You, my dear, are a Singer of the Soul.

Never,
Ever,
ask for permission.

~ Rachel Alana (R.A Falconer) Midwives of the Soul

art | Tamara Phillips