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August 22, 1996 is kind of a  big deal for me - that date marks the near-fatal culmination of an unhealthy teen relationship.

I've written about it a bunch, in personal essays, fiction, poetry. I shared it with however-many of the 300,000 readers of the Greensboro News & Record who turned to the opinion pages when I carried a regular column there, and made a submission to the My Turn column in Newsweek. I didn't hear back from them but I did like that piece.

This year, I debated whether to say anything about it or just let it go on by.

Part of the internal argument to let it go this year was about just being that far into the healing process. Certainly, there's plenty of room yet to go, but it's more like picking the dog hair out of the car's upholstery after a scary, but successful, emergency run to the vet. The remaining lessons are noticeable and sometimes even painful, but mild compared to what came in the first years after, when it wasn't even healing, really, but just coping.

At some point, though, I realized there was also an old gremlin message at play, too, one that said it was somehow bad to keep sharing my story. Part of the message said that it's because it makes people uncomfortable to hear; part said it's because it's a relatively minor trauma in a world where, well, where people go through things like happened during the childhood of the fella who was the antagonist in my story of trauma. Part of the message said it's shameful to have gone through such a relationship and attack in the first place.

One of the cool things about learning to really hear our gremlin voices is that once we get a fix on their messages, we can think them through and feel them out, to figure out what they're actually saying and decide what to keep and what to 86. Each of those messages about my story is some form of should, as if there's one right way to live, one right way to heal, one right way to grieve.

Last week, I looked up a quote that's been churning around the back of my mind since I stumbled across it after my grandma's passing last year:

Grief is subversive, undermining the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviors of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life-force. It is riddled with energy, an acknowledgment of the erotic coupling with another soul, whether human, animal, plant or ecosystem. It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still. We move in jangled, unsettled and riotous ways when grief takes hold of us. It is truly an emotion that rises from soul.

-Francis Weller, Entering the Healing Ground

As a culture, we have a terribly limited tolerance for grief, giving the most leeway in the event of the loss of a loved one, though even there we find an unspoken time limit, adjusted based on the age of the person lost and the bereaved's relationship to that person. The causes for grieving, though, are expansive and appear throughout our lives, regardless of our challenges and opportunities.

Part of my process of healing has been grieving the loss of trust that I experienced during that time, and my sense of safety, and that unique feeling of immortality that those of us who were raised in safe homes take for granted until it's, jarringly, gone.

Grief also comes from sources less likely to make their way into the plots of Hallmark Specials. Grief can come from recognizing that we've drifted from our spouse or best friend, or from rain and a defective air mattress dulling the shine on a long-awaited vacation.

Hell, grief can even in the midst of joy. Here, parenting comes immediately to mind, like the loss of independence and increased financial responsibility that parallels the joy of becoming a parent, or the bittersweetness of helping a child move into her first dorm or apartment.

Grief, like all feelings, just is. It isn't good or bad, right or wrong. It just is. And we can either be the rigidly-built beach house that's eaten bit-by-bit by hurricane floods, or we can be the one in which a piece of the house is allowed to crumble so that it can become a conduit for the waters that might otherwise more deeply damage the whole.

That's an oversimplification by a long shot, of course, but it's a pretty image, isn't it?

So, I didn't exactly talk story on this anniversary, but not because my gremlin voices poked at me with sticks sharpened by the sometimes thoughtless, sometimes fear-based input people have given me over the years. Instead, it's because the healing and learning that mark our greatest lessons often take us in a spiral where we revisit the lesson from different angles and a greater distance as we develop more tools and greater understanding. From where I am in that spiraling path right now, I don't need to be knee deep in the memories of August 22, 1996, but rather swimming around its wake.

As I move through this 21st season of introspection, growth, and healing, I wish for myself, for you, and for that one person with whom I shared that terrible August morning latitude for ourselves and our feelings. I wish for all of us that we're able to loosen our grip on the idea that grieving is selfish or detracts from our gratitude or even that it's virtuous, and that we instead are able to hold onto the idea that it is simply necessary, a part of these complex lives of ours.

You've got a ton to put into the world.
I've got some rad tools to help you make it happen.

And I've got a free sample coaching session so you can find out what they are. Email me to get it scheduled.

Whampus was a name that came to me in an instant as I was reading The Artist's Way at Work. The activity at hand was to notice the various voices originating in my grey matter, parse them out, and give them proper names.

Whampus was the biggest and baddest of my gremlin voices. He's the one who tells me I'm not enough, that I'm a fraud and everyone is going to figure it out, that I might as well not even try.

Naming him and a handful of other problematic voices has been so helpful in giving me a little space from them that making that suggestion to others has become a habitual part of my life. Rarely do I work with a client, give a talk, or counsel a friend without making this very suggestion.

I say to them: That voice ain't you, baby. It's not logic, it's not wisdom - it's an animated collection of all of the naysayers you've interacted with over the years, all of the ways you've felt outside of the "norm," all of the failures and disappointments and hurts you've experienced.

It's fear under a magnifying glass.

I say: If your gremlin voice feared malaria and then saw a mosquito on the wall, it wouldn't swat it with a rolled magazine - it would blast it with a cannon and take down the wall, too.

There - that last bit. That's the bit that hit me last weekend after years of using that example. Maybe you're already on it - maybe you already see what I was missing all this time.

Malaria is worth fearing.

Maybe not here in Southwest Virginia, but if I was in sub-Saharan Africa, then I would be a fool to ignore Whampus's fear. No need to hike the rainforest hauling pirate battle gear, though. Instead, I can pull the message from behind the magnifying glass, sift through the hype, and find the kernel of useful information. I can wear bug spray and use a mosquito net.

I can use his warnings that I'm a fraud to double-check that I'm being as authentic and straight-up as I can be. I can use his junk about not being enough, that trying isn't even worthwhile, to check my motivation and reconnect with that part of me that knows that he's wrong, that I have a lot to give and that the effort is good for me and good for the people I have a chance to affect.

I saw Whampus once during a Focusing session (a partnered meditation technique that rocks my socks). Far from the fanged, club-carrying monster I expected, he looked like a nervous, shaggy, blue muppet. I knew in that moment that he wasn't malicious; he was scared. For me. And that he believed that the way to protect me was to scare me, too. Maybe, he seemed to think, if he frightened me enough I would hide and, in that way, be protected from hurt and danger.

I had been reprimanding him when what he really needed was a hug.

To those of you who have heard me ramble on about gremlin voices, my apologies for having only a piece of the picture to share with you. I hope you'll now join me in seeing their messages as a call for a little treasure hunt for the golden nuggets hidden in the rubbish, and in offering that part of ourselves some gentle compassion instead of berating.

I hope you'll join me in the discovery that there is no part of our ever-complex beings that are undeserving of love.

You've got a ton to put into the world.
I've got some rad tools to help you make it happen.

And I've got a free sample coaching session so you can find out what they are. Email me to get it scheduled.

When I was an uncomfortable, awkward teenager, I used to wish that I could sort of konk out until all the big unknowns of my life were known: what I would be doing, with whom I would be spending my time, who I would be...

At the time, I imagined it would all be shored up by the time I was 40. Yeah.

Wednesday is my 39th birthday, kicking off my 40th trip around the sun. I guess I don't have to tell you that though there's all sorts of great stuff going on in my life these days, my teenage self would have been mighty disappointed to wake up in this person who has few (if any) solid answers and an ever-increasing pile of questions.

What my teenage self couldn't have anticipated, though, was the comfort I would come to find in uncertainty, even an excitement, a sense of possibility. My teenage self couldn't have wrapped her head around the idea that what is compelling about this life, for me at least, is the process of exploring, discovering, learning; that certainty is no longer a comfort for me but a red flat suggesting that I've gotten too narrow in my perspective of what is and could be.

When my paternal grandmother passed back in 2002, she wasn't ready to go. At the time, I thought it was tragic, the idea of her struggling against that greatest of transitions. Now, what strikes me as vastly more tragic is finishing the work of becoming before that final breath.

What else would be compelling enough to fill these precious, complex days than to continue to discover ourselves and the potential of our lives?

You've got a ton to put into the world.
I've got some rad tools to help you make it happen.

And I've got a free sample coaching session so you can find out what they are. Email me to get it scheduled.

This past Saturday marked 19 years since I was attacked by my ex-boyfriend. People are often surprised at how casually, how willingly, I talk about an event that almost took my life.

Given that the attack was a stabbing, I've sometimes had new friends remark with surprised amusement on my attachment to the rather large chef knife among my kitchen tools.

I sometimes like to tease people for their use of the phrase "stabbed in the back" to describe betrayal. That sure leads to some delightfully awkward moments!

For those of you who still have trauma - whatever the type of trauma - still churning in your guts and waking you at night, know this:

I have 19 years under my belt.

In that time, I spent the earliest 2 years in a profound depression; that was followed by 6 years of lesser depression.

I have spent countless hours in therapy with a wonderful therapist who used a variety of tools to help me reduce my fear to manageable levels.

I took anti-depressants for the better part of a decade.

I have a supportive family who paid for much of the above in addition to offering scads of emotional presence, and have had loves who were patient with my delicacy, my outbursts, my triggers.

Know that when a friend who had dealt with her own domestic traumas suggested to me that I set myself a goal of having forgiven my ex by the time the scars on my back had healed, I thought it was impossible; I couldn't imagine forgiveness. I still have scars on my back, three shrunken dashes that have been mistaken for the sites of laparoscopic surgery. I have forgiven him. I have even forgiven myself, a much more difficult accomplishment.

Know that my timeline isn't your timeline. Maybe you'll roll through your healing more quickly; maybe it will take much longer. There's no timetable to healing, only steps forward. And sometimes steps backwards.

Know that you are not alone. That the people who can't bear to hear your story, or sit with your pain - the ones who want you to suck it up or get over it - they're dealing with their own baggage, triggers and discomfort. That's their journey, unrelated to you. Keep talking. Keep sharing. You'll find the people who can hold that space and when you do, your story will not only heal you, it will help them heal, grow, deepen, too.

Know that if you do the work, if you allow the healing, you will someday realize, perhaps with shock and gratitude, that this trauma has transformed into one of the most profound gifts of your life. Nothing facilitates our growth like discomfort and, friend, this is discomfort big time. You'll come out of this with a greater understanding of yourself, more strength, deeper roots for grounding and, my personal favorite, a pretty darn impressive tool kit for sitting with others experiencing trauma.

Know that just like personal growth itself, healing might just be a lifelong journey. Just last year, my coach helped me uncover a very subtle barb still in my side from that time. It had been so long, I didn't even notice that there had been discomfort until the barb was gone.

Know that there are no silver bullets to healing, no quick fixes, but there are some things that can facilitate the journey including:

• Professional help whether a therapist, coach, spiritual advisor or whoever - the important part is that the person and technique feel safe and right to you. Seeking and/or accepting help isn't a sign of weakness but rather a sign of courage.
• Being thoughtful about who you let into your journey and your space. On one end of the spectrum are the people who want you to suck it up and move on; on the other end are people who want to wound-bond with you and keep you in that weakened state. Seek the people in the middle, the compassionate ones who are excited by your growth.
• Honoring your journey in whatever way feels right to you. It's important to me to acknowledge my anniversary every year. I know people who prefer to let their trauma anniversaries pass by unnoted. There aren't right or wrongs here as long as you're working from your authentic core and not voices whispering should.
• Perhaps most powerful and most difficult of all: Being compassionate toward yourself. If you feel like crying, cry. If you feel like laughing, laugh. Try not to judge the tears or laughter but simply be with them. Say to yourself, "This is where I am right now, and where I am right now is exactly where I need to be."

Know that you are not broken. You are like the Japanese pottery which, once cracked, is repaired with gold and, in that way, made even more precious and beautiful than when pristine.

You've got a ton to put into the world.
I've got some rad tools to help you make it happen.

And I've got a free sample coaching session so you can find out what they are. Email me to get it scheduled.