Hello dear ones,
This week’s letter comes to you from LA, where I’m gratefully basking in the sunlight during this eclipse portal. This is a time where we’re encouraged to rest, and it felt so nice to give myself permission to not put a newsletter out last week so that I could give my body what it needs. I appreciate your understanding.
A few reminders and FYIs before we dive in:
Submit your questions for episode 6 of OPENINGS, my monthly advice podcast. You can do so by sending me an email at hello@margeauxfeldman.com with the subject line OPENINGS SUBMISSION. Please keep submissions to 250 words or less.
Sharing is caring. Another easy way to support this work is to share this post with others who you think might benefit from this writing. You can hit the button below to share:
Thank you, as always, for being a part of the CARESCAPES universe! It’s such a deep honour to have you here with me!
There is so much purging happening for me right now. I felt it when I got up, on my flight to LA, and went to the bathroom so that I could have a cry while Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Keep Away” (“I’m trying to keep away from you / gonna need some land between between our bodies though…”) played into my earbuds. The clouds of sadness that have hung over for me for the past few months have begun to part and I feel myself returning from the land of heartache. In the wake, I’m grateful for my capacity to love, be hurt, and keep loving through the fear that I’ll be hurt again.
As I talk to folks about my “Queer Wounds” project, one thing keeps coming up: there is a gap between what it is we desire and our capacity to embody those desires and bring them into being. We want intimacy, vulnerability, connection. We know our attachment styles, have learnt that we get to have boundaries, and sit in therapy week after week. And yet, when we find ourselves in relationships where our desires can flourish, we shut down, we run away, we blow it all up. We just don’t have the capacity. I’ve been that human. There is perhaps nothing more heartbreaking to me than our inability to bridge the gap between desire and capacity.
Over the past year, I have found myself, again and again, in relationships with people who tell me that this — their relationship with me — is exactly what they’ve wanted. They name their boundaries and I meet them with gratitude and understanding. We talk through conflict rather than running away, fighting, or shutting down. I name my feelings when I’m feeling them. They see that I have the capacity to show up and they want to do the same. Until they don’t. Or, perhaps it’s more accurate to say until they can’t. The gap between desire and capacity was a chasm that couldn’t be crossed.
How do we build the bridge that we need? How can we close the gap so that we can experience the intimacy we deserve? We practice staying with the discomfort that comes up when we get what we want. It might not feel as sexy as we’d thought it would. Our trauma brains will scream and flail about, distressed beyond measure by this unfamiliar terrain. Our discomfort might yell at us to run. Or it might show up in less extreme ways: we might find ourselves cataloguing all of the reasons why this relationship won’t work. We might feel a deep sense of urgency within us. We might feel bored.
How do we know that these are signs of trauma brain activation rather than our adult brain letting us know that this is, indeed, not the right fit? We get back into our window of tolerance and we reassess from there. If you don’t know what your window feels like (I know I sure didn’t before four years ago), then we learn by finding resources that can help (see a list of my favs under the practices section). We call our friends or talk to our therapist before making any drastic decisions. We give ourselves space to pause, be with the feelings, and see if they dissipate.
Annoyingly, one of the ways we build our capacity is by doing the very thing that is freaking us out. There’s only so much reading we can do, only so far therapy will take us, until we have to practice these skills with another human being — hopefully someone else who’s equipped to do this work with us. And that’s not easy to come by.
I recently moved through a conflict with a human I’ve been getting to know over the past two months. They shared that their avoidant attachment was coming up and they couldn’t figure out how to collaborate and move through the roadblock we were experiencing. By the end of the conversation, we’d moved through it, and they shared a beautiful metaphor with me. Sometimes we’re confronted with two paths: the path of destruction, of disconnection, of past patterns, and the path of creation, connection, and how we want to live in the world now. This second path is less appealing because it’s unfamiliar. What we need is to lay down more track, so that taking that path feels more and more doable. In staying in the conversation with me, in witnessing my hurt, and in hearing my desire to be matched, they were able to move through the drive to avoid. They laid down more track and we bridged the gap together.
I’ve never considered myself a big music person. When I’m home alone, I sit in quiet rather than turning on music. But lately I’ve been finding a lot of comfort in finding songs that help me feel seen in where I’m at at this moment in time. Here are my top three:
If you want to learn more about your nervous system, including the window of tolerance, hyper- and hypoarousal states, structural dissociation, polyvagal theory, and more, you can check out my previously recorded webinar The Traumatized Urge, which I’ve just re-released for those who missed it.
I’m also obsessed with Janina Fisher’s Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: A Workbook for Survivors and Therapists. There are SO many worksheets and Fisher does an incredible job breaking down complex nervous system education for folks.
I’m so so excited to have reached over 100 paid subscribers for this newsletter. This means that each month I’ll be redistributing 10% of earnings to a different BIPOC mutual aid call. This month I’ll be sending these funds to a BIPOC mother who reached out to me via email for support. Thank y’all so much for your contributions.
Last week I had an instance where I felt extremely triggered by something the person I’m dating said. I was able to pause step away and feel my feelings. I was able to soothe myself and choose a different path, rather than jump into old patterns. I felt so proud of that because I was finally practicing all the things I have been learning in therapy and through readings (like this one). 🥹
This newsletter served as a reminder I’m on the right path. Thank u 🤍
I love love love talking about how these two concepts feel so distant yet are so connected, and of course you wrote about it so beautifully! Thank you!