Hello dear ones!
Happy new moon and end of the eclipse portal. This week I want to share some thoughts and feelings I’ve been having as I shed, release, and let go of relationships, belief patterns, and older ways of being, as well as some practices for caring for ourselves in the midst of endings. I’ll also be sharing two announcements re: new offerings, so make sure you read til the end!
Before you dive in, I wanna share a couple of invitations:
If you love this newsletter and have the means to make monthly contributions, you can upgrade your subscription here! Read until the end for a new perk for paid subscribers!!
If you feel called to screenshot parts of this newsletter that are speaking to you and you wanna share it on your social media, PLEASE DO! If you could tag me that would be extra special <3
Don’t be afraid to leave a comment! I LOVE engaging with folks and learning more about you!!
THOUGHTS & FEELINGS
This week it feels hard to separate thoughts and feelings, so I’m giving myself permission to play with the structure of this newsletter (s/o to my Sag rising here).
I've never been good with endings. Growing up, I'd always cry at series finales, even when I wasn't a loyal viewer of the show. The mere fact that the show was ending was enough to make me have that kind of cry where the snot starts to drip down your face and your lips get really puffy. Knowing what I know now about attachment and grief, those cries weren’t really about the show ending. The show’s ending was a catalyst for me to safely feel the grief of other losses in my life. The most triggering endings for me are the endings of relationships. I recognize that my attachment wounding has instilled the belief in me that endings are forever – which makes a whole lot of sense when the first ending I experienced, at the age of 11, was the death of my mother.
It has been A TIME of connections ending in my life. In September, within the span of a week, two connections ended with humans I was dating. In October, I ended my four-year long relationship with my nesting partner. And a few weeks ago, another human I’d been seeing told me he thought we should just be friends. Some of these connections are transforming into new forms of intimacy. Others are over — for now and maybe forever.
I had my chart read by @olivia.pepper recently, who shared that having Gemini in my 7th house of committed partnerships conjunct Venus and Chiron means that I will be wounded and healed by connections with others. Oilbhe shared that Venus represents the mother figure, and the fact that my mother died when I was 11, just as I was starting to look outside of my family for other kinds of relationships, means that this abandonment wound is tethered to connection for me.
I can see how this played out. In past relationships, I was always the person who begged the other to stay. Even when the person I was connecting with wasn’t showing up for me in the ways that I deserve, even when there were fundamental incompatibilities, and even when those relationships were abusive, my attachment wounding screamed “HOLD ON!! WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T LET GO!!!” When unsupportive – and oftentimes abusive – relationships would end, I’d convince the person to get back together. Eventually they’d give in. And things would feel okay for a little bit – that dopamine high of insecure attachment doing its thing – but we’d end up back where we started: the same behaviours and patterns playing themselves out. My first therapist would help me see how I was trying to rewrite the scripts of earlier attachment wounding: by staying, I was ensuring that they’d never feel the way I felt after my mother’s death and my father’s emotional abandonment.
Because these earlier losses were permanent, my trauma brain believes that when a door closes on a connection, it closes forever. My adult self, on the other hand, knows that things can change and people can come in and out of lives if we want them to. A connection ending doesn’t have to mean it’s ending forever. And when I acknowledge that, I can be present with the grief and the disappointment that comes up and needs to be moved through. This goes for all endings. You decide to quit your job. You graduate from school. You end a collaboration or project. All of these endings can be triggering for those of us with abandonment wounds and attachment trauma. And endings are also an opportunity to heal those wounds, to hold space for those traumas.
Earlier this week, I was listening to my week ahead reading on the Chani app, and she was talking about the solar eclipse happening on the New Moon in Sagittarius. Sags are all about finding the positive in hard moments; about having faith in the process. A South Node eclipse will have us thinking about shedding, release, past lives, and letting go of things that don’t belong to us. According to Chani, this eclipse in combination with the new moon has us asking: “Can we have a radical faith that what is leaving is actually the best thing for us? Can we trust the way that our lives are unfolding?” OOOOFFFFFF. Not an easy question for us trauma bbs.
I love it when I start to think about a theme that’s coming up in my life, and I see that others are thinking about it too. As I was writing this, I received tarot teacher Lindsay Mack’s Monthly Medicine newsletter, in which they proclaim that “December is Opening to the Mystery.” Mack shares: “It is indeed a time of big fears, what ifs, and wild unknowns. It is also a time of homecoming, one that is asking us to surrender to the mystery and open to its many blessings.”
For Mack, “Mystery doesn't have to be scary or frightening. Mystery is where magic happens. It is where curiosity can flourish. It is where rest can take root. Mystery is a gift, an experience and initiation of honoring the unseen, and turning more fully towards ourselves.” They ask: “What would it be like to embrace and soften into the mystery, rather than trying to rail against it? What would it be like to drop those exhausting efforts, and just be, allowing the simple miracle of our existence to be enough? What would it be like to consider, just for a moment, that the old way of doing things doesn't quite work anymore?”
What I’m realizing is that endings open the door to uncertainty. Something certain has ended. And in its wake, we stare uncertainty in the face.
This week I had a class with somatic practitioner Karine Bell and she asked us to consider: “how might the disturbance be an opening?” She was talking here about trauma, offering a deeply necessary reframe. Most people talk about trauma as a disturbance to be cured. But what if trauma teaches us that it’s not us that’s broken? To borrow the words of Johanna Hedva, in their essay “Sick Woman Theory”: “it’s the world that needs the fixing.”
I want to return to Karine’s question and rephrase it: how might the ending be an opening? Or: how might the disturbance that is created by endings be an opening? We think of endings as doors closed, bolted, shut forever. But what if they weren’t?
This week, my therapist had another one of her mic drop moments when she suggested that I might invite the unknown into my relationships with others. As though I were creating a little polycule. How might I be able to hold open possibilities for what that connection could be – including that it might end – if I danced with the unknown? What if, instead of saying yes to the relationship, I’m saying yes to being changed by the event that is intimacy?
Endings are a dance with the unknown. When I reframe this encounter to an act of collaboration, the movement between us, endings become a little less terrifying. Something changes for me. Instead of getting stuck in the belief that “My destiny is loss,” I can see a different story emerging: “There will be loss. That is everyone’s destiny. But there will also be life-changing love.” Because when we open ourselves up to love, we’re also opening ourselves up to the possibility that that relationship might end. This is the wager of intimacy. And it is one that I know I want to make again and again.
PRACTICES
My best friend once shared a metaphor with me that I’ve never forgotten: the open palm. She shared this with me after my first long-term supportive partnership had ended. I was beside myself with grief and I’d closed my fist so tightly around the possibility that this person would come back to me. In this way, I couldn’t fully grieve, because in grieving we have to open our palm.
Many years ago, I pulled the card named Reception, which is the Collective Tarot’s reimagining of the Empress card in the major arcana. The image on their card is an open palm holding a small human figure.
The Collective Tarot explains the trouble we have with welcoming reception: “many of us have come to associate letting go, giving, and admittance with danger. Ironically, this misconception can actually make us more vulnerable to outside influences. The walls and rules we create to protect ourselves may also be blocking out nourishing energies that we need, not only to survive, but to thrive and grow.”
When I look at that card, I see the person in the palm of the hand as my younger self. And so I'm gently practicing holding that younger part of me that believes that, while asking them if they'll trust that no matter what, I'm not going anywhere. Perhaps you also struggle with endings, and so I hope that as I practice letting go, you too may feel emboldened to welcome whatever endings you've been unable to confront.
As a practice, find a comfortable place to sit. Close your eyes or soften your gaze. Place your hands in your lap, with your palms turned upwards. Let one palm rest in the palm of the other. Now imagine that there’s this little figure resting in your palm (maybe your inner child, inner teenager, or whatever part of you is scared of endings). Keep visualizing this figure and hold this position for as long as you like. If it feels supportive, you can close this practice with the following words: “It is safe to keep my palms open. When I do so, I get to tend to myself.”
ACTIONS
There are so many things we can do to help heal our communities and the world. To help avoid overwhelm, I recommend starting with one actionable step, and starting small. Each week I’ll share a different actionable step we can all take.
This week I want to share two more mutual aid calls for humans who have had some things end in their lives and are now trying to recover and rebuild.
From the GFM: “After being laid off from a social media management job where Sydney (they/she) was being paid less than minimum wage, Sydney decided to start their own business mere weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States. Excited by the lure of being her own boss and tired of being taken advantage of, Sydney opened up their business supporting survivors of abuse…”
From their GFM: “A year and a half ago, my friend Di started battling a severe chronic illness that has landed them in countless doctors’ visits, lost time from work, and lost time from school. As a business owner, it was hard for them to keep up with the constant hustle of entrepreneurship…”
ANNOUNCEMENTS
#1
I’m sooooooooo excited to share that I’m introducing a special perk for paid subscribers: OPENINGS: a monthly advice podcast!!! This is your opportunity to ask me any questions you have about relationships, healing, care, and being a human in the world.
If you are a paid subscriber, you can submit your questions to hello@margeauxfeldman.com with the subject line OPENINGS SUBMISSION. The podcast will be shared with subscribers on the last Sunday of the month. This month that is December 26th (little holiday treat) and you have until 1 week before (December 19th) to submit your Qs to my email.
If you wanna become a paid subscriber, you’ll find the link at the end of this letter.
#2
To help you start off 2022 — and to help me cover the costs of moving — I’m offering a special workshop: Aligning Our Actions With Our Values! Happening Saturday January 8, 2022 from 11am-1pm MT via Zoom.
Right now this offering is only available to you, my CARESCAPES subscribers — so please don’t share it with the world just yet! I’ll be sharing this offering on my IG in two weeks, on December 19th, so make sure to grab your ticket now.
Why talk about values? Our values are our "why" behind the choices we make in the world. When we anchor in our values, we take purposeful and aligned action.
In this 2hr workshop, you will get to:
Determine your core values;
Learn how to find lines of affinity between your values and others;
Discuss the barriers that make it challenging for us to act in alignment with our values;
You’ll also receive the 30-page workbook that this workshop is based off of, filled with additional activities and reflections for you to work with.
If you love this newsletter and have the means to make monthly contributions, you can upgrade your subscription here! Read until the end for a new perk for paid subscribers!!
If you feel called to screenshot parts of this newsletter that are speaking to you and you wanna share it on your social media, PLEASE DO! If you could tag me that would be extra special <3
Don’t be afraid to leave a comment! I LOVE engaging with folks and learning more about you!!
CARESCAPES #2
I'm a Gemini sun and I feel this too, like Annie said! I remember early in 2020 after a major shift in a close relationship, I began to think about getting more comfortable with uncertainty and the spacious mystery – which really is just coming to terms with the fact that certainty doesn't exist. The pandemic began shortly after, and that really put the new beliefs I was trying to hold about uncertainty to the test. I love this interpretation of the Empress card and the open palm metaphor. Thank you, Margeaux!
Love this. Thank you <3