the past we wear
february 2021
i started this 28-day challenge because i wanted to help my clients to stay inspired and to reach for new things in their closet as a way to introduce some fun and magic into an otherwise dreary day. it’s easy to get into a rut with clothes and just start recycling the same things over and over. while there’s definitely no problem with that (i do it allllll the time) the spirit wants more. the spirit wants newness, freshness and possibility. so by introducing a little bit of variety into what might otherwise be another groundhog’s day, we can create a new view of ourselves, for ourselves. this is why i am wearing something new each day this month. so that i can make fresh of something that is old and stuck.
february isn’t an easy month for me. i was married and then my mama, marina, passed away less than two weeks later. i think we all pretty much know by now that trauma is stored in the body. but what we don’t know (or cannot always control) is our output of this energy in a productive way.
my blues usually start around mid-november (the month of my mama’s birthday) and then go sailing through the holidays, new year, january is a blur, and then february. the tough one. the days after my wedding were spent caring for someone that i love more than anything in this world. and sometimes loving someone means that you have to be able to hold their truth and sometimes that truth might be about pain. my mama had a lot of pain. a lot of pain that had nothing to do with me or being a mother but somehow this pain wasn’t communicated to me and some was actually held against me during our life together.
i think we sometimes think our parents are these perfect people and that they should do everything they can to protect their children at all costs. but the truth is, our parents are also hurting and their level of hurt can be passed down to us without them ever being aware of it or knowing what they’re doing. when i was able to finally really rest into the pain of my mama’s life and experience and hold space and compassion for her as a woman, that was the day that i freed myself from any of the pain that she might have unconsciously caused me. there was a lot of it. we hurt each other a lot. but what i am left with now is this...
had i known about any of what she was experiencing, had she let me in on the level of what it was like to live through her eyes and through her pain, i would have done anything i could as a child to have made it better for her. i think parents want to protect their children from pain but by doing that, it can make it a lot worse. children internalize everything. i thought my mom’s sadness was because of me. she was the center of my world, why wouldn’t it all have been about me?
so here is my truth. i want to live in a world where we can normalize having a bad february. where i can tell my clients, my friends, my acquaintances, my employees, my lovers... you know, february is a hard month for me and i might not be showing up exactly as you wish that i would. the more that we can verbalize our pain and normalize the idea that we have a lot on our shoulders day-by-day, the more compassion we can feel for everyone around us.
truth is hard. showing up is hard. but what is harder is not speaking it and then the torment of responses that follow anything that isn’t really real. so february 2021, i am taking back february. i am wearing a different outfit each day and i’m posting it and i literally hate posting every day. that has been the hardest part about this challenge. i don’t always want to show up with my game face on and maybe now, i won’t have to. i can just be me, exactly where i am, and that can be enough for now.
i love you, mama.
“we love you so much, we miss you so much!”
love,
mira
