The project

I am undertaking a big project this year. Healing, learning how to feel, how to speak and how to connect to myself. I have taken some tremendous steps in that direction already but I feel like I have a lot more to do.

My wife, I love her, but she is stuck in therapist mode on this one. She feels the only way that I will ever heal is by seeing a therapist. I am setting out to prove her wrong. Not only because I want to prove her wrong (I do) but because talk therapy doesn't work for me. I know myself and there is nothing I hate more than trying to put my feelings into words so some stranger can judge me. The thing I hate the second most is reliving over and over the same exact bad memories. I want to deal with my experiences and move past them not continue to wallow in them. I don't want to draw or paint. I don't want to write really bad poetry.

The biggest drawback to most therapy is that most therapists don't know anything about domestic violence. They try to put the same techniques on DV survivors that they use for single trauma PTSD sufferers and it doesn't work. They over emphasize some events. Other therapies involve pulling further outside of ourselves and for me, reconnecting with myself body mind and soul is essential.

But, over the past few days it hit me. I can do this. I have to be intentional. I have to ask myself the really tough questions that I don't want to answer. But for me, therapy is in taking a long walk and really feeling my steps. For me, best therapy is perfectly seasoning a pot of rice or rolling out beautiful naan.

Some people paint, some draw, some compose songs or poems or whatever...I can't do any of that. My drawings look like something my 8 year old could do left handed. My paintings...well, lets just say they don't compare to anything hanging in the house. I do enjoy clay and I may start working with it more. But, for me, the best way to start feeling is through my food. I can put on music that matches my mood, cook a dish that expresses how I feel and really walk away having really worked through some things.

So, here is the plan that is working through my head. I am going to work through multiple resources to force myself to answer the tough questions. I am going to use "cooking therapy" at least twice a week to reconnect to my emotions. We will cook as a family at least once a week. I will talk to my kids about everything that we have survived. I will talk to my wife, using feeling words. And I will try other mediums. Sand, clay, maybe even other art if I don't have to show anyone else, lol. And, I will write...about my feelings, experiences, dishes I cooked, things I made...whatever.

I promise to keep an open dialogue with my wife and family through this. If something isn't working, we will change it together. If we decide none of it is working, we will re-evaluate and come up with a new plan. In one year, if I haven't made the progress I hope to, I will seek traditional talk therapy.

Well, thanks for listening...and please hang with me this year.

Love and stuff,
Em