Saying No to Family in Order to Say Yes to Healing

My body told me to go home, so here I am. I was at the gym, intending to join the workout I'd signed up for. Instead I'm at my kitchen table steeping tea.

My body is one that keeps score. My body is one that speaks up when I need a break.

What I am experiencing today is release. The last few weeks have been filled with the death of family member after family member. My husband's aunt, my grandmother, my husband's uncle. And then there was a beautiful change in my small family of five that resulted in the loss of other family members. Not through death, but through choice.

For weeks, my body has been chugging along with me, back and forth to the gym, to visit the dead and the living, to support those who need support inside and outside my home. Now this body is calling a time out. It is supporting itself as it must since other supports opted out.

I am not intentionally being vague. It's just that the specifics don't matter. When I needed people most, they showed themselves to be hateful, harmful and emotionally unavailable except to blame me, shame me and still try to keep me reeled in with love. At the most basic level, I was told I am not acceptable as I am. I am an embarrassment because I am not ashamed of myself or my family and I refuse to remain silent or hide what I see as beautiful about us. I am selfish.

I resent this greatly, but I can love through it. Yes, love. Love those who attempt to manipulate me through shaming and claims they are not trying to make me feel guilty but . . .

This is a game played with me my whole life. It hurts me deeply. So, in order to keep loving those who hurt me, they are cut off from me. I will love them from a distance, and they can pretend we aren't family since that is more important than accepting me as I am as part of their family.

I do this also because I love myself. Sometimes "no" is the most loving response.

So I said no to the workout I wanted to do. I said no to the family I wanted to love me for who I am, but doesn't. I said no to not eating, because that won't help me recover. And I said no to pushing through.

This means I said yes to slowing down, to creating safe and healthy boundaries for myself and my children, to taking care of my body and to staying present no matter that my heart is sore and my eyelids heavy with grief.

One other thing I said no to was not writing about this. I said no to being silenced, which translates to: Yes, I will heal.

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