Somewhere down the road, farther down your timeline, is a version of you that has endured. Imagine a thriving you, well into radical acceptance, having persevered, even triumphed over the malaise that envelops early parent-child estrangement. They’re looking back at you and what you’re enduring today. What are they thinking? What would they say to you if they could?
PLACE friend, author, and Marfa, Texas’ own amazing boutique owner Kate Manser posted a TikTok video today about sitting in a counseling office towards the end of a relationship. The other person no-showed, and in the video, Kate says she wishes someone had told her that she was not the problem; the problem was solely that of the no-show partner.
In about 2004, I was in a pretty bad situation. Though I had a brand-new baby and years of sobriety under my belt, I was in a miserable job, and my own marriage was crumbling. Thinking back, I’m grateful for my friends and family who tolerated all the anger, sadness, bewilderment, and victim mentality I brought to our conversations. By summer of that year, I was in school to become a counselor.
So as I sit here today, happily remarried and doing work I love, I recognize that a key component of this journey was a message from a friend that caught me off guard back in ’04. Here it is, word for word:
“Get a divorce. Please.”
I was taken aback, but not by the message’s brazenness; I was taken aback by its truth. It was permission. It was the unspoken message that my intuition had been screaming at me but had remained unheard because of the ubiquitous bellyaching within and without.
Try something right now if you can. Find somewhere quiet and comfortable. Set a timer for 60 seconds. Once it starts, close your eyes, and for those 60 seconds, breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. Mentally, your job is simply to think either “I’m breathing in through my nose” or “I’m breathing out through my mouth.” Close those mental “browser” tabs as you can. You might have stray, unrelated thoughts. Acknowledge them but get back to this ever-so-simple task.
I’m breathing in through my nose. I’m breathing out through my mouth.
If you can do it now, please do so.
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After you’ve done your 60 second mini-meditation, ask yourself this question:
What is the best thing I can do for myself right now?
Sometimes the truth in our answers surprises us.
