The canopy bed that put me over the edge

I’m in search of saturated presence this summer, so I’m sharing some origin stories here while I take a little summer sabbatical.

So there we were, more than ten years ago, me and my little girl moving into our dream home in Portland.

It was a season of thriving for me. I was a happy solo mom, I loved my work, I was over the moon about our new home…but then I maybe got a little nutso about my daughter’s room.

As soon as we moved in, getting Adventure’s room set up properly was at the top of my priority list.

This is partly because I’m such an amaaaazing mom and everyone knows kids need stability and consistency and nesting and lots of strawberries.

But if I’m being honest, there was some other stuff twisted into there too. Guilt that we’d been sharing a room the past few years. Shame that it’d taken me so long to get us out of our one-bedroom apartment. Yearning for her to have a soft little-girl place to dream that my little-girl self had also yearned for.

My complicated motives, and yours, don’t mean we’re horrible evil flawed people—just that we’re wonderful delightful flawed people.

I really, really wanted her room to be perfect.

I would have hotly denied this. No no, I just want it to be pretty, and nice, and give her a sense of safety and stability.

But really?

I wanted it to be perrrrrfect.

I wanted to be that mom.

The one who could finally give her daughter the most dreamy little-girl room EVER.

It took on all this symbolism, where this one room represented all the ways I want to love her and protect her and nurture her and help her be brave and smart and free and um– see how it could get a little bit fraught?

And so, not surprisingly, the putting-together of her room was filled with all KINDS of drama. I’m not even going to go into it, it was so ridiculous. From the canopy that didn’t fit to the bed that came with broken pieces, to the weirdness of bed frames (seriously, no one else in the world still uses box springs) to the part where we were GOING to paint the walls but she didn’t WANT to and then I convinced her how GREAT it would be and then it turned out we WEREN’T painting and okay I guess I went into it.

And please don’t even bring up the hideous brown 70s shag rug she originally fell in love with or how hard the drawers were to put together.

You would think that this room was a rocket ship we were trying to put together.

And so I was laughing and crying and pulling my hair out and trying to let her make decisions while also remembering that she was only eight and it’s a lot of pressure, and here is the whole point of why I am telling you this story.

It’s something I’m always talking about with my clients, which is how to stretch big enough to let all our Big Feelings move through us. All of this room chaos would have been fine as long as I could remember to just let it be messy and uncomfortable and even kind of awful. The only problem was when I would clamp down and try to make it better than it actually was. Which I did every five minutes.

Finally I made a cup of tea and remembered my own advice. This is counter-intuitive, but bear with me here.

Try this–

Whatever Big Feelings you have, just get bigger around them.

Whatever uncomfortable emotions or physical sensations are present in your body right now, imagine that you can open up around them. Let there be lots of air and open space so that there is plenty of room and permission for whatever is there. Don’t meditate it away, and don’t coach yourself out of it, or try to be more enlightened than you are, just open up and get so big that you can contain all of it with lots of spaciousness. And then– I know, this part is absurd– tell those sensations that they can just be there. That you’re going to give them lots of room and space. And then see what happens. 9.999 times out of ten, the simple act of giving them permission will bring you enormous relief. And then? When they’re being witnessed? Well then the job of those emotions is done, and they will start to shift and move.

It’s the most powerful magic I know.

I kept forgetting, and I would get all furious at the metal part that wouldn’t FIT and then I’d get mad at Miss Adventure because she would start wailing about the fact that IT WOULDN’T FIT AND NOW SHE’D NEVER HAVE A BED and I’d get all tight and mean inside and try to be zen and calm, which is the WORST– and then eventually I’d remember how insane that was and finally I’d say, “Wow, I’m SO STRESSED OUT right now,” and she’d sniffle and say “Yeah, me too,” and then we’d both take a breath and something inside us would ease up a bit.

And eventually we’d wipe away our gallons of snot and tears and pick up our wrenches (really! we used wrenches!!) and have another whack at it.

And now? It looks like this. And she plays and plays.

And the best part is that my insides feel nice and breezy too, like there’s a little swoop of mosquito netting in there, and some fluttering ribbons, and lots and lots of breathing room.

Try it. You’d be surprised how big you can get. You can be a damn cathedral.

love,

Katherine

P.S. Need a good summer read? Read the whole story of how I went from a miserable good girl missionary kid to a scandalous hot mess disaster to a happy heathen mystic…it’s all in my BOOK: