Someone* I Saw:

As of late, I've been flying by the seat of my pants as I navigate nomadism. In my highest mind, I want to call myself a nomad, but in my most vulnerable moments, I feel more like a vagabond. These feelings don't come from a place of kindness, but from a visceral, festering wound that has been well-fed. Because I have elected to live far away from home, I am finding myself without a space to regulate, and it's starting to take a toll.

My therapist is always reminding me to zoom in when I'm overwhelmed, and these feelings arise. They're trained in somatic therapy or therapies that "posit that our body holds and expresses experiences and emotions, and that traumatic events or unresolved emotional issues can become 'trapped' inside."1

In sessions, whenever I monologue about life or whatever feels most urgent, my therapist will ask, without fail: How does this feel in your body-mind? If I allow it, we'll sometimes even do physical movement to return to that connection. I’ll hold up my hands as if in a prayer pose, and gently touch pinky to pinky, then ring finger to ring finger, slowly melting my hands into themselves.

On one hand, I appreciate the challenge of leaving my analytical brain and being drawn back into my body. Because I take mood stabilizers, it can be very difficult for me to feel big feelings for very long. As such, my analytical brain often takes the front seat, applying logic to whatever emotions are coming to the fore. I don't sit with a feeling for long before I go into clinical mode: I feel A. Why? What needs to be done? How long has this been present? Whose fault is it? That last question tends to be the most operative, because my brain —judge and jury— knows without a shadow of a doubt that everything is some version of my fault. I’m guilty because I’m not smart enough, wise enough, cool enough, hardworking enough. Enough, enough, enough. Some call this the inner critic, and let me tell you: mine would put Siskel & Ebert to shame.

In a recent session, we had a conversation about my inner critic that has stuck with me: I jokingly seriously told my therapist, "If I ever met my inner critic, I would push her down a flight of stairs." She paused and said, I don't know if you'd do that to a child.

Before that moment, I had never considered that my inner critic might not be as big and grown-up as I am. After their comment, I started imagining my inner critic as a stack of little-me's — almost Little Rascals-style — all piled into a Burberry trench coat, shouting from the peanut gallery. A little grouping of Kimberly’s of past years with sticky fingers, with knocked knees, with gentle eyes.

This realization led to what feels like a genuine breakthrough.

Rather than being in constant opposition with my inner critic, which really just adds to the pile of self-hatred… I'm now a bit more attuned to the fact that even she needs some nurturing. Maybe she's lonely. Maybe she's scared. Maybe she's just hangry and needs a home-cooked meal. More and more, I'm challenging myself to stop weaponizing my analytical mind and to make room for questions instead of conclusions.

Conclusions feel like safety, like control, but I know, somewhere deeper, that this is a lie I’ve told myself for a long time. This need for control invites sharp words toward myself and those I love very deeply. I move into an immediate posture of offense before allowing myself the room to pause and access more than a surface feeling.

I don’t know that I’ll be able to rewrite my inner dialogue overnight, but this reframe has genuinely helped me, and I hope it might work for you too. We’re all caught in a constant cycle of hurting and healing and contrary to what we’ve believed for so long, there’s no prize at the end. I often gawk at people who have “graduated from therapy,” because, to me, the work of tending to yourself never has an expiration date. Yes, we can hold ourselves to high standards, but we can’t forget the gesture of holding, or we’ll just be pushing ourselves out of moving vehicles with no safety gear.