A little about where I am at today...

I've desperately wanted to write a blog post all week.  I started one last week (it's a book review!) and I contemplated trying to wrap it up real quick.  Instead, I want to share a little bit about where my heart is at today.The last two days have been a little harder me.  I've felt the stress mounting.  Jason was in Laguna Beach taping shows for New Life Live and I was here holding down the fort.  He was due home by 7:30pm and at about 6pm, I recognized that I simply couldn't do it anymore.  I'm not sure exactly what I "couldn't do" but I knew that I didn't feel good about the pace of the week.Once the boys were tucked into bed, Jason and I sat down on the couch.  We started to talk.  He asked what was going on (because when I greeted him, I told him I was frazzled and needed to talk).  I started to unload, people.  I'm talking I backed up that dump truck and dumped it all out.Photo SourceI talked and talked about the things swirling in my head.  When I stopped talking, Jason asked, "so what else is bothering you?"  And I'd either land on another situation deep within me or continue to lament about whatever it was that I just spoke of.Y'all, I couldn't believe how much was inside of me.  How much needed to come out.  I ended up crying as I poured more and more of my heart out to him.  I was probably a little dramatic with some of the things I said, but it felt good to get it out.  All of it.Here is what I realized as we were talking:

• I was letting Jason completely and totally in.  This is a big deal for a woman recovering from intimacy aversion.  It's called being fully known.
• Jason didn't judge me or try to fix me.  He listened and agreed with everything I was saying.  He literally just sat there with me.  It reminds me of the beginning of Job.  Sure, Job's friends got it all wrong once they started talking to him.  Yet they started out just right.  Job 2:13 says, "Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights.  No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was." 
• I felt so much lighter by the time we were done.  Were the problems solved?  Absolutely not...but I got them out.

So how might this apply to you?  Well, there are a couple of key take-aways here:1)  Don't underestimate the importance of having a safe place to just get it out.  To back up that dump truck and dump-it-out in all its glory.  Whatever it might be.  If your husband isn't a safe person {yet} for you, find a group of girls that can be your safe place.  If you are still stuck in this area, contact me and I'll see if I can help.2)  I want to give you, my beautiful readers, hope that one day, your husband just might be a safe person for you to share the crazy, the messy, the ugly with.  If it's happened for us, let me tell you - it can happen for you.  Isn't that at the core of this process for our husbands (and thus for us, too)? 

Going from not being fully-known and finding intimacy (albeit false) through sexuality to being fully known and finding true intimacy in knowing and being known with sex as a coveted, exclusive, only-for-the-one-we-married kind of thing?

3)  If you are feeling totally stuck in this area with no hope on the horizon for a group of gals or your husband to provide a safe place for you to dump - ask yourself what can you do to ground yourself today?  Maybe its going outside (one of my favorite self-care activities) or journaling.  Maybe it's doing a craft or making a feel-good meal.  Whatever it is, I think it's important that you have something you can go to when you start to feel like you are spinning out.  (As in, if you are reading this and can't think of anything, it's time to do some work in this area!)I can't begin to tell you how calm I've felt today.  This being fully known.  Dumping the dump truck.  And allowing others to sit in it with me - it's good.xo-Shelley