Author: janet.forelo

You Have Suffered Enough

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“You have suffered enough. If you can make it easier, make it easier, and don’t feel guilty about it.” – Ali Wong, “Dear Girls” (the book she wrote to her daughters)

My partner said I am a cross between Ali Wong, House M.D., and Patch Adams. One day that will go on my website. *sparkle sparkle*

Cocoon

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It’s been a hell of a year. I broke out into private practice and have been meandering through it, learning more and more about who I am and what I mean to myself. I’m no longer going at a breakneck speed to prove myself out of my trauma. I feel like I’m settling into a life I have worked so hard to gather and claim for myself. Before, I felt like I wasn’t allowed to have Anything, not even myself. I kept trying to make myself into something precious instead of accepting that I am.

I hope you cherish yourself. I hope you get more peace.

Slow Down and Catch Yourself

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“Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.” – John De Paola

To counteract all the freezing in my life from fear, I have chased and chased and chased.
I never feel I can catch the lofty ideas of myself based in trauma losses. I have kept trying to live a life as if I haven’t been through all I’ve been through, thinking that that is the only way I can make it up to myself and live up to my “potential”.
What this has done to me is heavily reinforce that it is “my fault” if I don’t “succeed.” I am reenacting trauma I have been trying to prevent through my hypervigilance.
I’m setting an intention to sit with all I have tried to collect with the compulsion to prove myself, to hold the reality that I am worthy as I am. If I can hold that reality, then I can hold myself with the love and acceptance that I’ve tried to achieve through “success”.

Janet A. Forelo

The Stranglehold Of “Shoulds”

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Healing Milestone #1

I no longer feel the stranglehold of “shoulds”.

Therapists sometimes ask the Miracle Question – if you woke up tomorrow, and everything was as you would like it to be, how would you know? What would be different?

Sometimes when I do daily tasks, I can feel the lack of the weight that used to burden every part of my existence.

Shoulds use to paralyze me. I’d feel like I was spinning and getting nowhere. An old roommate described me as a hurricane. I felt like I was drowning and no matter how much and how hard I swam, that I could never quite reach the surface.

Today I take care of myself in ways I didn’t think were possible. Today I feel precious and free.

Just To-Doodlin

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I used to doodle all the time before I got too serious for my own good. I feel like this part of me went dormant after high school and I had to “adult”. I don’t participate enough in my own creative process because I prioritize perfectionism and outcome and “product” instead of simply responding to my feelings in a timely, neutral way and allowing space and time and non-judgment through expression. So here is a silly helpful thing on the back a to-do list.

#justodoodlin #monkey #mouse #skull #spooktober #tail #spider #bug #insect #arachnid #beetle #October #Halloween #todolist #doodle #doodles #pencil #pun #punny #sorrynotsorry #uglytherapy