Notes on Unravelling the Self.

By human design, we truly cannot unravel solo.

I am in an unravelled state these days.

Physically unravelling when my hair is a mess and wild as there are now curls in the bottom half and I cannot find the right shampoo to save my life here in the coastal climate of Maine. Or how my one bra is never put on my body, ever. And how my sunscreen is make-up.

Emotionally, like when I feel the grief showing up and choose to make space. Like how the joy shows up when my daughters have learned what to say to make me laugh. It is soul quenching as they say something and wait, staring at me and willing me to laugh, just like I used to with anyone who would listen to me. The self compassion finding a seat at the table, finally. Or how the way I love my husband, myself and the trees out my front door, it is wild and feral and almost patient and very protective.

And the spiritual part. This unravelling is making its way still. My questioning of existence, where and what is god and the afterlife. How I struggle with pronouns for god. What is a church now? Is poetry actually prayer? Was that really just a drone?

I feel I have pulled at these threads before in this lifetime. But never like this.

I remember pulling a thread on a sweater or edges of t-shirts so many times in my life and the elders in my life gasping and telling me to stop. They would run to grab scissors or try to work the yarn back to its original place.

For some reason, I never got the lesson. I would keep pulling and at times, you would see the entire sweater bunch all the way up as you pulled it tighter. Oops, I would think to myself. Or did you ever have that one thread that just kept pulling and pulling and pulling and you wondered where it all came from? Days later, there would a hole in the garment.

When I think back about the actual physical experience of pulling the threads, I realize they never stand alone. They are connected to the other side or grounded in a seam over there or part of the entire thing that when you pull it, the sweater actually loses its length.

And this is where I get it. I see how unravelling is actually terrifying. Because it is never just about you or that one part of your life. It is all connected to a seam or another thread. It never ever stands alone. Because humans don’t live that way.

I believe I have been in an unravelled state for about three years now and no one in my life has escaped the vibrational pull. I have never been one to do things quietly and this seems to be going the same way.

And as humans, by design, our peoplehood love to feel like we have control. We like to know where we stand … at all times. We like to know who goes where and what grocery store we shop at and if you are mad at me or not? It is a safety thing in our brain, I get it. Our brain is protecting us from pain, or attempting to.

The truth of the matter is, this contract of soul and skin comes with suffering AND joy. No one gets out of this contract without the experience of pain and also exuberance. And yet the human design tries to outrun this truth. All. The. Time.

So when I started to unravel, it was never a solo process. My partner is going to feel it. My family is going to feel it. My friends are going to feel it. My health is going to respond. The business I created is going to shift. The way I prioritize my time will have to change, too.

And that feels like a lot.

And in all honestly, I would just rather not. And I didn’t for some time. I was like, I’ll just wait this out. Let the thread hang. Un-bunch the sweater a bit and just leave it be. It doesn’t look that bad, it is fine.

You know as well as I do that once you change the shape, it never goes back.

And ironically, the suffering lands in the avoidance, the people pleasing, the keeping of the things as they were right where you left them. You don’t want to disturb anyone with your own growth and changes so let’s just pretend you can’t see the snag.

But we can all see it.
Even under that cute vest you have over it.
Or that jacket you won’t take off.

Something is different and now, well, it is getting awkward.

Because I am worried that once I pull at that thread fully, the sweater will be done for. And I will have to get a new one. Or *gasp* learn how to mend the one I had to save the Earth and all. And that takes effort. And you know what it takes even more, the risk of your heart when you have to learn to love yourself now… mended or in a new design.

And the truth is, you might now like yourself right away. I didn’t. My unravelling has been picking a fight with my old self for a while now. And my brain said, I am not a fan of you like this. And I just figured, my husband and my kids and my family and all my friends would feel the same. They would say - we don’t like you like this.

So I tried to unravel solo. I isolated.
Try doing that with three kids and a partner. It did not go well.

When I first started working at a job in my 20s, after a few weeks of being my brazen, over-working, type A and over-hyped self, a woman came up to me that had been at the company longer than me and said to my face, “we don’t really like what you’re bringing in here”.

Harsh.

And it was harsh. At the time, she was immature and figured that would be the best route to making things go back the way they were before I got there. And truth be told, I was pushy and loved gold stars so I came in hot. Oddly, we are friends now because life is hilarious.

But I think that is on the list of my biggest fears, that I evolve and grow beyond who I was and risk my heart and unravel and everyone will look at me and say “we don’t really like what you’re bringing in here”.

And then what?

Recently, my middle child has been growing up quite a bit from Kindergarten to 1st grade. In all honesty, I believe she has come to terms that she will be here on Earth for a while and fighting it is just no longer going to work. And in these changes, her emotional tantrums don’t come as often. She no longer has night terrors. She has discovered empathy. She is attentive and protective. She loves fashion and is very particular about her style. And she is changing right in front of our eyes and it feels so drastic almost.

My partner and I are in a bit of dismay. We are curious about our parenting style now as she is showing up differently - so will we. And we cry because there is a softening in her and she does not seem to be fighting herself as much as she used to. And as a parent, you hope your children feel love not only from you and the home you create and the community you live in but also, from themselves.

And I watch her in these changes. And the thing that does not change is my love for her. I love her mad. I love her sad. I love her in the middle of the night screaming. I love her shy at a 60 minute playdate holding on to my leg for the first 52 minutes. I love her snuggled in the nook of my arm hoping maybe that she could just crawl back into the womb where it was warm and a bit quieter. I love her laughing and curious about the world. I love her empathy. I love her soft, wild heart.

I sit here and think about this. Why would I ever choose not to love myself in states of change, in unraveling moments, in growth and evolutions of self. Why would I be so self critical, self loathing? When I see how possible it is to love someone through change, then and now. I know how to do it.

My capacity for love is greater than my self judgement. I know this to be true and some days, I fight the facts. And I wonder if I read it like this: my capacity to love myself is greater than my self judgment - would I still know this to be true?

Why do we even do the self loathing thing?

My quick answer is so no one else can do it before I do. Like some kind of evil competition. I was caught off guard by the woman in the store in my 20s. I was caught off guard by the boy who always pointed out my hairy arms in grade school. I was caught off guard by my first broken heart. Hell, I was caught off guard when I knew I loved Chris and ran from it for almost a whole year. I was caught off guard when my Grandmother died.

And there it is. I don’t like being caught off guard. And so unravelling would mean letting my guard down. Letting go of control I think I have. And I feel rather comfortable here actually behind this wall with my tight grip, thank you very much.

Minus my lower back aching a touch.
Oh and my thyroid screaming for support last year.
And that annoying inner critic that keeps telling me I am not allowed to read in the middle of the day and I have to work.
That eyeball ulcer was interesting.
And the fatigue last Summer, that was terrifying. And the trust-y instagram algorithm told me that this is perimenopause and we don’t have any research on women’s bodies, so deal - it was not.
Or that weird thing I do after being at a party and then picking apart every single thing I said and wondering if I talked too much?

I’m totally fine.

What if I chose to love myself in the moments of shock. What if I let my guard down. What if I said, I like me.

I love that part in the movie ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ when John Candy tells Steve Martin in that hotel room they share with the one bed (hilarious nod to romance books and the one bed trope), that he likes himself.

Del (John Candy): You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you... but I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I'm not changing. I like... I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. 'Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.

I am going to most likely have this framed in my office one day, add it to my interior design list. How divine. Because essentially, we are all a reflection of one another and the systems we buy into and the beliefs we believe daily. Truly. We are here to be in connection, get curious, learn from one another, find similarities and find differences and get caught in the snags and … love anyways.

And so as you unravel, what if you stayed open instead of writing out the story to protect yourself from being caught off guard? What if you asked people in your life how it is going and what they see in you. I know, I know. Vulnerability lives there. So does love.

Because the unravelled self is meeting herself in the present. She is the real article. What you see is what you get because she is not hiding anymore and she is pulling the thread. And pulling. And pulling. And pulling.

Hell, it might be Summer and she doesn’t even need a sweater anymore.
TAKE IT OFF.

I can finally say that I love this version of me now.

The unravelled status I embrace is one that is questioning the 9-5 system altogether. I am questioning how we love women in our society now so much more and questioning what community means in an online life. I stay curious about how to mother myself and my children at the same time. And how clear I feel when I start to see that the truth will alway set you free. The truth that some times, I get sad. And some times, I get mad. And that is okay because I say it is okay. The truth that I created life in my body and that feels f*cking insane and I want to talk about it more - and I am not just talking about my kids, folks. I am talking about aliveness. The truth that I want to be an art student, what am I waiting for? I can create my own curriculum. The truth that I am a great mother because I love my children wild. The truth that I am a sexual being with desire and pleasure is my birthright. The truth that my worth is not intrinsic on a dollar sign. And the truth that suffering is human and I am not doing it wrong. The truth that the ocean healed me and only I know how.

I will say this: it is weird out here in the unravelling.

A warning.

Because you start to romance yourself. And then you see the romance in all your relationships both with other people and within the nature of all things. And you see that you would have never gotten here without the suffering, the risk of the heart, the unravelling.

So the answer is bleak and annoying when answering the questions how to unravel? It is love. We have to practice love. In any tiny way you know how. And then another tiny way you didn’t know how but are open to trying.

Practicing self-love means building a community of people who take care of themselves in vibrant and beautiful ways, who have a desire to care for one another in deep and meaningful ways. It means recognizing the interconnection of all life. The illusion of separation falls away. What we’re left with is the knowledge that we are responsible for each other. That we are worthy precisely because we are responsible for one another. I believe that a world of radical self- love is one where we are joyfully interdependent. - Sonya Renee Taylor (SOURCE)

I have a set of interview questions I have put together for my UNRAVELLING women (you can join, we start in February) this year that they will get to explore within our work together and I want to share them with you - should you be feeling brave in 2025 in your own journey, you can go out and ask them. These questions are meant to be asked to four people who love you and let me make this clear, love all of you. You will ask three people in your life to answer these questions and then, the final person to answer them will be you.

Insight matters because it disrupts the tired record player of our own inner critic(s). And we remember, we are never unravelling alone. It is by design and so it is.

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1. What are two things that you cherish and love about me?

2. What have you noticed about me that has changed in the past two years?

3. Where do you see I could love myself more in my life right now?

4. What do you hope for me in the future?

5. And finally, how can we keep showing up for one another in this season of life?

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Cheers to the unravelling and the fierce love that follows.
Get weirder with yourself, it is wild.

I will meet you there.