Short and Sweet Description of Me Right Now
My name is Kathryn Long. I am sensitive introvert who is recovering my artistic side and uncovering and finding the courage to be the person I came here to be. My husband Henry and I have been married since 2000 and we have three children. They help me find that authentic me, either by being amazingly supportive or by pushing me so far that I can either break or grow. Most of the time I jump on the grow train right before I fall of the cliff. :) We have a variety of critters and the long term goal is to have a farm. For now we're enjoying the eggs while I learn how to grow more without killing myself. The not killing myself part is important as my body has told me it won't be pushed to the limits anymore! I have a Permaculture Design Certification, I'm an Awesomism Certified Practitioner, level one, and I have a Liberal Arts Degree that's one class shy of a Special Ed degree.
About Me and How I Got Here
For most of my life I felt like something was wrong with me. Well, actually, lots of things. Okay, I felt like pretty much all of me was wrong. I felt like I was just inherently screwed up and there was nothing that could be done to make me right. I was too sensitive, felt things too deeply, and understood the world in a way that others didn't. I preferred to be by myself reading or drawing or spending time with cats to interacting with lots of people. I was diagnosed with depression when I was 5, and put on medication when I was 11. I thought my brain was just messed up and I would have to be on medication for the rest of my life, but at least it helped me pretend to be normal, to ignore the parts of me that I didn't think anyone else could understand. I pushed the real me as far away from me as I could and concentrated on doing what I was supposed to do, meeting the expectations of others, trying to never upset anyone and to always keep the peace. . . except for the times when I just couldn't hold it in any more and it would come exploding out like a fiery volcano. It felt like anger was always just below the surface, but I knew it was bad so I tried to contain it and pretend it wasn't there. Anger and sadness were some of the few feelings I felt.
My oldest child was born when I was 23. His long list of food allergies and my desire to get off of anti-depressants while pregnant with my first daughter led us to try alternative treatments and to eventually discover EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques- www.eftuniverse.com ) and dive right in. At first I just focused my tapping (EFT) on the kids and their allergies, and I started to understand the connection between feelings and trauma and disruptions and symptoms in the body. Maybe feelings weren't just piddly little annoying things that were best to stuff and ignore? One night, when I was tapping on my son as he slept for the rash around his mouth that was due to anxiety, I hit a wall. When I asked why, I heard that I couldn't help him heal his anxiety while clinging so tightly to my own. I couldn't "fix" him to prevent him from having to deal with the things I hated in myself. I had to learn to heal myself before I could help him. So I quit focusing on their allergies and instead focused exclusively on my anxiety and depression. I was happy being miserable; it was all I had ever known, but I refused to allow it to affect them so I turned and faced all of the baggage I had been dragging around for my entire life and using EFT, I started releasing it. For months I tapped for a couple hours every night. Really incredibly painful stuff came up, stuff I hadn't even been consciously aware of. But the exhilaration of releasing the painful stuff was so amazing that I kept going back again and again.
My oldest child was born when I was 23. His long list of food allergies and my desire to get off of anti-depressants while pregnant with my first daughter led us to try alternative treatments and to eventually discover EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques- www.eftuniverse.com ) and dive right in. At first I just focused my tapping (EFT) on the kids and their allergies, and I started to understand the connection between feelings and trauma and disruptions and symptoms in the body. Maybe feelings weren't just piddly little annoying things that were best to stuff and ignore? One night, when I was tapping on my son as he slept for the rash around his mouth that was due to anxiety, I hit a wall. When I asked why, I heard that I couldn't help him heal his anxiety while clinging so tightly to my own. I couldn't "fix" him to prevent him from having to deal with the things I hated in myself. I had to learn to heal myself before I could help him. So I quit focusing on their allergies and instead focused exclusively on my anxiety and depression. I was happy being miserable; it was all I had ever known, but I refused to allow it to affect them so I turned and faced all of the baggage I had been dragging around for my entire life and using EFT, I started releasing it. For months I tapped for a couple hours every night. Really incredibly painful stuff came up, stuff I hadn't even been consciously aware of. But the exhilaration of releasing the painful stuff was so amazing that I kept going back again and again.
At this same time my son was leading me to Gentle Discipline. My classroom management techniques did NOT work on him and in fact just made everything worse. I had to learn to look beyond the behavior to the intent- what he was trying to accomplish. So often I found that he, as a 2 or 3 year old, was doing the best he could to help and to show us that he loved us and to feel close to us, even though my first reaction to his behaviors was that he was bad and wrong. I learned to help him understand that I knew he was good and to help him learn more appropriate ways to do what he was trying to do. And in that way, he helped me learn the skills to start connecting with my own inherent goodness. To look beyond everything I hated about myself, everything I wished I could get rid of, all of this really painful, messed up stuff that would come up night after night after night. At times I would think "Oh my gosh I am the most screwed up person in the entire world!" but as I learned to look at the things that were coming up, I could see how part of me was clinging to them because that part felt that it kept me safer. The voices in my head, the self sabotage- it was all an attempt to protect me from more pain. I learned about psychological reversal- where things I wanted consciously were things that sub-consciously I was absolutely terrified of and tried to avoid at all costs. It became kind of a fun non-judgemental game to discover my psychological reversals, and the reasons behind them were often so bizarre they would make me laugh at their absurdity. I learned to approach this work of releasing my baggage with curiosity, most of the time at least. I always get there eventually. ;)
When I worked through the large body of the depression and anxiety I took a deep breath and looked around, and amazingly, their allergies had all but disappeared. And it hit me that their allergies had been the biggest gift they could have given me, because through them I got started down the most important path of my life- my journey back to myself.
I will put this disclaimer right here in bold- it has NOT been a glorious walk in the park every day since. I really thought that once I "got it" my life would be blissfully happy and problem free until I died. Happily ever after and all. And at first I would beat myself up every time I plunged back into the depths of pain and struggle. I thought I would get to the point where there WAS NO pain and struggle anymore, but the more I have talked to honest successful people, especially those who are sensitive and spiritual, I have learned that EVERYONE still has ups and downs no matter how enlightened they are. So I crossed the "Happily Ever After" goal off of my list. I HAVE learned how to feel feelings, to name them, to express them, to let them through and let them go. I've learned how to feel joy. I am discovering more and more every day that my real self, although it may not meet the expectations and desires of everyone, is really awesome. I am very sensitive, but it's not the horrible curse word I'd believed it was. It's actually a gift. And here is another bolded disclaimer- Gifts are not always easy to deal with. In fact, our gifts can often be incredibly intense, hard to explain, and just a regular pain in the butt when trying to integrate them into "life as we know it" on this planet. The ease of our gifts tends to lie in how easily they flow through us and from us. It is easy for me to be sensitive. It is nearly impossible for me to stop being sensitive. I tried for a really, really long time. The way the world reacts to our gifts can feel like a slap in the face so we label them as wrong and hide them, try to make them stop, but they NEED to flow through because they're our very essence. So we turn into cages and traps to hold it in while it fights ever stronger to get out. Not a fun way to live life.
I have learned that I am most alive when I'm allowing the sensitivity to inform me, and when I am honoring it by listening to expressing it. I can express it through writing about my experiences and understandings, through sharing an insight with someone when it appears, even though I might not understand it (and it sounds so crazy I think they're going to get mad at me), and through asking questions that help others discover the brilliance that I am seeing in them. I can express it through painting. I can express it through EFT and other types of energy work. I can best hear and express it one on one, in small groups, or in the case of my art and writing- often when I am alone. I have trouble with large groups. Lots of transitions and places to be every day are hard for me. Nature is wonderful and soothing.
The internet is wonderful for those of us who are easily exhausted by too much interaction with others. We can read when we feel led, write something that many people can read without us having to repeat it a billion times, be social while also being safe in our beds in our jammies with our pets and/or kids nearby. We can be brave and share the most tender, vulnerable, beautiful parts of us while being grounded in a physical place that feels safe. Or if we're not in a nurturing physical place, we can find a virtual place to visit in spirit. We can learn to say things we wouldn't dare utter aloud. Yet. We can discover amazing parts of us that feel too raw to reveal in the real world. I have been blessed by a few such places in my own journey to where I am now. And I have been nudged and pushed and shoved and dragged and repeatedly bonked with a cosmic 2 x 4 to create another such space for the next phase of my journey. And so here it is! I am so honored that you are here with me. We have some pretty amazing things ahead of us. I can't wait to travel there together. :)
When I worked through the large body of the depression and anxiety I took a deep breath and looked around, and amazingly, their allergies had all but disappeared. And it hit me that their allergies had been the biggest gift they could have given me, because through them I got started down the most important path of my life- my journey back to myself.
I will put this disclaimer right here in bold- it has NOT been a glorious walk in the park every day since. I really thought that once I "got it" my life would be blissfully happy and problem free until I died. Happily ever after and all. And at first I would beat myself up every time I plunged back into the depths of pain and struggle. I thought I would get to the point where there WAS NO pain and struggle anymore, but the more I have talked to honest successful people, especially those who are sensitive and spiritual, I have learned that EVERYONE still has ups and downs no matter how enlightened they are. So I crossed the "Happily Ever After" goal off of my list. I HAVE learned how to feel feelings, to name them, to express them, to let them through and let them go. I've learned how to feel joy. I am discovering more and more every day that my real self, although it may not meet the expectations and desires of everyone, is really awesome. I am very sensitive, but it's not the horrible curse word I'd believed it was. It's actually a gift. And here is another bolded disclaimer- Gifts are not always easy to deal with. In fact, our gifts can often be incredibly intense, hard to explain, and just a regular pain in the butt when trying to integrate them into "life as we know it" on this planet. The ease of our gifts tends to lie in how easily they flow through us and from us. It is easy for me to be sensitive. It is nearly impossible for me to stop being sensitive. I tried for a really, really long time. The way the world reacts to our gifts can feel like a slap in the face so we label them as wrong and hide them, try to make them stop, but they NEED to flow through because they're our very essence. So we turn into cages and traps to hold it in while it fights ever stronger to get out. Not a fun way to live life.
I have learned that I am most alive when I'm allowing the sensitivity to inform me, and when I am honoring it by listening to expressing it. I can express it through writing about my experiences and understandings, through sharing an insight with someone when it appears, even though I might not understand it (and it sounds so crazy I think they're going to get mad at me), and through asking questions that help others discover the brilliance that I am seeing in them. I can express it through painting. I can express it through EFT and other types of energy work. I can best hear and express it one on one, in small groups, or in the case of my art and writing- often when I am alone. I have trouble with large groups. Lots of transitions and places to be every day are hard for me. Nature is wonderful and soothing.
The internet is wonderful for those of us who are easily exhausted by too much interaction with others. We can read when we feel led, write something that many people can read without us having to repeat it a billion times, be social while also being safe in our beds in our jammies with our pets and/or kids nearby. We can be brave and share the most tender, vulnerable, beautiful parts of us while being grounded in a physical place that feels safe. Or if we're not in a nurturing physical place, we can find a virtual place to visit in spirit. We can learn to say things we wouldn't dare utter aloud. Yet. We can discover amazing parts of us that feel too raw to reveal in the real world. I have been blessed by a few such places in my own journey to where I am now. And I have been nudged and pushed and shoved and dragged and repeatedly bonked with a cosmic 2 x 4 to create another such space for the next phase of my journey. And so here it is! I am so honored that you are here with me. We have some pretty amazing things ahead of us. I can't wait to travel there together. :)
