Being cared for

The world likes pain it can see and justify.

Broken bones, hospital beds, death of loved ones...

If you say you’re in so much pain and there’s something visible to point to, it makes sense to people. They believe you.

But when the pain is internal, when it’s relational, emotional, invisible, it’s can be dismissed all to easily.

By others, but even by ourselves.

As if pain only counts when it leaves bruises.

There’s a quiet hierarchy we absorb.

Physical pain sits at the top.

But the slow, grinding pain of not feeling fully welcome…

of having to perform to belong…

of shrinking yourself to keep connection…

That gets ranked lower.

So we minimize the pain ourselves, unaware we are the frog in the slowly boiling water.

Meanwhile, we’re crying. Hypervigilant.

Exhausted.

Living in what feels like the hospital bed of our own minds.

In pain.

And because no one can see the fracture, the expectation can become:

Stand up and walk.

If you’ve felt this kind of pain, you know how absurd that is.

Years ago, when I was living in Spain, I went through one of my first real depressions.

The kind where you stay in bed for days in the dark.

Heavy. Flat. Stuck.

I didn’t want to call anyone I knew. I didnt want to burden anyone. And I also didn’t want anyone I knew to know. Not the healthiest belief, but the one occurring.

So one day, my craving to be cared peaked. I went out and sat in a public place and cried.

Not hard, but not shyly either.

Not but 10 minutes in, a woman of my own heart approached. I don’t remember her exact words, but it was gentle.

Something like:

“Are you okay?”

“Can I sit here?”

“Would it help if I put my arm around you?”

And I just nodded. And cried.

Yes. Please.

She sat with me for a good while, her arm around me, comforting me with arms and energy.

No fixing.

No interrogation.

No agenda.

Just quiet care.

It was incredibly relieving. I absolutely felt better after. Not healed of course, but better.

Sometimes what hurts most isn’t that life is painful.

It’s that there’s nowhere to go with the pain without needing to perform or pretend or conform.

Oxytocin Bathing is a place and where you don’t need to be upbeat or hold it together or be quiet or make sense.

You can come as you are.

And be met there.

Sending you a big bear hug!

-Becky