Wounded VS WoundED?

Friends,

Hmmm, that's interesting.... Okay, as I type that word FRIENDS there is a sense of warm and gentle happy that bubbles up through my belly and softly tugs at the corner of my eyes, elevating my cheeks into a little eye smile....hello crows feet.

This week my friends, it has been a doozey! I haven't completed the 2nd module in my Peace with Food and Soul because I had to take a step back. I had to FEEL some stuff that bubbled on up.

The simple phrase that tugged me was a lesson about how Metabolism is more than the sum of calories and energy.... but the sum of that AND our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It got me thinking, feeling and experiencing quite a lot.

Some of you know I toyed with writing a book.... I started it, and stopped. I started again and stopped. I picked it back up and came face to face with memory, idea, feeling after memory, idea, feeling and sometimes it would be way too much to confront.

I would write and then as if a wound would rip open with the sound of my keyboard I would stitch it back up with each step I took walking away from the document.  I would wait until that wound, which would eventually scab over stopped itching.

What seemed to lend well to the scabbing was being too busy to feel... if I filled up my time with gratitude, chores, projects, prayer, ministry, fun, exercise, even obsessing about perfection in any other area I thought I felt better and was "over it"....It has been more than a year since I typed a single word. Here is the thing, I am still avoiding it because I know what is written there, and opening it means that I have to see it again which means, I am NOT over it, which means I have failed. Or so I thought.

In my head, I hear my old therapist's voice in response to my question to her, "Will I ever be able to truly help anyone else heal from similar pain?" At the time I was studying to be a clinician. It was good recommendation to seek a therapist of my own to explore and learn...

She said, "You can help people well if you are wound-ED, but not still walking around with your open wounds unhealed."

I think that there is a wisdom in her guidance. Something like putting on your own oxygen mask....and I believe that there is more behind what she was trying to impart on me that I may not yet fully understand.

Unfortunately, I took it to mean that as long as I am hurting, as long as it still feels raw, I can't really help..... so that is why clicking on the document feels like an impossible task. Here is what I am beginning to learn from this week.... The story I thought I was trying to share isn't the story I am meant to share right now.... It doesn't mean that story won't get told but it does mean that I think I am called to share something different. I also feel that to some extent, there are certain wounds that probably never really heal completely and that is part of the experience I have been allowed to live.

Last week after I hit "PUBLISH" I thought, Oh man....I don't know what I was thinking! How tone deaf in the middle of this pandemic to share something so silly! How stupid to put all that out there when there are people really suffering and who cares anyway? I was embarrassed. I posted the blog and all my ugly feelings in the Peace with Food and Soul Community Facebook group and even found myself tempted to delete it....

This week I had all kinds of crazy doubts and feelings and self-loathing.... I thought, what have I done? Cass, you are a walking trigger with no warning. What if some poor soul accidentally reads the crazy you just put out on the interwebs, someone who has done great work and finally rewrote THEIR ugly in-head recording and there you go smathering it all over their hard work??

But you know what happened??? I was THANKED! Two women told me that what I wrote, gave voice to their own pain.... MY pain and THEIR pain know each other.

What I got was COMPASSION..... And that is why typing the word FRIEND at the beginning felt so wonderful....

It is LENT and as we approach this last week we approach the intense suffering, the passion of our Lord, Jesus. Compassion means to share in the passion the intense pain of another. I was met with love, encouragement and found connection, belonging with a group of ladies; many of whom I have never and may never meet. One of them reminded me of this:

What quarantine has done for me, not leaving has meant that there really isn't anywhere to GO running from my feelings. And boy have I been FEELING the feels!

I wept, hard.... I mean ugly, snot, body wrecking sobbing reading about the PEOPLE behind the losses, the suffering, and the saving during this epidemic.

 I cried for and with them.

I cried because I was embarrassed. At the beginning of this COVID-19 thing I totally acted like this was no big deal....


I balled because there are assholes out there, sneaking out to bang their girlfriends in quarantine zones and having parties and in their ignorance could kill someone....

I cried because someone we know and love has been confirmed to have it and that means that the rest of those loved ones are waiting to see if they too are carrying this virus.

I cried because I have seen leaders make reckless decisions that endanger my everything while acting like putting Purel in the common area is good enough and demonstrates real concern.

I cried because I am worried. I laughed so hard my face hurt on several occasions reading messages from friends and goofing off with my boys.

I smiled and raged, I sat in silence and I made noise. I experienced this week. I missed my friends, and I soaked up the time with my kids. I heard the birds and soaked up the beauty of the native flowers... I felt the sun on my face and LIVED.

I still LOVE laughing at the memes, and joking around but we also take time every day at 3pm to pray the Divine Mercy for every soul afflicted.

So this week I think what I have learned is that it really isn't a matter of being wounded versus woundED. It is what I often say about other things....

Yes, AND.

That's one of my catch phrases :) You are welcome.


Being real, open, authentic, imperfect and honest are enough.

Last week, this was confirmed when I read my email titled "How Do You Become Cool?" from Andy Frisella. I thought, yeah man! I wanna be SO cool.... Tell me brother, what's the what on how Cass can rock Cassdom.... You can read his post at his website 

It boils down to knowing myself, focusing on being BETTER, not just for myself but for others...not wasting energy obsessing about stuff that I can't change or that really doesn't matter or isn't attainable and doing it all in a way that is real, not filtered... not faked.

Believing that I have worth, I BELONG and I am a part of something that matters (Maslow anyone?) and having a positive impact on others is cool. His post also talks about knowing and believing in yourself.

Yes, AND. Yes, I have be woundED. AND I have open ugly wounds. Who doesn't? My wounds can be filled with gold.

I haven't lost any of the physical weight that I carry, but I think in tears alone I lost a pretty fair amount. So I am not going to go back to that book that I was originally writing... yet....instead I am going to be telling a different story. I didn't fail. I am going to pause a little sometimes, but what I now KNOW is that even though some haters gonna hate, I am not alone and I can work my way out of being one of my own haters. This week in my "New Thing" I focus on starting to forgive and even....wait for it....like myself.

I thought that because a major part of what I was feeling was negative that I either wouldn't matter at all or worse, that I would have a negative impact on others.... I was believing that if anyone reads this I would be wasting their time... that I would be doing harm.... and that would be the sum of who I am.

To culminate the week I logged into Life Teen to participate in the global Life Night on the Theological Virtue of HOPE. Not a coincidence. I hope in much for what my life will hold and I get to have that hope because I have been gifted with so much goodness in my life. I am not just a jumble of wounds and ick.....

The TRUTH about being Cass, and about all of this is that there is way more to it than that. I am real. I am me. I am wounded, but I am also strong, even boasting some beautiful scars. I am loved. I feel, and I am not alone.

I pray that this quarantine is a time of growth, exploration, cool and health for you.

Until next week, friend.