It’s already snowed so much. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t cleaned the picnic table of splattered orange berries dropped by the magpies. I never had time to rake the leaves and the city never had time to come pick them up. I hadn’t harvested my parsley, nor my chives. But the sage - losing the sage under a sudden foot of snow was the biggest loss. It means no roasted pumpkin with fried sage this season, which is nearly the whole reason I tend it every summer.
The kid next door came to shovel for me last week; he did give it a good college try. He pushed my shovel down the center of our painfully long sidewalk to create one narrow channel of passage. Every day since then, I’ve felt uncomfortable. I knew the sidewalk was at least three shovel-widths, but no one could tell under all that snow. We got another foot on top of the first foot, and I kept to the narrow path.
When you’ve been in a destructive relationship or been under an abusive faith leader, parent, or boss, you know to stick to the safest path possible; it minimizes the suffering in the short-term if you always know where the edges are, and you never step over them. You know how cramped the corridors feel. You know you walk single-file and solitary through them. You know anger is not allowed. Ever.
If you haven’t ever angry-shoveled, then you are missing out on a type of therapy readily accessible to those of us living in the mountains. Tonight, I felt anger bubbling up. I tried to name why, throw some reason around it. But for me, anger is usually a signal the scale has finally tipped after countless little things have been silently added to the load. So I stopped trying to wrap it up in understanding, and instead let the anger move and breathe and do its work.
And the path needed widening. Moving the body is one way to dissipate stored trauma. In a biological sense, “trauma” is simply stored energy from a time or event that your physical self is still trying to reconcile. There are many ways to release this energy - shaking, crying, laughing, movement - even yawning is one way the body tries to release. But you won’t release stored trauma living deep in your nervous system until your body decides it’s safe to let it go.
I’ve navigated so many suffocating paths, holding my shoulders up and my jaw tight, trying so hard not to slip. Releasing some of this stored energy has been a part of my work for a couple of years now (see below for resources). I have gotten to know the signs of my own hypervigilance, the feeling of tensing, of tiptoeing, of people-pleasing, of self-abandonment, of silencing my inner-knowing for the sake of relational safety. All these are narrow paths I’ve walked, and still encounter from time to time.
Rewiring my nervous system is about constantly rerouting, changing course, pushing out into wild terrain and locking arms with people who champion my healing.
Tonight, I put on my quilted down mittens and knee-length coat, my burgundy beanie, and olive snow boots. Raw and rhythmic, I let the energy of my anger scoop fantastic bricks of snow up and off the path. Scoop, heave, step. Scoop, heave, step. The scoop was loudly grating and satisfying as I watched the concrete reappear in crisp rectangles. My anger was the only sound on the street.
I shoveled only half the sidewalk before I had to sit on the porch, coughing from the cold air, my asthma pricking. Something sharp pinched beneath my right shoulder blade. And at that moment, it started to snow. I looked straight up like they do in the movies and realized it’s quite hard to catch the flakes on your tongue when they are pelting your eyes the whole time.
Everyone knows you don’t shovel while it’s snowing. But my anger still needed to be heard. I hacked at the second length of our walk, despite the deepening pinch behind my right shoulder blade and despite the cough and the snowfall mocking my work. Soon, the path was three times wider. Not just for me; for everyone.
That’s the real work, the real reason we must push outward when the way ahead feels narrow and choking, whether in relationships, in faith circles, in politics. We work until it hurts because my liberation is tied to yours. We make sure we have space to walk two and three abreast, we keep showing up for ourselves and for each other, and we taste the miniature miracles floating all around.
dive into this.
For more information on nervous system retraining and trauma release, click here, or visit @sarahjacksoncoaching on Instagram. Jessica’s @repairing_the_nervous_system is another account I’ve learned from. For some not-so-light reading, I’d recommend the book The Body Keeps the Score. Books I’ve heard great things about (and will read) include The Wisdom of Your Body and When the Body Says No, the latter of which says a common thread among breast cancer patients is a history of suppressed anger. If you’re new here, that diagnosis became a part of my story last year, and this correlation makes a lot of (terrifying) sense.
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make this.
Smoky Sweet Potato Soup (with a kick)
Easiest and yummiest fall soup alert. Honestly, I’m not sure I haven’t shared this gem of a recipe before, but if I did, most likely, you weren’t subscribed yet or didn’t make it, and everyone deserves a second chance.
One bonus about this recipe is that though it is a pureed soup, there is no cream or dairy in it. Except, surprise! I always add some. But the point is you don’t have to, and the original doesn’t call for it. My personal philosophy is that adding cream is always a great idea, so if you agree, then add about 1/4 C (or more, go crazy) of heavy cream or even half and half at the very, very end.
The only sad thing about this recipe is that you end up with an open can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce that I always end up throwing out, so maybe double the recipe, maximize those spicy babies, and freeze the extra soup for cold winter nights. Omit the chiles if you don’t want it to have a kick.
Ingredients
3 T olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 leeks, white & light green parts only, thinly sliced and rinsed
1 green apple, cored, peeled and cut into chunks
2 stalks celery, sliced thinly
1 tsp fresh ginger
2 lbs orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (or yams) peeled and cut into 1” cubes
4 C chicken stock
1 sizeable chipotle chile in adobo sauce, diced
salt & pepper
Toppings: salted pepitas, swirl of cream or sour cream, chopped cilantro or parsley
Step 1: Heat the oil and cook down the garlic and leek until soft, about 4 min. Add apple, celery, and ginger, and cook for 3 more minutes.
Step 2: Add sweet potatoes and stock, and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 min. Add diced chile.
Step 3. Using an immersion blender (or moving the soup to a regular blender in batches) puree until completely smooth. Season with salt and pepper.
Step 4: Stir in 1/4 C cream or more, if using, or to cut the spiciness, and serve with suggested toppings above.
Enjoy!
I hope you’ve gotten a tidbit of goodness from Small Affairs today. My primary aim is to share my own story of becoming myself, mess and all, and remind you in every single issue that you are not alone. You are adored. You are enough.
You are the Beloved.
-Leslie
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Jogging was my desperate attempt at releasing the energy. Thank you for putting into words what my body knew before my brain could reconcile it. ❤️🩹
Yes to the anger needing to release! I have a particularly vivid memory of *needing* to go hack at the stump in our backyard (we set it up for this purpose) with a hatchet... while 8 months pregnant 🥴Yea, I visited the chiropractor the next day. It was still worth it. Anything to let the anger out of the body. There’s also a fair amount of research connecting anger & struck adrenaline with pain syndromes like fibromyalgia. Oddly enough my pain only comes back when I am very triggered and there’s no escape for that energy.