Healing Our Wounded Selves

BY: MEGAN FEBUARY

I keep having the same dream that my childhood dollhouse is a war camp. Upstairs, the warm smell of coffee and family portraits hang slightly crooked and grin. I wonder by staring at them long enough will their mouths begin to move and tell stories our family silently vowed never to talk about? Below, white halls stretch long and narrow with tall doors and latched windows. They beg me to come inside. I kick the doors in with a fury, splinters, metals, and locks flying. In truth, I am stronger then I know. Inside one room there are mattresses lining the floor, each has white sheets hiding figures so still you wonder if they could be human. One by one, I pull the sheets off exposing who is hidden. They are all wounded children. Their mouths open as if screaming, but no sound escaping their lips. 

I wake up with the same expression, mouth wide, but no noise, not even a peep. I can see now- I am the advocate breaking down the doors, pulling the sheets off, discovering the wounded; but I am also the ones being found, the broken, bleeding, and voiceless children. 

If you are a storyteller then you are an advocate. 

What doors have you been called to breakdown in your own life? What story will you advocate for? In truth, there are wounded children in all of us that need to be loved back to life. What these wounds look like is unique to each person - maybe it was a chronic criticism that made your heart break on a regular basis, maybe it was the absence of a parent, albeit neglect or affection, or maybe it the shutter of physical violation, causing your body to feel unsafe and the world unpredictable. Whatever story/stories it is, your work as a storyteller will be in leading each of these children out of the shadows into the light. 

This is the way of wholeness and embodiment. In trauma, our mind splits hard experiences up in a way that we can contain. Like the dream, these fragmented stories are put behind doors until we are ready to face them again. Our body is the holding space of these wounded parts of ourselves, a sacred tomb awaiting resurrection. 

Megan Febuary is the Editor-in-Chief of For Women Who Roar. As a trauma survivor, Megan found words, movement, and art to be a crucial part of her healing process, and wanted to extend that platform to many other women who have a story to roar as well. She has facilitated women's writing and poetry groups, as well as yoga workshops focused on embodiment and trauma recovery. She is currently finishing her first book of poetry to be released in early Fall 2018.

IG: @meganfebuary

FB: @meganfebuary