Self-Compassion: How I Freed Myself From Chronic Insomnia and the Anxiety That Caused It
Most of us have been sleep deprived at one point or another; perhaps due to a new baby, a stressful job, or a big test. Usually, this period passes....
Dear Raziel,
In 2020, I found out I was pregnant. I was thinking about the small life inside me while I was considering the bigness of life all around me. The world was shutting down due to the pandemic, but my mind was opening up in amazing new ways. I dedicated myself to asking deep questions and searching for their answers like, What is our purpose as human beings? Who protects us? Who are we supposed to be protecting?
These questions led me to reading stories of ethereal beings, and I found your namesake then, Raziel. Your name belongs to the Angel of Secrets, who understands the mysteries of the Universe and sees its beauty in a way that others can’t.
Now you are a pretty, round-cheeked toddler, and I spend my days chasing you and trying to keep you from hurting yourself. I think about your grandma Gam Gam chasing after me when I was little. Times were different then, and what she wanted for me was pretty simple: safety and enough money.
Gam Gam’s desires for me are still simple. She wants me to have money but not become materialistic. She wants me to go through life with a partner. She wants me to come to her when I really need her. And her desires make sense. After all, when she was a young mom, survival was the name of the game.
But now, little Razi, we are moving beyond survival.
When I was a little girl, I noticed things that other people didn’t seem to. I remember being just seven years old, watching my friend cry and wondering why she didn’t go home and talk to her momma. It looked to me like she needed to hide her tears and sadness. I noticed when people were sad, stressed, and discontent — and I absorbed those feelings. Gam Gam said I was nosy, but I think I was an investigator of emotions.
I hope you, too, will be an investigator striving to understand how other people function. That kind of awareness about others will help you move through the world with grace and strength. But you can’t understand how others function if you don’t have the opportunity and support to understand yourself. Here, then, little one is what I am committed to offering you — 10 now-and-forever truths to hold in your heart.
My great hope is that you will embody these truths and pass them on. I realize, though, that these things that are true for you must also be true for me. Gam Gam may not be able to give me the words I want to hear, but I can offer them to myself.
- Char Buggs
You and I, little Razi, are here to move beyond survival, into investigation, into the beauty of understanding others — and understanding ourselves.
I love you.
Momma
Article authored by
Char was born and raised in Southern California. Her early passion for music helped her discover its healing properties — and motivated her to find a way to leave the world a better place than she found it. Supported by her fiancé and her daughter, Char is currently finishing her Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy.
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