Soft spots
We all have our tender places that can expose past wounds; knowing them allows us to attend to them and take care of ourselves.
Each of us has our soft spots, sources of hurt that can flare up from time to time.
I’m aware of my own tender, healed over places, maybe more acutely aware than others because of my work. As I strive to be a good therapist, I have to know my own stuff, so I can keep it where it belongs. With me. If I name it for myself, it helps me attend to it, make choices to comfort myself, ask for what I need. As I work through these issues with my clients, it helps give me perspective on my own.
A soft spot is a wound that is mostly healed, but will cause pain if you push on it. It’s a bruise in the final stages of healing, now barely noticeable. It can flare up in small ways in daily life. Under intense stress, or with life transitions, they can become bleeding, open wounds. With awareness and careful tending, we can work on healing those soft spots.
One of my soft spots has its roots in my late childhood/early adolescence. My mom and I moved from our home in the outskirts of a small, college town in East Texas, to Houston for one year and then to a suburb of Denver, Colorado. My early childhood years were spent in a house on six wooded acres outside of the town, with lots of solo play time as an only child. When I was young, my mom was primarily home full-time as she worked on her PhD and taught college classes part-time. My dad, an artist and art professor at the college, spent a lot of time with me, as well. It was a quiet life with a backdrop of music, art, and nature.
The move was a complete uprooting of my life. It was a starkly different way of life in the suburbs where nature receded into the distance and I had to adjust to being on my own a lot, as well as to the loss of frequent visits with my dad and his extended family. I still miss the trees and I treasure visits with family in the woods of East Texas and that house with all its picture windows.
Soft spots often form in big life transitions such as this. I don’t judge my mom’s decision. It was tough to decide to move away from Texas as a newly single parent, after being divorced for only a couple of years. To essentially start over at the age of 40. She had a shiny new PhD in mathematics and a burgeoning career, however, and Denver provided the opportunity for financial security with a faculty position and an appealing environment in the beautiful state. She knew one friend of a friend in the west suburbs. There, she chose a nice neighborhood bordered by the foothills to be our new home, where we’d live until I became an adult.
Being the new kid in a new place where my mom was making her way as a single working parent, I had to figure out where I belonged. I went to an elementary school where most of the kids had been together since kindergarten. We lacked the camaraderie of shared experiences. My Texas accent was the subject of ridicule, which didn’t help. Socially, it felt like we were looked down upon as a “broken home.” Maybe they just didn’t know what to make of us. I felt lonely coming home to an empty home before mom got home from work, but it was the way it had to be. A soft spot formed: A tender place of left out-ness or not-belonging.
The next year, things got better. I went to junior high which was a melting pot of kids from a number of feeder schools. I connected with my peers who loved music and dance, got involved in school choir classes and musical performance, and started ice skating lessons, and ballet and jazz dance classes, which luckily were walking distance from our home. Looking back, I see how discovering and nurturing these soul-filling activities helped me feel like I had a place in the world, and helped heal over my soft spot. With that, came self-confidence, grit, and the joy of self expression. So many good things came from finding my passions and being supported in following them.
My new kid-ness felt less significant over time, as we developed a shared history. I made a few close friendships which endured throughout those years and into adulthood.
I’ve been fortunate to choose a partner who is always there for me. We’ve built a family and a circle of friends that we treasure.
One positive outcome of this facet of my life is that I learned to build friendships, community, and family. I learned to put myself out there and join a class or a club if I am craving connection. I love the song “Crowded Table,” by The Highwomen. They croon about including everyone. It’s a great motto.
Every once in a while, something brushes up against my soft spot. My over-reactivity is a sign that I need to attend to it. Seeking reassurance, clarification, or expressing a boundary helps me do that.
What are your soft spots?
Sending love and light, Amanda