Lamentto

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope”

[soultrajectory]

First year, done.

It’s over. My first and foundational year of MFT school is done. Internship is in line, and a summer to prepare for it by digesting all that has been revealed to me and revamping my lifestyle awaits.

How would I summarize this year?... is the million-dollar question. I think back with my now cleared up headspace and wonder why I suffered so much. Then I imagine how my first day of internship and the inner commotion starts to feel familiar.

But I am proud of myself. I did the best I could— not perfectly nor up to par with how I wish I could have gotten through the year. But I know much has shifted in me: I grew from this year, precious seeds that is bearing fruit as I speak have been sowed in me, and I’m just proud of who I’ve become. All the anxiety that I did, in fact, overcome. All the emotional chaos that I made through. It feels like I went through a fire and I made it out the other side, to a still. I made it through. I’m proud of the parts of me that have been transformed, albeit painfully. Maybe masochism really is the way to get through life lol.

I look forward to coming out of this summer with a more confident self, not a new one.

I’m not going to work myself up to perfection this summer, i’m not going to idealize the kind of perfect person that I want to be so that I can feel confident about internship. I plan to embrace myself this summer so that I can embrace my shortcomings that will inevitably come up in internship, as well as my personal life. This is the new mentality: I’m not going to seek a new self, a 180 change, fulfill my “should”s, but improve who I am. Be myself.

I hope to

Become more assertive

Be attuned to my needs IN the moment

Stay humble

Grow in faith

[soultrajectory]

“Sit with me in silence.”

It was about 8 sessions in, and I was challenged to write my trauma narrative for the first time in my life. I’ve explored my trauma plenty over the years, but my therapist challenged me to explore further because I was still living with unknown triggers & uncontrolled trigger responses from my trauma.

But right before I started to write, I crashed. I went into survival mode where I isolated + insulated, and emotionally shut down. I even ran away from God because the pain was too overwhelming to face.

In the midst of this crash, through friends’ prayers and God’s mercy and grace, I crawled back to him. I discovered a new song to sing, verses that restored my soul, and a desire for his intimacy again. But the way God met me this time was different from the way God had met me in the past— I heard nothing from Him. I heard nothing in my night time prayer, and I felt nothing. All I knew was that he was with me then, and the next day, I was still where I was, heavy-hearted and in pain.

So I spent the rest of the week confused... What was that for? Why did you bring me back into Your presence, God, only to be met with silence? No epiphany... no new insight or truth to set me free from my pain... no renewed motivation or strength to press on... I was still in the same spot except God was sitting with me.

Then during today’s virtual therapy trauma group, one of the facilitators spoke on the story of Tamar’s rape by her half-brother Amnon (2 Samuel 13). By the end of the meeting she said,

“What Tamar needed was for her other brother Absalon to sit with her in silence instead of silencing her. Often victims of abuse are left to suffer in silence alone.”

And it hit me: God sat with me in silence because no one else had. God is recreating my narrative with him in it. He isn’t propelling me forward on my healing journey or turning my sorrow into joy. I am in pain in this moment and God is showing me that he can and wants to be with me in my pain. He doesn’t just want to meet me— he wants to sit with me in it. Perhaps this is the kind of friend that we all need for our traumatic wounds. A friend that will simply sit with us when we relive the pain of our trauma.

The journey to healing from trauma has different phases. Sometimes we need people to cry for us and people to cry with us. But sometimes we need people to sit with us. We don’t need to be restored just yet. What we need is to just be with.

God sat with me in my pain as I relived my trauma narrative so that this time, I don’t suffer alone.

[soultrajectory]

Purpose

A graduate school interviewer summed up my story in these words, and I have not seen my purpose the same since:

“You’re on a soul trajectory— a caring of the souls.”

I received the call to be a counselor when I was twelve years old. I attended multiple graduate programs for mental health counseling until I finally decided to pursue marriage and family therapy. I am currently working towards licensure.

Connection

Lamentto hints at many things. Primarily, it’s an abbreviation of lamentations three twenty one (Lam 3:21). The verse is about remembering to have hope in God. So while the title has a connotation of sorrow, its message is a hopeful one.

It can also be read as lament to, which also reflects the essence of this tumblr page: I lament to my Father in heaven, but I lament with anyone who connects with me.

Growth

I created this page to share the behind-the-scenes of a therapist in the making.

Throughout my ongoing education and experience, I have been gaining life-changing insight on relationships (with family, lovers, friends, myself, my emotions, my body, society and culture). And I believe insight is invaluable for growth and is in its richest form when it’s shared.

I don’t believe you need credentials next to your name or an extensive resumé to pass on insight. I believe that one’s journey is enough credibility.

This isn’t therapy.

This is a therapist in-the-making caring for any soul that makes its way to this page by resourcing education at no cost except my own personal, hard, heart work. From my sharing, I hope that some of your relationships will begin to be restored.