Cassandra "Caz" Stark

The internet is filled with memes built around the question, “What if it all worked out?” Girl, what if it all happened for you!!!

On the verge of celebrating my 13th anniversary with my ride-or-die partner, Stark, I am noticing how I am entering this season with so much gratitude, filled with awe and love rather than my previous M.O.

It used to be inevitable that I’d end up throwing a fit and walking out on Stark close to our anniversary.  But right now, I can’t remember the last time I did that.  Years.

I am grateful for how I’ve allowed the right kind of change to enter my life – the kind that is unpredictable and scary; the kind that stretches me thin and challenges me to stay true to my practice of noticing what comes up for me and why.  I’ve allowed the right kind of challenges into my life – that ones that are my choice and serve my ability for growth. And I am in speechless awe that statistically, scientifically, behaviorally, literally, emotionally, and basically in any and every way possible, Stark is here beside me through this growth.

Many people who are deeply in love refrain from growing. Many people who feel disrespected, used, and neglected refrain from changing. Why? In both cases, there’s a waiting and wanting in the form of emotional codependence that shows up as projection. Simply put, in both cases, at least one person is looking for proof from the other person that growth or change is possible.  

At BeMo, we meet our needs from within – answering the “Ya, but how?” question of how to put yourself first, comfortably and confidently.

Post-traumatic growth, rapid or radical growth, often comes from hitting a hard wall in which you feel you have absolutely no choice but to do it differently. These are the moments we may find ourselves grasping at straws – rapidly trying out new ideas to manifest what is needed in our lives while also trying out old, nostalgic people, places, and things in an effort to feel served.  

I am so incredibly lucky that the last time I hit such a distinct face-smacking wall in life, I had already built the foundations of the BeMo Journaling practice, and rather than pinball around what might be new, what might be worth it and what might be able to help me, I hunkered down and got real with myself – real quiet, real deep, and real particular about the time I was spending every night between the pages.  

I didn’t know that this would help me. I was merely trying to survive what I was going through.  In fact, even at the moment, I had no idea that the reason I had hit this big wall of having to do it differently was also a result of practicing.  Yes, you read that right. Building and utilizing The BeMo Practice is both what saved me from a face-smacking wall in life and what caused me to run into that wall and know… it was a wall. This was a moment where breakdowns became breakthroughs, and I knew I had what it takes – inside and out. I was too deep in the center of it all to really know what was manifesting for me at the moment. Only as hindsight led to insight do I realize with awe and wonder that I started to grow rapidly. Feverishly. Wildly!  Like a Phoenix, I rose as a completely new Being and soared fast and firm over any and all familiar lands. Not just gone.  Risen.

In order to do this, I let go entirely of worrying whether or not Stark would be there through it or on the other side of it. This was not something that I had ever successfully done for no more reason than I had tried.  I had tried to let go and in letting go, I felt I didn’t care and therefore, I’d swing back.  Recently, I was describing the difference between Avoidant/I don’t care/Your problem not mine behavior versus Secure behavior. I explained that they both seem the same on the surface, but at the core of a Secure response is: I’m Ok. You’re Ok. We’re Ok. *See: Footnote*

Before, I had lived in so much fear that if anything changed, it would come between us. Good things would drive a wedge! Bad things would drive a wedge! For so many years, it felt like it was inevitable that we would drift apart, and we admitted as much together – to each other and our therapist.  Our only saving grace was to slow it down with just enough indifference that it didn’t implode or explode before we were ready.

But then, much like the way I described an abrupt change when I described estrangement in this post, I simply veered left. I took a hard turn at a point where I normally would have rinsed, repeated, and recycled the same-old-same. Over the years, that rinse-repeat seemed obvious at times, but other times, it was desperate, hopeless, and not so obvious. Due to my Disorganized/Fearful Avoidant attachment style and Complex PTSD, I had a hyper-vigilance that landed on the keyword HYPER. For much of my life, I’d almost be energized by the worst things happening to me and around me, motivated to make big moves and drastic changes in a split second. But also, in that split second, I’d be playing the game of life like a 6-year-old in a classic 90s arcade mashing kick-punch-kick-punch-kick-punch HYOOOOOOGA on a Street Fighter game with controls that felt out of reach.

Not this time. This time, at the moment, it felt bitter because bitter was familiar to my psychological vernacular, and I did not yet have the words to describe how else this felt.  

When your experience with force is so often upon you, toward you, at you, around you, and smashing you to bits, it is hard, at first, to recognize when a force is propelling you instead – swinging you like a discus meant to throw you so far off your course, so far out of the ring with all the strength you can muster from years of going round-and-round in circles that you will have no idea where it is that you have landed.