Tough Girl | Party Girl | Good Girl: A Woman’s Response to Trauma
The Tough Girl. The Party Girl. The Good Girl.[1] We all know one – the second cousin who is as tough as nails, the colleague who can’t keep herself away from a crowd and the bottle, a sister who has always been the saint. We all are one [to one degree or another]. Whether our story is one of little “t” trauma or big “T” Trauma, we live in a world that is definitively bent. It is only a matter of time before we encounter “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.”[2] The hopeful reality is that we don’t have to stay stuck in or be defined by our story.
Depending on how we are wired and the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we navigate our way to one of these personas. We hide. We do what it takes to survive. Self, others, relationships, and the world begin to be filtered by our façade until self and mask enmesh, and the two become one.
Then we grow up. And one crisply bleak morning, we awaken and realize we have spent our entire life surviving. Somewhere, somehow life has become something that happens to us rather than a story we enter into. Damn.
Yet, perhaps the moment we name the reality that we’ve been among the walking dead is the very same moment we truly begin to live. We realize the shadows of our story’s past are not the end. There is more to the story. All these years we’ve been stuck on page three or four, utterly unaware of chapters two, seven, ten, and ninty-two waiting to be written. Our lives are nothing short of treasured novels in the midst of a deeper, much larger story, unfolding moment upon moment.
And so, to my Tough Girl sisters, may you discover Love that cannot harm, even if He wanted to (which he doesn’t). To my Party Girl sisters, there is Love that fills, and cleanses, He is a true Gentleman. And to my Good Girl sisters, may you journey to a place of encountering Love who cherishes you (not what you do). May we, moment upon moment, turn our face to the face of Love and receive all we need to begin to let the mask melt.
By Kjersten Halvorsen, MA | 719.232.4132
Return to: http://KjerstenHalvorsen.com
October 24th, 2011 at 8:26 am
Hi friend,
This is beautiful. I really enjoyed reading it. Would you mind if I used it (it would need to be translated as well)?
From when I catch you on fb it seems life is going well, and that you are enjoying it. I hope that is the case =)