Walking through The Threshold

Unexpectedly beautiful lessons from Jessy Easton's The Threshold Cohort

For the past four weeks, I’ve been part of a somatic writing workshop called The Threshold, facilitated by Jessy Easton, the beloved author of the memoir, “The One Who Leaves.” It was not a decision I made with my head. In fact, my head really resisted. As my fingers hovered over the registration button, my inner voice warned, “What if you don’t belong? You’re probably not ready.” I almost closed the tab, but somehow, my heart’s thrum drowned out those voices. It was like something inside me was pulling me towards the doorway, beckoning me to walk through it.

I couldn’t have asked for a more loving, gentle, supportive passage through The Threshold. I remember logging into the first Zoom session with tightness in my belly and shoulders, and what felt like an ill-fitting headband dipped in cold water, squeezing my temples. I was scared, and my body was letting me know. When I saw the smiling faces of my fellow cohort members, though, my entire nervous system chilled out. I could already sense this was a space to name what we were arriving with: fear? physical symptoms? Shame? Guilt? Grief?

I arrived with one of my oldest and deepest insecurities, the question that has haunted me since I was ten years old: Am I enough? Even now, it makes my chest tighten, because that question wraps so many others inside it — Why was it so important to look perfect, be perfect, act perfect? Why couldn’t I have been stronger or braver and asked the questions that festered and rotted inside of me for decades? Why couldn’t I stop the relapses, fix the financial collapse, make it all stop?

And then, everything shifted: I crossed a boundary from fear into the possibility of healing. This was the transformative part for me - I was given the space to answer those questions, honestly and with loving reflection. No one else talked about our problems. Other families seemed perfect. I didn’t want to be different. I didn’t want to embarrass my family or myself. I didn’t know how.

Jessy taught us the difference between remembering and reliving. It’s an important difference when doing this work. She kept us safe. She made sure the story stayed in front of us, not inside us, and always grounded us in the present, with both the witnessing self and the survival self. The survival self was never alone. I never left Little JoAnn alone. That was important to me.

I learned that pretending and modeling gave me a sense of safety, security, and control. In reality, though, it was rooted in shame. It defined my boundaries for a long, long time. It gave my inner voice the lead role. It told me to be quiet; to be vigilant. It told me it wasn’t so bad, that I was okay, and I was being a baby about it. It told me no one will care anyway and that I will just be a burden if I ask questions.

Ultimately, there was so much fear, I was drowning in it, and as I shared this, I realized I was not alone. Fear is THE thing that keeps us from writing our story. And it runs deep. When you sit with it and really listen to what the fear is speaking to, it’s pretty harsh, to be honest. I’m afraid of being judged, making people mad, and looking pitiful. I’m afraid my story will sound like an “oh, poor me” saga. I’m afraid of looking weak or needy. I’m afraid of expressing all the things I struggled so hard to keep hidden all these years. I’m afraid of being defined by them.

Like shame, fear sets a boundary, too. It was a shield, keeping me safe from being laughed at, judged or dismissed. That’s how it felt - safer to let it control me than to let the light in and expose the reality of my imperfections. That’s the thing about fear — it keeps us from finding wholeness, healing and reclaiming our sense of selves. Fear is a thief.

Oh…I can’t help but cry for my little self. I cry for all the worries she carried. I cry for all that she didn’t understand and all that she kept tucked inside her heart.

Then, the most beautiful thing happened when Jessy asked us to finish this sentence, “if fear didn’t have to work so hard, it might allow me to…” My pen started writing before my brain registered the movement. I wrote, “give less fucks what others think of me. Be proud of myself. Inhabit my body fully. Be free.” I continued writing for the time we were given, and the words flew out of me, as if pulled by an external force. My handwriting got so messy that I couldn’t even decipher the words after a while. It was clear, I wanted to be a version of myself I’ve always been, but just couldn’t acknowledge. She’s always been with me as my shadow, and I wanted to let her step into the light.

Wrapped around all these lessons and prompts was a somatic writing practice that changed how I show up for myself each day. I used to just sit down and try to push words from my body to the page. Sometimes, I’d just wait (and wait and wait) for them to surface. Sometimes, I honestly just couldn’t find my way to the page at all, and it felt easier to turn my back on all that I kept locked inside.

Over the four-weeks of the Threshold workshop, I learned how to ground myself, how to enter my memories in a supported way, how to remain present enough to keep the story in front of me, how to set boundaries and, the big missing piece for me, how to close my writing session so it doesn’t linger with me all day.

The last part about closing my writing session was a powerful shift for me. I didn’t know I had the choice - or ability for that matter - to tell my body I was done with the story for the day, so I could shift back to my present self and carry on. Now, instead of letting the stories stick to me all day, I know how to close my writing session so those emotions don’t linger. The difference is subtle but powerful: I used to be swept away by what surfaced, and now, I can gently hold the story and then return to myself.

Jessy explained the writing practice as a Ritual, and everything centers around it. It’s the vessel that makes the devotion to write hard stories possible. Ritual allows us to find a gentle invitation into our writing and, when finished, to come back to the present moment. It’s intentionally simple and feels like a mom’s hug to my nervous system.

Here’s the interesting thing: I’m an emotive writer. I feel all the feels, and I manage to get them onto the page. But it’s hard on me physically and psychologically most days. My writing practice has been a full-body, full-contact sport, and I leave the field with bruises, sprained ankles and cracked ribs. I limp through the rest of the day, put some ice on the injuries and get back at it the next day. It’s not that I didn’t know how to write the hard stories. I didn’t know how to write them in a way that honors my whole self.

Walking through The Threshold over the past four weeks, hand in hand with Jessy and the other beautiful souls who journeyed with me, gave me the tools to do so. Incorporating somatic practices into my writing helps me go deeper. It’s like this permission slip from the universe that says, “You can do this. You can feel all the things, write all the stories, and be kind to yourself.” [Side note: the butterfly hug is my favorite. It reminds me of my mom, and I use that even when I’m not writing - just sayin’].

This is just the beginning, and I’m so damn grateful that my heart led me to this portal. To all the writers out there, be kind to yourself, pay attention to what your body is telling you, hug your younger self and tell them my adapted version of a quote by Atticus, “dare to believe the whisper in your ear (hi, that’s me) that you are special, that you are meaningful, that one day you will change the world with your stories.” Thank you Jessy Easton for your beautiful and generous offering.

Yours till butter flies,

Jo