organizedbabble

[organizedbabble]

Trauma Thoughts: Unedited

I am not fully healed from the trauma I endured. (And why should I be?) Or perhaps I should say, I have not been freed from the effects of my trauma. I kind of hate saying “my trauma”. Why is it mine? Why do I have to hold it? I didn’t want it to be mine. I don’t want it to be mine. I don’t have flashbacks and shake and cry and have debilitating body memories….well, not as much as when I was in…

[organizedbabble]

Solstice 2020

I’ve posted about the Winter Solstice almost every single year. It has always brought me great comfort. Yes, it means we head into the winter, which for many people represents cold and darkness. But actually, this Solstice is a turn toward light. December 21 is the shortest, darkest day of the year. But the next day, and the next, and the next, we begin gaining minutes of light every single day.…

[organizedbabble]

Reaching Out 101

How many of us desperately want to connect, want to have a sit-down serious conversation with someone, want to talk about our fears and hopes and worries and secrets and stories, but we just don’t know how?

Once we’re in the environment, our mouth and our hearts open and we talk. But initiating can make us feel anxious, unworthy, shy, tongue-tied, or all other things.

So, if you are sitting there…

[organizedbabble]

On (not) loving your body

On (not) loving your body

I have had several conversations about bodies and body love (or lack thereof) lately, which usually means it’s somewhere out there in the collective consciousness of the world, which means we have to talk about it and address it so people aren’t just dealing with it alone.

Many, many people struggle with body image. That’s a broad statement. It could include anything from body dislike, disordered…

[organizedbabble]

Daily Babbles: 9/20

Thoughts that floated through my brain today:

I no longer habitually put people on a pedestal; but sometimes I’ll get butterflies in my stomach before I meet with someone, or read and re-read an email I’m about to send to someone, and I realize it’s happening without me even realizing it.

There is so much I learned in high school or college classes that I don’t know anymore and that’s so sad.

I…

[organizedbabble]

Daily babbles: 9/18

Sometimes I think if I don’t write I’m going to explode. Or implode.

I’ve felt like that for a while.

I don’t have time to write anything, let alone profoundly string together carefully-edited words with the intention of reaching and moving many people.

So I haven’t written.

But I just….times are hard. Everything is hard. And when I write I feel the black tar crap stuck inside of me shaking loose…

[organizedbabble]

Stream of consciousness

No edits, no beautifully-crafted blog post, just honest snippets of thoughts as they are:

—

I am having a hard time. Everyone’s having a hard time. I am not unique and yet I am. Everyone’s circumstances are different and yet everyone’s circumstances are the same.

—

I go through periods of positivity and gratitude and periods of deep despair and anxiety. Sometimes within a day or even an hour. I…

[organizedbabble]

The Story

The doctor looked at me. “I know this isn’t what you want, but I can’t watch this anymore. Your baby is telling us she needs to come out. Now.”

I burst into tears.

Pregnancy was not something I enjoyed. And I have a lot of sadness and guilt about that. But while I loved that I WAS pregnant, I hated actually physically being pregnant. I muddled my way through, despite the pain that made walking,…

[organizedbabble]

Daily Gratitude

If you follow me on Instagram (@jenkracoff) you know that for about a month now, most nights I have posted a “Daily Gratitude” in my IG Story.

Here’s the backstory.

A few months ago, my friend Heather who had some less-than-ideal health circumstances began sharing a few things each night that she was grateful for. At first I kind of ignored it, because “gratitude” is such a woo-woo buzz word. But…

[organizedbabble]

A list

Things I didn’t know when Maya was a newborn that I knew with Maggie (in no particular order or importance):

I can survive even when I’m exhausted. I am superwoman.

There are other ways to soothe first before nursing every time she fusses at night

If she cries for a minute, she’s okay

Other people can hold her or do things for her and she’ll be okay

Swaddle as long as possible

Find other mothers…

[organizedbabble]

Do not be afraid

Do not be afraid

There are a lot of things about parenting that I don’t know and make up on a daily basis. But there are also a few things that I know with absolute certainty are ways in which I want to parent.

One is to do everything I can to ensure that my kids don’t grow up being afraid of their own difficult feelings, but even more so, not afraid when others have difficult feelings.

When I was in college, I…

[organizedbabble]

On healing.

You know when you’ve wrapped up a project or assignment and you’re psyched it’s all done until all of a sudden you realize you forgot to do a part of it and you freak out?

That’s how I’ve been feeling.

Glennon Doyle and Nadia Bolz-Weber talk about sharing from the scar, not the wound. This is something that took me many, many years to learn, but during the adulthood phase of my life, I’ve gotten…

[organizedbabble]

Slow, sweet summer.

I hate slowing down. I always have. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be as busy as possible. I always had a pit in my stomach on Fridays, knowing I had two full weekend days that were going to be slower and more relaxed, without work/school/schedules to keep me busy and occupied. For 9 summers I finished the school year, had one week off, worked full time all summer, and one week…

[organizedbabble]

Lightly while deeply

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into…

[organizedbabble]

Just one little thing

Just one little thing

If you’ve interacted with me at all in the past year or two, you know that I don’t have a lot of hope for our world. Well, mostly for our country. That’s a whole post in and of itself (that I actually wrote months ago but haven’t posted yet).

There’s just so much bad, so much danger, so much hatred, and while I’m aware there are amazing, miraculous, love-filled things happening each day, it…

[organizedbabble]

Those special moments

I haven’t watched Law and Order SVU in years, but the other night when my husband was out and the little one was sleeping, and I miraculously had nothing else to do, I put on some newer episodes I hadn’t seen.

In college, this show was everything to me. Having not spoken about all that I had gone through yet (except for one person briefly, and only about one of the incidents), Olivia Benson was…

[organizedbabble]

Feeling person. Messy world.

Feeling person. Messy world.

Here is a question that popped into my brain the other day:

Is there a difference between depression and being highly-sensitive?

If it causal? Can a person be depressed due to being highly-sensitive?

Does it matter?

If you know me in the slightest, you know that I’m a highly-sensitive person. This means a variety of things: I feel things stronger than most people, I’m affected by things that most…