Behind the woman that's learning to ask for help and set boundaries is a girl crying on the floor in the shower

I couldn't even hold myself up anymore. I turned on the shower, got in and immediately fell to my knees, facing the wall away from the water. Feeling the cold air coming in from the crack of the shower curtain on my face and shoulders, the contrasting hot water running over my back and the bottoms of my feet. At this point, I'd been crying on and off for hours, a combination of trying to "sit with it" but also analyze and redirect my thoughts. Right before I turned on the water, I texted my best friend, outsourcing something I didn't have the capacity for - asking for help. The second I hit that little blue send arrow, I crumpled.

Eventually I stood up, and had to keep leaning on the shower wall - feeling the only support I trusted in that moment despite the fact my best friend had already given me the thumbs up, her way of saying "no problem". Still, I felt alone, heavy, and weak. The last several months have been an unraveling, a deep trusting surrender to what God has shown me. I have set boundaries on things I never thought would be on my radar, mostly around my own body. Reading that sentence, I think we may automatically assume this is about physical intimacy with another person, and it's not actually what I'm talking about here. (Why we assume that is a whole conversation for another time). The boundaries violated were often me to myself - saying "yes" when my whole body was saying "no." I am still working through the deconstructing of what we're told it means to die to yourself, to be sacrificial, or that if it brings you peace, it's from God... and God is showing me that it's not as linear or literal as I once thought.

So for my first blog post here, I'll leave it with this - there are going to be things that feel so incredibly opposite to peace. They are going to fill you with a deep fear, and maybe even once you act on them, you'll find yourself in a heap in the shower. Because behind every woman that is learning to ask for help, setting boundaries, or surrendering to the Holy Spirit's work in her life... is a girl crying in the shower, terrified in ways she cannot explain because her nervous system has felt so unsafe doing those things for too long.