Author: Claire Margit

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A Note on Perfectionism and Belly Fat

“He grabbed my belly fat and then he shook it.” 

The look on my therapist’s face validated my internal experience. At the age of about ten, my grandfather grabbed the flabby flesh hanging off my belly and jostled it back and forth. He was shaming me for having such a visible flaw. The flaw of fatness, weakness, lack of self-control and determination. For having the flaw of imperfection.

I was ten, with a sister dying of pediatric brain cancer at home.

I was ten, and only three years earlier learned that I was the product of an affair. “Daddy isn’t your real Daddy.”

I was ten, and my mom used belts on our bottoms.

I was ten, and terrified. Food was a comfort, and it showed. Yes, I was born large—over ten pounds and 20+ inches long. By sixth grade I was nearly six-feet tall and wore a women’s 12 pant and shoe size. And, I loved cheese.

It’s called a pannus, the “abnormal” apron of skin that hangs off the abdomen. I had one. I hated it. My fatness kept me from so much, which was—perhaps—the point. A buffer from the world and wounded authority figures that raised me. 

I was sure it would keep me alone forever. Alone—where neither the pain, nor the love, could reach me.

Something happened that day, standing on the concrete steps in front of my grandparents home. Their land overlooked the Pacific, and we had just hiked through the hills of Topanga. I was hot and red-faced. He was strong and healthy and full of rage, a different kind of red.

I know he only wanted what he thought was best for me. He wanted me to be acceptable, statuesque, and beautiful, the way all the Estonian women back home were. He wanted me to be strong and resilient, the way he had to be when the Nazi’s encroached, forcing his family to flee in the night.

I don’t doubt that he loved, and loves me. I just can’t believe he grabbed my belly fat. With all the other shit I was holding, why couldn’t it just have been a hug? Why couldn’t it just have been a Hansen’s soda on the porch watching the sunset over Santa Monica?

I must be perfect. 

If I want the belts to go away, I must be better.

If I want my dad to stay, I must perform dutifully.

If I want the world to accept me, I must…

…The world will never accept me. Not like this.

Cue two decades of crippling depression, anxiety, and chronic illness that ultimately landed me inpatient at Parker Valley Hope withdrawing in “The Shake Shack” from all the medicines doctors hoped (I hoped) would make me feel better. That was eleven years ago.

I believe I’ve hit my mid-life turning point. I know, I’m only 37. But people who’ve had cancer twice and a bone marrow transplant aren’t promised anything over 60.

For a long time, my inner perfectionist has kept me from moving through the anxiety and the stories related to my worth, beauty, capabilities, and purpose. I only get so far before I feel that freckly, big-knuckled hand on my belly again.

As this next thing unfolds before me, it’s requiring me to step more boldly in front of people who I perceive have power over me and my future. Publishers, booking agents, program directors, readers, audiences, etc. 

Don’t let them see you. Don’t let them see this. If you show up as you are, it won’t be enough. You’re too big, too bubbly (or not bubbly enough). You’re not professional enough. You’re underqualified and ugly. You’re just…you. And you is no bueno.

I’m really tired of that story. And I’m really ready to step into this alignment. It’s terrifying, thinking about who will grab at the imperfect bits of my message, my purpose here. But if I stay put, I’ll die. I will die if I go another year not publishing the GoodHardGood stories. I will die if I stop talking about embodiment and somatic support in the recovery and cancer spaces.

So I guess I’ll just step out, onto the front porch. I’ll walk down the stairs, and away from the old man and the people who want me to feel shame. If I pivot toward the places that feel open and curious, maybe it won’t hurt so badly to be seen? Allowed? Invited? Welcomed? Valued? Dare I say—compensated?

I’ll head in the direction of the sunset –sherbet skies always help — a Spindrift in hand. I’ll let the warmth of the sun fuel my heart, my mind, my mission. I’d love to meet you there! Please don’t grab at the parts of me that make you feel uncomfortable. I love the way I jiggle.

I love that I’m alive! That I have made it this far! 

Let’s go!

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My plan sophomore year of high school was to attend community college for god-knows-what, then transfer to god-knows-where. After Ellen died I found it tricky to feel motivated because all of a sudden I understood that actually we’re all dying and going to die and what is the point.

My principal (the same woman who paid for my math tutoring to ensure I’d graduate) printed up applications to the top three art schools in the country and told me I was applying to all of them. She would help make it happen.

I must’ve cared slightly more than I let off because a Google search informed me that The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) was hosting some sort of “bring your portfolio and maybe you’ll get accepted on the spot!?” day in Santa Monica. I had two-ish weeks to prepare.

The thing is: I was already prepared, because art was my life. When I wasn’t cutting or swimming at the beach I was painting and drawing. My mom broke a lot of peace in our home, but one thing she did right was make sure I had art supplies. It saved me, I suppose.

I don’t remember who drove me to the school that hosted the event, but I remember trying to wiggle away from it. I remember wanting to throw up and run. It was the first time anyone besides my high school art teacher would see my work. And our class had less than twenty people.

SAIC is a world-renowned program. WTF am I doing here?? I walked into the room and presented my leather portfolio to a group of three people, I think. There were three sitting there, but I only remember one man’s face, so maybe it was just one critique-er? He was bald and had dark, circle-shaped glasses, the frames most people in the art world wear.

Shit this guy’s for real. I want to barf very badly.

He loved the pointillism piece.

“You’re in!” He smiled.

I shit my pants.

And a few months after that, I was unpacking my belongings in a dorm room apartment overlooking the red Chicago Theater sign.

The program was rigorous. My nervous system had no clue how to handle that kind of demand, no tools to manage stress well, no wise people on which I could depend to help escort me through the Hard to get to the Good. It was the first time I was out of the chaos of my home and away from the dysfunction of my family of origin. So I worked hard to create my own chaos, internal and external.

By the first summer I was thinking about transferring to the local community college. I resented the art establishment’s constant need for me to produce. What if I don’t feel inspired? You just want me to make art? Constantly? And then you want to critique that art? I believe I am too fragile for this. I would like to leave.

So convenient that I got cancer that summer and couldn’t go back. To this day I have no clue how long that tumor in my neck was there before I considered telling a doctor about it…

I’m getting to the point of all this, which is: I’m in a very similar spot right now. The accelerator program I’m in has deadlines and critiques and they want me to make my art when they want me to make my art, not necessarily when my art wants to be made.

I want to barf every week, just before signing into the Google chat with one of my editors. But every week, she likes it. She likes my dark humor and the way I talk about the outdoors.

When I wasn’t cutting or outside, I was making art.

I don’t cut anymore, just the occasional bag of chips; I am outdoors constantly. Pen and ink take up less of my time these days. Instead I use a keyboard to take what I see and make it (sort-of) 3-D.

I’ve been quiet here, most of the material and energy I’m diverting into GoodHardGood, due spring ’26. But this morning my editor suggested include y’all on the journey of this next creative endeavor.

Writing a book is much harder than I thought it would be, and sometimes I feel like barfing or running away. Then I pause and remember: I am prepared for this, art is my life. Thank you for being here. I’m very excited and very afraid and very ready and very human. I know you are, too.

Love, CM

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The last time he started a new job on the day after Easter was the day I got re-diagnosed…

The last time David started a new job on the day after Easter was the day my oncologist said, “it’s back.”

That was 14 years ago, April 24, 2011. My firstborn was five weeks old. I remember watching all the moms push their babies in strollers past our cute duplex in Platte Park, a sweet little neighborhood in Denver. We lived on the main street, so there were a lot of moms. Our lilac bloomed right as they began the onco-fertility protocol.

“You won’t be able to have any more children, so we need to harvest your eggs asap. Then you’ll begin chemo.”

Cool.

That was fourteen years and four babies ago. We never needed the embryos, babies just kept coming. Depending on who you ask, the fact that we disposed of the fertilized eggs may mean I’ve had thirteen abortions?

The lilacs bloomed this year, like they always do. Like they always will. The six of us—David, the four miracles, and myself—illegally light up the fire pit at night under our apple tree, we can’t believe how sweetly the air smells. Even the teenagers submit to the miracle.

Today he starts a new job after a year of perfect destruction. We’ve been taken to the studs. Record lows. Did you know 99% of tech start-ups fail? We do! Did you know the job market is gnarly and even highly qualified engineers with brilliant minds and bright hearts are struggling to find work? We do!

“Wanna ride them to school this morning? Before you start?” I ask while sipping on the perfectly constructed cup of coffee he hand delivered.

“Sounds like a plan,” he nods.

We ride the younger two miracles 0.4 miles east to their elementary school. We head north, another half mile, until the dazzling ripples of the City Park lake become visible through the large trees lining the street.

Can you smell the lilacs?

“This wasn’t earned.” I remark. “It was entrusted.”

In my shadowy moments I try to attribute this glory to something I have done. When in reality, the glory is directly proportional to how little I try to do, to how human I allow myself to become. I am here, under this apple tree, cancer-free, and financially secure because I trusted the whispers of Love to lead me home. That is all. I believed that God is who God says God is—Good, Hard, and Good again.

Nothing is earned. All is entrusted.

I haven’t announced it publicly yet, but I am writing a book. Good Hard Good is due spring of 2026. Today is the perfect bookend on the shelf of the Old Story, the story of suffering, grief, death, and pain.

Don’t tell the kiddos this, but we got them all e-bikes. David and I don’t push many strollers these days, but we do a lot of bike riding. Can you see the four of them swirling around City Park? Can you see David and me trailing behind, teary? Because finally, it feels like a life we want to be living.

I promise you, we’re all gonna make it. You don’t want an easy life, you want a full one. And a full life is a Goodhardgood life. 

I want to look everyone in the eye and say: Keep going. Keep trusting. Keep dying, keep living. Keep listening to Love. Keep close to whatever makes your tail wag. This is not the end. Keep saying Thank You even though it feels fake, gratitude will save us every time. And, second chances are God’s primary source of income, I promise you haven’t fucked a single thing up. (Neither have they, but we can discuss that over a meal sometime later.) 

“Can you make me another coffee before you head down?”

“Yep.”

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A Note On White-Knuckling

Hi.

This morning I wanted to run away as fast as I could from my life. From the four needy, whole-hearted humans I’m in charge of raising. From the husband who triggers everything. From the white tufts of dog hair accumulating in every corner of my home.

Last week I sent a screenshot of my journaled page of “truths” to my best friend. It was bleak.

In the last month I’ve spoken in front of a handful of professional humans. By “professional humans” I just mean people who are trying very hard to show up fully—a monumental feat in 2025. They are humans who are seeking something truer, hoping to acquire some tools, wisdom, and nourishment to help them on their journey home. 

After one of these events a woman approached me and asked for a moment of my time. She explained that, despite decades of sobriety, huge strides in her healing and mental health, and a lovely life with a healthy, happy family, she still felt some degree of emptiness. She believed I could offer her something to make things more bearable. Maybe even wonderful?

At another gathering a woman said, “I’ve been using opiates in one form or another for two decades. I’m looking at you up there and I’m wondering how long it’s gonna take me to smile like that. Because if it’s just gonna feel like this—if I’m just gonna be white-knuckling the rest of my life—I may as well just fall back into the spoon.”

I breathed deeply, and teared up a little.

“Hi, thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up and speaking up. I’m really honored and happy to be here with you today. I have some hard news for you: I have over ten years of sobriety and I still feel like I’m white-knuckling it sometimes. Often times? Depends on the day?

The really fucked up thing for me is that nobody told me they didn’t know what they were doing. Our parents and grandparents and the people on TV just went about paying their taxes, signing us up for basketball camps, taking roadtrips, pulling weeds from the garden and they behaved so nonchalantly about the whole thing. Not one of them pulled me aside and with loving bewilderment whispered, ‘I have no clue how to really do any of this. I am very afraid and also find great joy in certain things’.”

I told her about the journal page and what I had confessed: I hate everything. In that moment, on that day, I hated everything. Which sounds insane for a 2x cancer survivor with four miracle children and a out-of-this world story of hope and healing. You really should be more grateful and grounded, Claire.

We went on to discuss how important community is. I explained the difference between distress and eustress, “Distress is harm, eustress is hard. Eustress is dopamine city, distress is sympathetic activation, tissue damage, and disease. In my family we say ‘Goodhardgood.’ It means that something can be both good and hard at the same time.”

They’re nodding. This feels true to them. A decade later, it still feels true to me. “I am with you.” I assure her.

The gift/curse of the enneagram four is our ability to feel to edges of everything. In stress, we get stuck there and our isolation fuels stories of elitism and shame. In health, we allow the experience to inhabit, and then metabolize. I like the image of an open window with sheer, white curtains—the emotion floats in and then floats right back out. The good, the hard, the ugly, the glorious. In a timely fashion, fingers crossed.

The problem is: we can only feel joy to the extent we feel grief. We can only connect to the extent we allow lonely. And so on…

They wanted my smile, they wanted something they perceived I had that they didn’t. I’m white-knuckling it, too, team.

So either: I’m pretending, or I am a very professional human. Either I’m faking and the smile is facade, or I am seasoned. I think I just really love open windows. I think I just can’t endure a world and life that feels untrue anymore. I think I’m willing to risk anything in my pursuit of Love. I think my Source, my Higher Power, is so securely knitted to each cell that I can’t exist outside it. Whatever “it” is.

If you want that, too, I’m happy to hang out here a little longer with you. 

I cannot guarantee that I will make your life feel less hard, I believe white knuckles are just a part of the human experience. We can try breathing deeply though? Some days will feel bleak and empty—we allow that. Other days you will feel a creative fire burn in your belly and it will inspire the most beautiful expression of God and you and life! Sometimes they’re seconds apart.

I used to think this was mental illness, now I know: it’s just full-blown, professional humanity. It’s life fully lived. Please don’t fear it, do not fear your edges. If you allow your fear of the hard stuff to win, then you won’t ever really metabolize the good either. I promise you will survive. Look! I did! Mostly!

I used to think it “should” look a certain way, the way they all appeared to my younger self: in control. If I close my eyes though, time travel back, and take a look at their knuckles, all I see is cartilage bulging through their epidermis. Anyone who tells you they aren’t grabbing at loose ends, or struggling to release them, is an amateur human. We love them, we do not trust them. They will come around eventually.

I want to run away a little less now, because I’ve taken my broken heart and created art. I have a date at the art museum with a friend that I wanted to cancel because I’m feeling especially human, but I won’t do that, because it’s the gift I can offer. The gift I can receive.

Trader Joes had a gorgeous selection of flowers this week and the arrangement in front of me invites a smile. My tea cup is full of warm water, and I cannot get over how miraculous scrambled eggs are, so much nutrition, so easy to prepare, such a gift! My kids don’t have pediatric brain cancer like my sister did, and they are beginning to understand the art of GIF-giving (?!!). David is here, and is committed to staying here even when it’s tough. The dog is an angel from heaven and the whole neighborhood knows it, even if she is clinically, 

“the hairiest dog I’ve ever seen”—Her vet.

This afternoon I will sit on my back porch under the western sky and exhale peacefully, because I don’t have to lie anymore.

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The Problem with Positive Thinking

It’s an exciting time to be alive. I feel so grateful for the research over the last two decades that supports what healers already know: 

Your mindset matters.

Your biology believes you.

You may have seen a recent Huberman guest, Dr. Ellen Langer, detail the health benefits of “positive thinking.” She cites stunning findings and I was smiling through most of it. Yes, this is it! Our minds and bodies are the one! And moreover, our bodies will submit to our minds in most cases if we can just stay curious and courageous enough. Dr. Bruce Lipton is a pioneer in field of cellular biology as it relates to epigenetics. He writes,

“You are personally responsible for everything in your life, once you become aware that you are personally responsible for everything in your life.”

Ouch.

In my work I highlight the need to rigorously examine the stories we believe to be true. When we have a thought or an experience in our brains, it stimulates the production of various transmitters and proteins—your emotions become real, 3-D molecules that now exist in the world, in your body.

I diagram the pathway these molecules take via the HPA-axis all the way through the body until they reach our DNA. Then some incredible stuff happens that results in your genome being modified by that narrative. I call this a Cellular Story. Cortisol is the main player here, and is released whenever our nervous systems require mobilization. It’s most prevalent in the body when you wake up in the morning. “Rise and shine! Get going!” cortisol yells from your adrenals (the “A” in HPA-axis, wink).

It’s also released when threat is detected—think sympathetic responses: fight, flight, freeze, fawn. When a nervous system feels fear it begins a cascade of responses to try and restore homeostasis, A for effort. Only, cortisol is inflammatory. And inflammation is at the root of preventable disease.

I had a student years ago who was experiencing some significant discomfort during a trade in the lymphatics class I teach. Their student therapist waved me over and we began working through some PTSD symptoms that the “client” was noticing. 

This kind of somatic emotional release (SER) is common in my classrooms. Lymphatics are autonomically innervated, which means they detect and receive the “fight, flight, freeze, fawn” signaling first, along with vasculature, smooth muscle, etc. I always teach that massage therapists are really trained to see and reflect with little flashlights and mirrors on our fingertips. We are there to mirror back to a system what it’s trying to communicate via pain, discomfort, swelling, etc. Then, we illuminate with questions and care.

Autonomically focused bodyworkers aren’t rubbing muscles, we are trained to listen to the quiet, intrinsic structures of a body. This type of approach leads to deep, lasting, healing because we’re inviting structures to remember. Instead of forcing the tissues to behave how the client or therapist wants or expects them to behave we’re asking, can these cells communicate what they need to create an optimal environment for optimal health? Can this system choose something truer?

Something truer…

And here’s the problem with positivity: A nervous system doesn’t actually respond to positivity, it responds to truth, to honesty. Ruthless positivity bypasses the genuine, lived experience of a person. Challenging a nervous system is essential to growth, and it must be done with nuance, care, empathy, and skill. Therapists must help our clients accept that more than one thing is true at once. I call that Goodhardgood. This can feel hard, and be good/okay/_____ at the same time.

I can be a tired, snappy, distracted mom and a good mom at the same time.

I can feel broken and be whole, at the same time.

If you had tried to tell me “just thinking really positive thoughts!” while I was hobbling around with a cane after my bone marrow transplant, I would’ve taken another five oxy. When someone is stuck in sympathetic they lose the ability to think creatively. When a parent feels stuck in a home that smells like diapers and lost dreams, it’s nearly impossible to think anything other than, “Woof. Get me out.”

What if instead of positive thinking, we aimed for truer thinking? What if we could relieve some of the burden by thinking one, truer thought? I say truer instead of true, because that stressed parent is still going to feel stressed. And that cancer patient is still going to feel pain. For now.

We must widen the window of tolerance, we must challenge the limiting belief. And in order to do that, we must honor what is while creating some hope and space for what will, or could, be.

Yes, I hurt and feel broken. And I believe there could be a day when I don’t. 

I feel trapped, I need a break. I can ask for the support I need. They won’t be toddlers (or was that teenagers?) forever. Two true things at the same time.

It takes practice and time, but the better we become at honoring the fullness of the experience (the good and the hard), the better we become at re-writing the story, cortisol levels drop and homeostasis ensues—happier cells, clearer interstitium and tissues, reduced inflammation, symptoms abated.

Back to the student.

After class she wanted to chat about some of the language I had used to help her move through the discomfort in her triggered state. Using physical symptoms to address emotional blocks isn’t new (see: SERs), but she hadn’t heard anyone filter it through the lens of internal narrative.

I walked her through the CELL Story diagram, the model that was gifted to me by the gods one day after an epigenetics-heavy psyche class. I showed her how every time she felt that specific pain, it produced that specific thought and emotion (in her case it was “Die” because as a teen her dad expressed disappointment at her failed suicide attempt). Or vice versa, every time she felt the grief of her broken family it would cause that specific pain. The body and mind are one, I explained.

We sat with the story. “Die” was reeking havoc on her cells, autoimmune disorders and chronic pain made her life feel unmanageable. She saw how her cells were re-living the trauma of the event and how her DNA had been altered by the cocktail of 3-D emotions that were flooding her system.

“Do you want to write something new? Something truer?” I asked.

I didn’t tell her about the incredible research that correlates positive thinking to better health. I didn’t tell her about my own miraculous healing journey and how I had to painstakingly examine everything I believed about my history, abilities, etc. I didn’t dismiss her experience, because my lack of attunement in that moment would’ve been registered as a threat, “Claire’s got an agenda, Claire’s not actually on my team. She’s just like the rest of them.”

I asked her if there was space in her psyche for anything truer. Is there a more honest experience in there waiting to be noticed?

“I am okay.” She responded, tears streaming. And she was. In that moment, her system was able to hold two things. Part of her, still stuck in an old, deep, and organizational story, believed she had to die. And now another part was given permission to believe she was okay.

She put her hand on her diaphragm, the site that was spasmed and tight. “I am okay,” she reminded herself. 

“Now every time you feel that spasm, and every time you start to feel the pull of that old story, speak the new, truer thing.” I remind her.

She nods.

“I am okay” is one of the purest truths I can think of. In our house we say, “We’re all gonna make it.” Because we are actually all going to make it, it’s just going to feel really human along the way.

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Here’s What Happens When You Fall In Love With Someone You Aren’t Married To Part 1

Here’s what happens when you fall in love with someone you aren’t married to:

You read a lot of books and go to a lot of therapy and have endless hours of discussion with your saintly husband about endless topics including, but not limited to:

How does God feel about this?
How do we feel about this?
What exactly is this?
How does the man I love feel about this?
But I have four children…
Is it possible to love two people, and to be loved by two people, in this way?

It takes a couple of years, but once you’ve found language to engage those questions, you tell that man that you love him. And eventually, he loves you back, but not before ghosting you for a couple of months. 

Neither of you is sure what kind of love it is, exactly. You just know that you feel whole in each other’s presence. You know your souls share a common space. You know that your bodies feel right when they’re touching. You know that it’s beyond complicated because neither of your lives really supports the kind of care you have for each other.

You love this man because your cells came alive when you heard his voice for the first time years ago. God whispered, “That’s him.” You didn’t have a choice. He loves (or loved) you because your joy illuminated pieces of his soul he believed were going to be gray forever. You talked about God in a way that made him curious again. He loved the way you smelled and that lime green…nevermind.

He healed the leftover bits that decades of talk therapy just couldn’t. And you broke him, your boundless, dazzling love forced him to his knees. Your cycle was completing, his just beginning. Your wounds stopped smelling, his were beginning to attract flies. You were willing and happy to stay and help clean out the necrotic bits, you remind him you have your CNA license. 

You feared that losing his gaze, touch, affection, and validation would impact whether or not you mattered in the first place. If he didn’t see your sparkle (or rejected your sparkle) then did you actually ever sparkle at all? A littler version of you believed that if you felt full alone-ness, you would die. You didn’t want to spend Thursday nights with your family because women like you need freedom, dopamine, and identities outside of the wonderful homes we create and sustain.

Finally, you begged him not to leave, even though you knew he had to leave.

You try to forget the magic, like that time that biker stopped and asked to take a picture of the two of you floating on your paddle boards, tethered to a favorite tree (God I loved how you brought ropes everywhere). 

“Sure! But I need you to send it to me please!” You yell across the water, followed by your phone number. The strawberry tops fall into the water and drift away.

Just two weeks earlier you had lamented to him, “We don’t have a single photo together!?” And here, out of nowhere, in the middle of a lake, a woman offers to take the only photograph you have proving that it was all real, not just some fantastic dream. She texts you later that evening, explaining that the feeling of peace she witnessed in the aura, under that tree, was so beautiful to her that she wanted to try and paint it.

He will leave anyway. 

You don’t cry as hard as that time he ghosted you years ago, but you do die. 

You gain fifteen pounds and have to go on Ozempic over the summer. You consider leaving your husband, you’re tired of tip-toeing around the holes in your marriage, holes that this other man filled beautifully. Your skin goes hungry (it’s still starving). Your identity and heart are shattered. Your family feels impossibly burdensome at moments, so instead of running to him, you run to the woods and the waters and Rocky Mountain skies.

You feel an invitation into a life and a nervous system you aren’t sure about, yet. It’s hard work, cultivating an entirely new existence, especially when the one you’re leaving was so close to perfect. You don’t tap out, you stay in the arena, sometimes with tequila in hand, which is okay because you’ve been to rehab.

You keep going. You’ve never had your heart broken like this and each day you feel the collective cheers of every spurned woman before you—you earned a membership to a club you worked tirelessly to avoid. Congrats! You collapse.

You realize that actually, your heart had felt something with this flavor before. Every time your dad left. Every time you sat in your empty, broken home. Every time your mom obliterated your spirit. Except as a child, instead of feeling the heartbreak, the loneliness, the rejection, you ate. And sometimes, after you started shaving and had access to razors, you cut. And you were so angry all the time.

You settled into the hard truths behind your attraction to this man in the first place. Yes, he’s very tall, and very talented, and just the sweetest soul on the planet. Yes, he makes your life feel full, magical, and improved. His presence made you a better wife and a better parent. You are not happier with him gone.

But he became a foot stuck in the door of your story, a foot stuck in between Part 1 and Part 2. As long as you had his love and presence you could keep looking back through the crack, identifying with the pain, insecurity, trauma—the Old Story.

In order to accept the invitations of the clouds and river rocks (to which you finally RSVP “yes”) you must close the door. It’s not a rejection of anything, but a gracious farewell. God needs you clear now.

Whole. A New Story.

You go off Ozempic because you’re back to 215, which is where you feel sexy and strong. You maintain it so don’t believe the bullshit.

You begin creating again, but this time, the fire feels hotter. All the energy you diverted into him gets channeled toward the thing God hopes you’ll give others.

You weep regularly, still—almost a year later— and you’re not sure if it’s because you miss his arms or the life to which you waved good-bye. (Also, fellow members of the Heartbreak Club, is it normal to cry a year later?)

You still consider divorce an option, once the dust settles. But does the dust ever settle? Plus, you remember, your husband is the purest and most perfect person you have the privilege of knowing.

Your kids are fine, like—totally fine. Mostly. So far?

You hunt sunsets instead of validation.

Your skin is luminous and you decide to throw away all your foundation and concealer. You can’t hide anything anymore, not even that late-luteal little fucker right there on your chin. You remember how much he loved your skin and your smile. You hate him for only a moment before you go right back to gratitude.

How did you get so lucky? To exist in a matrix, a life, this stunning? How is it possible that the little lonely girl has found such security in her own stunning, sparkly soul? Gratitude fills the spaces in between.

You’re ready to embark on Part 2 of whatever the hell is going on. You’ve endured, because you allowed every version of yourself to finally feel every feeling. You’ve trusted your cells to follow the whispers of Love instead of “shoulds.” People judge and question—you let them, and arrange flowers instead of spending a second trying to defend or explain.

You feel unstoppable. You feel whole and ready (and a little raw).

This is what happens when you allow yourself to love, fully. This is what happens when you allow yourself to feel, fully. This is what happens when you allow yourself to live, and to die, fully. Onward, you smile.

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Gray: On Good, Hard, and Getting Your Soul Blended by God.

The week before my younger sister died her body turned a very specific shade of green-gray. My fourteen-year-old daughter is the same age as Ellen was and I just have no idea how anyone watches a child die.

We watched her die in her bedroom on May 24th, 2004. She got to die in her teenage-girl bedroom. The room felt gray. Our home was built around an atrium, a square house with a fertile square garden in the middle. Ellen’s room hugged up against the inside of the square, and when the window was open palm fronds would flop in to say hello.

I don’t remember if the window was open that day. I remember it felt gray though, marine layer laid on thick. I remember the scream I let out after checking her eyes just after the death rattle left her. “She’s gone!”

There are a few people in my life right now who are falling apart.

They’re looking a little gray, no green—they haven’t begun rotting from within. They decided to remove the lenses through which they saw themselves and the world and they’ve been struggling to make sense of the scene before them.

They’re so tired, because rewiring, rewriting, and reprograming our consciousness take a lot of energy.

They feel lost. As our stories shift, so does our DNA—so do we. In the mirror, our changing reflections begin to scare us at worst and confuse us at best. Who the fuck am I and why do I look gray?

They feel afraid. And who wouldn’t? 

Still, they’ve continued on. I’m very proud of them.

I think gray is what happens when you’ve allowed Good and Hard to finally fuse. For a time, on our journeys inward, as the chromosomes learn their new, tangled dance, as we become a truer expression of our selves, we look and feel like we’re dying. 

It’s like God takes our hands and leads us to the holiest of blenders in a kitchen with a killer sunset view. Soul Blender is the brand name stamped on the front just above the knob.

God smiles, a little teary. 

“It’s time.”

“For me to get blended up?” You question.

Except, by the time you’ve been invited to the Soul Blender Event, your faith and psyche and self have proven sturdy enough to handle such a loud and blade-y affair. You remember RSVPing “yes” to the kitchen party invite months (or was it years?) ago. You remember wondering…

Is this it? Is this what I’m here for? I don’t hate it, it’s 8/10. But…

Maybe you realized it then, or maybe you didn’t, but it was a prayer—a focused hope on something more, something different, something truer.

The details don’t matter, but the mess—your mess— inside the cup is blended to oblivion, and for a moment, it grays. All your good and hard bits mashed together, all the good and hard bits of the world you carry with you mashed together. Everything is mashed together and now you can’t tell what’s good or hard, all you see is gray.

All you feel is tired.

Lost.

Afraid.

Everything I knew, everything I thought I knew, everything I was or thought I was supposed to be is gone.

Grayness settles.

But God, like the considerate asshole God is, is still smiling. A soft, knowing, playful smile.

This doesn’t upset you anymore, you’ve come to trust this Love more than makes sense. So you’re gray there next to God in some sort of teaching kitchen they use in some divine realm. God takes your hand, then takes you, “Let’s go watch the sunset.”

Your favorite chairs are on the porch waiting for you both, the constant whirl of the blades ever-present in the background. “How long will that take?” You motion back toward the kitchen through the open sliding door.

God smiles. “It’s gonna be okay.”

You believe this. You can feel your DNA pivot toward this truth the way a sunflower tunes toward the sun.

I’m gonna be okay. I am, in fact, okay. I am very afraid, very tired, and feel slightly less lost than I did an hour ago.

You smile, God’s fingers still wrapped around and in between your own.

Turquoise and orange light dances and tangles in the sky around you. Soft, knowing, playful pinks anchor the scene to the horizon.

The blades and the noise stop but you can’t recall when exactly or how many minutes have passed. 

“Let’s go take a look.” 

Back in the test kitchen your gray, messy mush alchemized into the most magical substance you’ve ever seen. Your soul, now integrated and upgraded, is the truest, clearest, most beautiful thing you can remember seeing.

The details don’t matter but you wake up and don’t dread the day as deeply. You’re thinking newer, more creative thoughts. You have the energy to manage a little better. Though the person looking back at you in the mirror is totally you, the eyes sparkle with more knowing, power, and play.

You’re the most beautiful thing you can remember seeing. 

I made it. At least until the next invite.

Gray is the gift of a goodhardgood life on repeat. My sister’s death is still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed. Once we stop trying to separate things with “should” statements and expectations, we’re left with what actually is. Once we step out of the story we’re left with the truth.

I am good, I am safe, I am loved.

Good and Hard are two sides of the same coin. The coin is valuable, gold and heavy. 

We’re all gonna make it, we already are. (I can’t fuck it up, neither can they.)

After she died I drove to my favorite public park and walked the mile or so to the bench at the top, overlooking a long trail toward the Pacific. It was early evening, around 5 pm, and the sun struggled to make any sort of impact in the presence of the fuzzy grayness.

For a moment a burst of orange escapes, and a bird flies straight into the gap created by the shifting breeze.

If it feels like you’re dying it’s because you are. If it feels like you’re living, it’s because you are! If it feels confusing and you’re tired but smiling, and sometimes you look grayer or puffier or more powerful than you remembered, it’s because you’re a Professional Human. 

I still see life in your eyes!

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Jasmine Will Make It Smell Sexy

You know that scene in Dune? The hand-in-the-box scene? The main character feels a call to something bigger, something truer. He must be vetted, he must suffer to prove the sturdiness of his soul, to solidify his calling. If he removes his hand from the box, he will die.

If he endures, he becomes.

“What’s in the box?” He asks.

“Pain.” She informs him.

There is a collective hand-in-the-box experience (experiment?) taking place right now. As the unwind from Covid, 2020, and maybe the last 10,000 years continues, we’re reckoning with identities, beliefs, relationships, and spaces that no longer feel supportive. Up ahead, we see a life that feels truer. The closer we get, the clearer the mirage becomes.

What must we endure to get there? 

Who must we disappoint?

What must we unlearn?

How must our priorities change? How must we realign?

I know someone whose husband is dying from cancer. This human is the brightest star in the sky, truly. If anyone can manage a hand-in-the-box moment it’s her. And still…he’s dying. Which means significant parts of her are dying, too. This human loves plants and gardens, and she oozes confident, sensual beauty. So naturally I thought of her when I saw the jasmine plants at Trader Joe’s last week.

In the card, I wrote something about how, since we are to endure death, it ought to smell sexy. 

If we have to be here now, then this pink, vining plant could serve as a gracious gift planted along the path on which we all walk each other home. Her husband is close to being home. She is there with him.

Growing up my grandma had a large fence with an even larger jasmine engulfing it. Her sprawling garden near the Pacific felt like a jungle with a canopy of sycamore and avocado trees. She was not a delight, but her mid-century home in Malibu was. She’d pick me up from elementary school on the days my parents couldn’t, which was a regular occurrence given the fact that they were often managing my dying younger sister.

I’d bury my face in the shiny, green tangles and inhale as deeply as my grieved lungs could. My entire world disappeared inside the blossoms, and for a couple of minutes I had everything a little girl needed. A daddy who didn’t leave. A mom who didn’t hit or yell or shame. A sister who didn’t cry out in agony when they missed the vein again. A body that fit all the societal norms. A heart that felt seen and known and loved.

The jasmine wafting through the salty, warm air made the pain of the trials much more manageable.

I believe and sense and even see a day ahead when we get to exhale and finally remove our appendage from this goodhardgood device. On a personal level, that day feels sooner rather than later. There are exciting opportunities ahead for me. There are lessons I’ve spent the last twelve months learning to integrate. 

I’ve had many moments when yanking my hand out and away felt so tempting! I almost did it, I almost went back there!? In recovery circles, we’d call that a relapse. I almost abandoned myself! I almost forgot about where I was headed, and momentarily took my eyes off the horizon.

How human of me, to desire something familiar, something easier.

Do you know what the witch in Dune is testing? “We sift through people to find the humans.”

“A human can override any nerve in the body,” she explains.

A human can choose to shove their face in a jasmine vine. A human can text a friend and ask for help. A human can drive 3 hours just to watch a killer sunset. A human can feel any feeling with the help of a sturdy, free, and humble mind. A human can allow any moment, any lesson, and any failure to fuel growth, resilience, stamina, and heart, instead of feeding our shame.

I bought a jasmine for myself, too. Obviously. My I Don’t Wanna friend texted me to let me know that they were back in stock.

I’ll buy one for you if you want. I’ll write you a note that says something like:

Hi. I love you. I’ll be a human here with you. Jasmine will make it smell sexy.

-C

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Return to WordPress

Hello! If you are an OG clairemargit subscriber then it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. If you were transferred here from Substack, same. Either way, it’s been quieter on this western front.

I’m back on WordPress, writing, updating my offerings, and transitioning into the world of workshops and public speaking. It’s been such an exciting handful of years as a massage therapist and educator, and–I’m ready for the next exciting thing!

Here are a few links to some of the more popular posts over the last year, published originally on Substack:

I Don’t Wanna

I Took Him To French Pond

I Do Not Love Raising A 13-Year-Old

I Met A Dying Man Pt.1

I Met A Dying Man Pt 2

Here are links if you want to learn more about what’s to come:

Offerings

About

Cheers to living lives that make our tails wag! Here’s to not having a clue! Here’s to trying anyway!
With Love,

CM

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I Don’t Wanna

One of my best friends texted me this morning lamenting the lack of hormones that feeds her PMS symptoms. It’s a thread we circle back to monthly because we’re both big, enthusiastic bitches who feel the dip in more dramatic ways than our personal and professional lives would prefer. I asked her about the type of tears she felt falling this morning, and she responded:

I Don’t Wanna Tears (IDWT henceforth).

She is a badass single mother who’s had a helluva year, a helluva handful of years actually. That’s the least interesting thing about her though. She is courageous, meaning, she engages her heart even when it feels very scary to notice the things it whispers to her. She is bright, meaning, she allows the warmth of knowledge, wisdom, etc. to land on her fair skin and sparkle back onto the rest of us. She is strong and sturdy in every way, so people tend to lean a little longer and with a little more dependence—the curse of broad shoulders.

She’s tired, and she doesn’t wanna.

I see you nodding your head in agreement. You, too?

In between texting her and scrubbing my filthy kitchen floor, it occurred to me…

Are there any other type of tears to cry? Aren’t all tears just the juice of some version of I Don’t Wanna fruit getting pulverized in our souls?

I don’t wanna feel this nerve pain shooting down my left leg.

I don’t wanna say goodbye. I don’t know how to do this without you.

I don’t wanna get out of bed. I can’t do it.

I don’t wanna ever leave this moment. Thank You.

I don’t wanna forget this. Can you believe we’re this lucky?

I don’t wanna watch another school shooting unfold. My homeland feels messy.

I don’t wanna go back there. I can’t go back there.

I don’t wanna because I don’t know how. It would look clunky.

I don’t wanna because I’m not ready yet.

Tears are the most courageous things I’ve ever seen a body do. The first time I had cancer I think I cried less than five times about the actual cancer. I was nineteen and cried way more over the douchebag I had to leave behind in Chicago.

The chemical compound of tears is unique, and scientists believe we evolved to ensure that the right droplet size combines with the correct amount of proteins; thus, attracting the attention of another human. 

Look over here, please. No! Nevermind, don’t! Actually, yes, please do. I have feeling juice falling out of my eyes. I don’t know exactly what I need, yet. I’ll let you know when I do? Or maybe you can help me figure it out? Or maybe you already know what I need?

Tears are what surrender looks like on the outside. Tears are proof that something has shifted, is shifting. Surrender implies a lack of control, I’m not in charge here, right now—for good or for hard.

Human psyches and nervous systems feel unsettled in the presence of “I don’t have control.”

That nerve pain I mentioned earlier? That was personal. I don’t wanna feel this. It’s been keeping me up at night, it’s expensive to address, and the pain makes me cranky. I know why it’s there, I understand the circumstances that established the patterns that created the problem, physically and emotionally. I know why it’s flared. I know what it’s asking for, and who it’s asking for.

I know the neurons believe something about themselves that isn’t true anymore. There was a time when I believed I needed XYZ to feel complete. My brain understands that this current Claire doesn’t require what Claire eight months ago required. I’m evolving, grieving, re-writing. And I’m begging my body to get on board.

It doesn’t wanna…

It doesn’t wanna go another day without the XYZ…

This is an inflection point. Surrender and defeat are two sides of the same coin. Or are they sisters? Or maybe if I squint hard enough I don’t have to see the Truth zapping from the nerve root to the bottom of my left foot:

I can’t control this. I can’t control him, or her. I can’t control them. I feel tired, and a dozen other things I can’t quite identify, yet.

So we cry. We surrender to the facts while holding bilateral middle fingers out into the unknown. Or at least that’s what I do.

We breathe to get back here, to this moment. It’s all we have. We text a friend. We take a walk under tree canopy or barefoot on beaches. We remember what Carrie said and we make art (make anything) with our human heart. We remember days when the tears were shed in wonder and joy instead of whatever the hell this is.

Do you remember when…exhale…and then…more tears. Except they’ve changed. They don’t sting, now they’re tears of gratitude. How lucky we were to be there at that exact moment. 

How lucky we are, to be here, in this exact, awful moment. This exact, awe-full moment. Middle fingers up.

Middle fingers down.

On our knees.

Human.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Professionally Human.

I love you. 

I am here with you.

I see the proteins falling from you, I see that they signal something shifting from within. I think you are so courageous for allowing them to be witnessed. I think you are so courageous for allowing yourself to feel in this place. Been a helluva year…

Want to watch the sunset?