Preface: Tangled Night of the Soul
Our world can fall apart in big ways and small ways. Crisis states take a sledgehammer to our lives, demanding total attention and a reckoning of our souls. But what about all the insidious little struggles happening right now? The real tragedies of our lives may be barely noticeable. The loss of our soul happens when we live inside opaque colors of vagueness—bonding with old, distorted perceptions that we reinforce day in and day out, leaving us unable to live fiercely.
These little moments, the everyday battles that entrap us in “invisible crisis” states, are what I tackle in this book. I want to embed a whisper that rattles you to the truth of who you are in all your myriad colors. To help you find confidence that you can handle life’s ups and downs—entering every relationship more assertive in your spine, transparent in your self-expression, and vibrant in your heart. I want to show you that madness, terror, shame, self-hate, and confusion can dissolve through a process of untangling. Your life matters, and you can gather the skills needed to realize your best life.
I write to you today from a place of continued healing, peace, freedom, love, and thriving. For decades, I embodied what it means to be stuck, tangled, frozen. The absence of color. Part of me was so ashamed that it was as if I needed to bleach my nature, numbing my ambitions and creativity. I barely survived the endless loops of thoughts that squeezed my brain and pinched my heart. My colors smudged together like a used paintbrush had been plunged into a cup of water. Dirty. Heavy. Dull.
My tangled night of the soul was a long wrestle that twirled my body into one crisis after another until a crescendo in 2005. I was nine months pregnant with my first son. My husband and I were entangled in a raw separation, with financial troubles hanging in the wind. Everything inside and around me felt as fragile as an eggshell. And then I received a call that my father, who stood at the epicenter of my traumatic childhood, had had a horrific tractor accident and most likely would die. A week later, he did. Everything cracked. I stood in a shattered room, shattered life, shattered body. What could ever let me untangle from the complicated problems that stopped me in my tracks?
My father’s death, and the complex tragedies that surfaced with his death, were too big for me to handle all at once. But the more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t have to. It wasn’t so much the big crises that needed my attention, but rather the smaller ones happening all the time, buried inside my body, devaluing me and destroying my life bit by bit. Tending to this internal angst, I went deeper, harnessing personal insights I had learned from my diverse range of expertise to build an integrative model. I befriended the triggering bonds that scratched my soul and took me hostage. I ruptured their destructive spells and found my purposeful place. This holistic understanding of the mind-body-spirit balance birthed the basic tenents of The Untangle Method.
Today, I spend most of my time helping people untangle destructive patterns to reclaim dignity and aliveness. I think more about what it means to be untangled. How to take root, find balance, and restore trust within our system. How we can become remade by one trigger, one exchange, one vision. How we can integrate our varied experiences to birth something beautiful and release our inner songs to the world.
For the last twenty years, I have studied disorganized structures through multiple lenses: addiction and trauma, neuroscience and mindfulness, spirituality and creativity. I have drawn on the fields of biology, philosophy, spiritualism, psychology, the arts, and humanities to develop my coaching program, The Untangle Method. I work with trauma practitioners, medical directors, and therapists, collaborating with psychiatrists to build treatment plans and life skill programs for my clients. I have been an active participant in the evolving research on how the mind and the body recover from overwhelming experiences to reclaim life. While the experiences reported in this book were objectively organized, like all truths, they were first experienced personally. I learned skills to rebound from personal difficulties to become stronger in life, improve my mental health, cope with divorce, and recover from trauma.
These discoveries are my songs, my grit, my poetry. This book is part memoir, part how-to guide, and part artistry for disentangling from devaluing narratives so that we can move on from suffering to living life to the fullest.
Before we begin, let’s get a few disclaimers out of the way. First, my privacy policy. I cite many examples of client experiences throughout the step work sections; however, I have changed details like names, careers, and other identifying factors that were critical to protecting confidentiality. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. The use of these client stories is intended to demonstrate how to apply untangling skills.
I have also included my own narrative, shedding light on the roots of relational trauma and how I crawled my way out of it to build a thriving life. Though difficult, it has been meaningful and empowering for me to share how my own experience led me to develop the method I use to help others today. However, my story contains content that may be upsetting for some readers, particularly those who have experienced trauma of their own. Please feel free to engage with these sections of the book in the ways and to the extent to which you feel comfortable. My hope is that in sharing my own vulnerability, you will feel safe enough to proceed earnestly and openly through the process as well.
As for the exercises included in the chapters, there are many ways you can do them: with a small group, with a friend, by yourself, or skip them. The activities and experiential exercises are designed to help you build a new relationship with your body and the things flying around both inside and outside of you. I suggest doing a chapter a week to integrate them into your everyday life. In any case, pace yourself. Please don’t get caught up in the notion of having to do them “perfectly.” The most important thing is to keep moving forward.
And finally, note that this book is not a substitute for professional treatment. It is meant to be used as a tool to help you regain joy and control in your life, but you may discover that it is just the first step in a greater untangling journey. Many of us need therapeutic support to untangle and thrive. Be kind, take care of yourself, and gather additional support as needed. At the end of the book, there will be solutions and suggestions, including books, therapy resources, group programs, and treatment options.
The ideas for this book were sparked from a discussion I had with a rabbi during Passover more than twenty years ago, as we explored different methods to help people recover from personal bondage and access freedom. Our exchange lit fireworks in my body, fertilizing a vision for my life's work. This book was lost and wrestled back to life over and over again until it found its exact shape. And yet, I realized the minute I began that it would never be complete. We are in a continuous process of reclaiming ourselves in ways unique to every situation. So long as we live, we are destined to become entangled or fall apart again. I hope you will find the creative inspiration to begin the lifelong untangling journey that brings you into vibrant colors of freedom, joy, wisdom, peace, and love.