Confusion Points the Way
Can I start here? Start by accepting that I’m having trouble accepting what I already know is true?
“Portals overlapping, intersecting, whisper tales of worlds beyond what you already know”
Colored pencil on paper. 8.5 x 5.5 inches. 2025.
Happy New Year Doodle Soupsters!
Last year, I worked on redesigning the Chicken Doodle Soup website and transferring over the entire archive of past editions to this new home for CDS. And at the very end of 2025, I completed this task and published the new site.
The intention of Chicken Doodle Soup has always been to arrive in your inboxes. But I noticed that while I also had a website to archive and share old editions, I didn’t want to use that website much anymore. Not because it was a bad idea to have a place to save and share each CDS edition. I had simply outgrown the old website. I wanted to create something new.
Once I finished the design (including a new logo, which you may have noticed at the top of this email!), I still had to copy over the old posts. This meant that I ended up at the very least skimming each CDS edition I’ve written since I began this project back in May 2021.
This process meant observing the vast progress I’ve made both in terms of healing and as an artist. At some points, it felt overwhelming. At other points, it felt affirming and inspiring.
For example, in April 2022, I wrote in “The Healing Power of Grief” —
What is the cost of avoiding sadness, denying one's grief?
This week, I felt a buildup of tears waiting for me at the edge of a songs I'd been listening to and the ends of my sentences. The grief I need to let myself feel - well, I just didn't want to fully feel it. I wanted to feel the happiness that I felt just as true in those same moments.
I busied myself with cleaning, walking, singing, cooking, errands. It's not to say that there was anything wrong with these activities. In fact, I find it very satisfying to cook and relaxing to wash my dishes, and singing is precious to me. However, from the vantage point of this Saturday evening, I realize that I was avoiding rest, because were I to put aside my to do list for a day, I'd make space for what I didn't want to feel yet - I'd be making space for my grief.
Why would I go to such lengths just to avoid feeling this? I guess, sometimes, I just need a little while to realize that I do not need to keep running and to understand that I will not be crushed under the weight of the truth.
There are still truths that I’m running from, that I do not know how to fully accept. At the same time, my healing process has meant coming to terms with more than one trauma. Grief isn’t a one-time thing for any loss. From the vantage point of 2022, I hadn’t yet named what was arguably the most painful and traumatic experience of my life. How can I expect myself to be “over it” already?
But the reality that I can be a capable, loving, creative human who is trying very hard AND that it does take years to process the years and years of trauma I experienced AND that I’m doing all I can AND that I’m not going “too slow” … it means that it really did affect me that much … it means it was that bad.
I’m not over it. Why am I so ashamed of that fact?
I admitted as much to my husband the other day. And he met me in this moment of vulnerability with gentleness. He didn’t think it was shameful. He thought it made sense. It made sense that I wasn’t over it. It made sense that I was still hurting. I am still hurting.
And maybe there is another truth here that is hard for me to confront … that these past editions of Chicken Doodle Soup are the “proof” I’ve been saying doesn’t exist. It is proof that I have been trying very hard. It is proof that I’ve been doing my best. It is proof that this process takes a long time. I hate how long healing takes. I feel impatient. I want to be over it.
Can’t I just admit that? That I’m scared and frustrated and sad. That I’m angry. That often I feel confused because acceptance is hard.
There’s a song I used to listen to, a lot, for a time. This week, I put my Spotify on shuffle and it came up. It’s by Trevor Hall, called “You Can’t Rushing Your Healing.” There’s a lyric in there … Confusion clouds the heart, but it also points the way.
This is true. I feel confused and it’s a block until I notice and describe this block. I write down the thoughts and habits. I sing them. I draw them. I say them out loud. I share them. And in bringing what’s shrouded in darkness into the light, in vocalizing what’s otherwise a dark cloud, a muggy filter over everything I see … I get that much closer to what’s underneath. What am I hiding from myself? What am I struggling to accept?
And yeah, I am struggling to accept the things I’ve already named. Acceptance isn’t a one-time deal either. Can I just let that be what it is? Can I start here? Start by accepting that I’m having trouble accepting what I already know is true?
Because the feeling of confusion that forms all these blocks and gook and messiness in my brain — it doesn’t clear with one pass through. It doesn’t go away with one moment of clarity. I have to choose to believe myself over and over again. And to be honest, it’s kind of excruciating. And at the same time, it is the way forward. I keep coming to this conclusion again and again. And maybe I need to keep realizing the same things, a little deeper each time. Because that is the way.
There isn’t some shortcut I can find by focusing on “logic” and telling myself that I should be over it, or I should be going faster, it should feel easier, I should be doing more. Any argument can be made to sound reasonable, sound logical, if it’s constructed with rational claims, arranged chronologically, convincingly. Yet, I can’t reason my way out of how I feel. That’s how my emotions end up spilling into anxious habits like checking if the door is locked and yeah, no kidding, for the seventh time, yes, it is locked. You already know this. So why do you check? And yeah, I’m asking myself this.
But I also know that I share my art and my reflections on healing because everything I’m describing is human stuff. Not to be presumptuous, but I think we’re all struggling with something. Or, to put it another way, I think we’re all still growing and trying our best to cope with the messiness, pain, and even the beauty of being alive. Life is confusing and hard and wonderful all at the same time. And that’s not an easy thing to make sense of …
So right now, I’d like to share a little blurb I wrote for the homepage of the new CDS website —
Chicken Doodle Soup is a newsletter that began as a way to help myself heal, to practice the skill of speaking freely, sharing my voice, to try to make some sense of this floating rock we share.
It’s still a healing space for me. And, I hope it helps others heal alongside me, reflect on our strange and bittersweet existence, to feel less alone in contemplating the mysteries of the universe or the painful events of our lives.
Healing isn’t a solitary process.
CDS is not just a newsletter to me.
I’m trying to build a community of artists and survivors as well as simply curious, kind, creative, passionate people.
~ Nicole
The artwork at the top of this edition comes from my Whispers Among the Trees series. It’s called, “Portals overlapping, intersecting, whisper tales of worlds beyond what you already know.”
Another viewpoint of this piece.
In peaceful moments, following a path through the trees, while singing, while writing, while making art, in moments of pure connection with myself, another human being, this earth, the act of starting somewhere, anywhere … I get a glimpse of worlds beyond.
Look, I don’t know how I’ll get “there,” wherever “there” is. And in at least one sense, I’m already “there,” here. But there is more out there for me. And I feel this strong sense of possibility waiting for me on the other side of acceptance —
A me that doesn’t have to blame myself for everything that’s happened in my life, yet still knows how to apologize and make things right when she messes up, knowing we all mess up sometimes and that’s okay.
A me that may still feel doubt, but doesn’t listen to that voice so much. She knows it’s just a remnant from another time in her life, a time when she had to work very hard just to get to the next day.
A me that has learned how to trust people again, how to believe in the good that exists in this world, a me that doesn’t need to deny her past experiences to do that. She can just see the world as it is and have hope for how it can be. She can be a part of something good, something beautiful, human, sweet, supportive.
She can accept others’ love and support, knowing she’s not undeserving of this, even if she used to feel really, really undeserving. She can just show up as herself.
She can just be herself without questioning how that can ever be even remotely enough.
She can give. And receive.
She can notice. She can be here. Just be for a little while. She can take deep breaths just to feel the air flow through her body and out, and not because she feels overwhelmed, just for the sake of it.
She can believe in herself and others without proof because believing you can do something is often the first step, the proof comes later, the proof comes when you barely need it anymore … is that true? I guess I’ll just have to let myself find out …
Letting myself find out,
Nicole Sylvia Javorsky