The other week, Pam Cordano introduced the idea of “just right” during our Flourish class, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Last night in class we had our group of adopted people give examples of times they felt they had both under- and over-spoken as children. The under-speaking was often about times when, as children, the people had felt hurt but had not said anything or had not said what they were really thinking. It was hard to listen to—if only they had defended themselves! my brain cried, but when you are small and feel unseen or misunderstood or unsafe, speaking out can feel as sensical as sitting down to eat a brick wall. 

The group had a few minutes then to write about a time they felt they had over-spoken as a child—many people struggled to think of an example of this in their lives. The amazing thing to me was that, to a person, the examples they read out loud felt so right and appropriate to the situation at hand. No one had “over-spoken” in my mind. They had all said what felt to me as “just right”.

I thought about why it took me so long to write my story, and I realized it was because “right sized” language felt “too big”, and so I could never create a sustained narrative because I judged myself to be an unreliable narrator.

It’s really hard to tell your truth when you don’t let yourself believe it.

It’s really hard to tell your truth when you know others won’t understand.

How could I have, for example, the one time we were all in family therapy together when I was a teenager, said that I thought about killing myself sometimes? Instead I sat there and my father told the therapist that what I did was to make a room better when I walked into it, and so I stayed quiet, sick in my stomach. I was the fixer, and fixers are not supposed to have needs or unpleasant things to say. I could not pile my problems on top of everyone else’s. It would be too much. I would be too much.

The irony, of course, was that I did and said plenty of terrible things, but somehow my parents had so firmly put me in the role they needed me to be in the other stuff slid away as if it had never happened. My brothers, however, saw, and they knew I was a mean and bossy older sister trying to act like a mother when they already had one. It’s hard for everyone involved to love and feel at home when the story under the story is not at all like the one presented to the world. (Check out the upcoming 6-part webinar I am doing with Robyn Gobbel on this very subject at Robyngobbel.com!)

I realized something during Flourish last night when Pam had gave an example of saying something “right sized” to her therapist (It was along the lines of: I am so happy to be here with you.). She said what made it “right sized” was that the words represented how she felt inside. She wasn’t “over-speaking”,  overselling her state of emotions to try to manipulate her therapist into liking her (You are the most important person in the world to me, and I feel like I’d die if I didn’t have this time with you.), and she also wasn’t “under-speaking”, perhaps saying nothing at all, not letting him know that she was positively affected by his presence. 

This made me think about HBL, the time I wrote to him “I’m afraid if I keep writing I’m going to have to say I have value, and I’m not sure I’m ready to do that,” and his response of “That’s your voice. That’s it. Keep writing,” was perhaps the single best thing (I do not feel I am over-speaking here because I feel this in my bones.) a human has ever said to me. It was a key that opened into the lock of me, and suddenly I had access to what I really felt. I was free.

I was free to write once HBL helped me to see when I had spoken/written my truth. So that’s what truth feels like! I thought that feeling was telling me I was in trouble and should be quiet! The truth had become trapped inside of me in some sort of dark storm of shame because just the thought of telling it made me feel so helpless and small and ungrounded that I more often that not didn’t even let myself think it, consciously. 

I had found my voice: it was the thing inside of me that felt secret, unsayable, wonderful, like the clearest drink of water. Three months later I had a book. 

What I noticed last night was that it wasn’t just that Pam and I had said something to the ether that had felt right sized. We had said it to a person, and the person had heard us. 

Maybe this is one reason it feels so, so good to be with a group of fellow adoptees. The level of right-sized hearing is liberating. There is less need to wear a mask with adoptees because they just get it. All of it. Maybe that’s how war vets feel when they gather together in a room. It’s okay to breathe. I’m home. Or as home as I can feel right now in with this traumatized body/mind of mine. I felt that when I went to an A.A. meeting with my friend. I saw the people around me relax and it made me sort of wish I had a drinking problem just so I could claim them as my people, too, and feel seen and at home the way my friend did as we sat there and listened to people tell their stories as people in the audience listened, cried, smiled, and, finally, applauded.

Maybe this is one reason I had a hard time looking like myself when I was young (still!) when people took my photo. I didn’t know how to organize my face. How can you prepare yourself for a photo when you don’t know who you are?! 

When people spoke their examples of “just right” in class last night, the other people spontaneously broke out into applause after speakers. Sometimes there was no applause, just smiles, nods, feelings of yes! “Just right” can be a few words; it can be a whole book. “Just right” is, in language form, how you feel on the inside. This can be confused, unsure, and so it’s yet another reason why having the “just right” listener is so important. 

The irony is that the more “just right” you speak, the more “just right” listeners you will draw into your life. 

I had a vision the other morning where I was a child sitting at the kitchen table with my family, and instead of angrily chewing and trying to get away from the tension and anger as fast as possible, I started speaking. My voice was calm and purposeful. “I’m not happy here,” I said. “You guys are so loud and angry. I love you all a lot, but I need to go find someone who can help me because I’m feeling really bad.” I saw myself stand up and go to the phone to call a therapist: “Hi. My name is Anne and I’m adopted. I don’t feel good. Can you help me?” I saw myself walking a line of truth, and the line was the words I just kept speaking. I truthed my way to a life of my own creation, and it was really, really exciting. 

It was just right.