Pit Stop — a New Group for Those Who Were Adopted

Look What We Created Out of Thin Air!

Pit Stop

(refuel, repair, regroup)

for People Who Were Adopted

with Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao and Anne Heffron

beginning Mondays in September on Zoom

These days, if I had to say what I needed most--after food, water, and air--it would be rest. It has been this way for about three years, ever since my father died. The coping mechanisms I’d developed over my life to keep myself spinning like a top, or at least moving forward at an anxiously fast pace, ground to a halt. My body said, I don’t wanna play this game the way you play it anymore: hustle hustle hustle and, luckily for me, it didn’t get sick, but it did get unarguably exhausted.

It wasn’t a new exhaustion. I knew this feeling. It’s in my bones. What was new was that I couldn’t stir up adrenelin and cortisol and etc to get worked up enough to hurdle straight through exaustion to The Next New Thing or The Next New Panic. I don’t give a shit about success, my bones said. I don’t give a shit about busywork. I don’t give a shit about anything that isn’t essential. It’s my turn. I’ve been tired since we were born and on our own, and I’m fried. It’s time you learn about me, your dear sweet body. It’s time you learn how to turn the temperature or our nervous system from High to Simmer. You’re going to love it. Just wait. You don’t have to pack your bags or save your money to go on vacation. You can just Lower the Bar, Princess. You can just Let Go.

My nervous system loves being around other adopted people for many reasons. One is that there is so much that can go unsaid. We know. So that takes some of the load off. There’s a wonderful sense of being in this together, of validation, of deep care, of love.

I’ve noticed that sometimes this can lead to trauma bonding where we can get stuck in the back and forth of how shitty being relinquished and adopted can be, and we forget that we are human beings having a human experience, and that there’s more to life than adoption. I am so aware that I have this one life to live, and I want to make sure I don’t squander it on focusing too much on what makes me uncomfortable or upset. My left brain with its negativity bias LOVES when I trauma bond. My left brain wants to keep me safe and delights in looking for evidence that I am unloved, unsafe, and broken. So I could spend a life invested in proving just how badly I was damaged by adoption, but then is that really what I want to prove?

I want to love. I want to positively affect the lives of others. As Mary Oliver said,

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridgegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have mande of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument

I don’t want to end up simply having visited the world.

(Poem 102: When Death Comes)

Dr. Joyce and I came up with the idea of Pit Stop after months of going back and forth trying to figure out what would be most fun, restful, and rewarding type of group to create. I wanted to support my new way of living rest-forward. Joyce, also is a rest advocate. We wanted something that felt essential, generous, nurturing, gently challenging, supportive, creative, new. We wanted a place where adopted people could meet weekly for an hour and feel safe and like they were getting a leg up into a new normal all while swimming in the pool of connection.

To make connections and friends of other adopted people is a life-long game changer—at least it has been for me and for so many of the people I’ve seen over the years in my groups. The group will last for six months, but the connections can last forever.

Every week we’ll do an embodiment practice as a way to bring you home. We’ll present an idea/topic of conversation to support your sense of well-being and agency, and we’ll give you the opportunity to talk in break-out rooms each week so you can widen your sense of connection and belonging in the world. Our goal will be for you to leave each week refreshed, recharged, and excited to be here, on planet Earth, doing your thing.

to learn more about Pit Stop, go to the groups and retreats page here on my website