I remember times in my life when I didn’t think I could go on, I couldn’t do it for myself and I didn’t have the strength to. I was defeated.
I remember looking at my boys when I put them to bed sometimes wondering ‘How am I going to keep going’ and in them I found the strength to wake up and do another day, to fight some more.
I fought everything, my own past, who I was, thoughts, addictions, exes, fought for custody to keep my kids safe, to keep myself safe, I fought sickness and pain and people telling me I couldn’t.
I challenged myself mentally and physically back then to new levels. I had some serious mental power when I was busy bypassing having to feel the pain of my reality.
I could run a half marathon easily, work multiple jobs and study, and defend myself in court, my body could do these incredible things because my mind was overpowering and steering me away from being in my body, it was a way of my mind keeping me safe from the pain I had to eventually feel.
Sickness and chronic pain got the best of me along with declining mental health, money issues, broken relationships, a drinking problem, and a lack of capacity for the life I was living.
Abuse won.
I was done. I ran away, I did 5 years in court fighting some more, I worked 4 jobs at a time so I could make rent, raise my boys, pay legal fees, rebuild myself in a new town (again), and afford therapy which just kept my head above water. I had so many moments of I AM FINISHED.
I lived a dark existence of suppression for a really long time.
I know what it is like to live disconnected. Surviving. Fighting. Burnt out.
I was a victim. I had been shown how to be a victim. I didn’t know how to get out of it.
The way I chose to fight victimhood at first was with hardness, I had to feel it in a hard way, and it had to be hard for me because I didn’t know how to allow things to be easy or graceful yet.
I experienced and sought out life-altering changes over the last 9 years. From looking at the night sky wondering how energetic surgery happened from drinking a plant, where these plants come from because it sure as hell didn’t feel like it was from the earth, have I gone crazy?, then sitting in silence meditating for 12hrs a day, being a hermit, studying everything I could to make sense of life, spewing in a bucket to clear my body of trauma in the most brutally healing mysterious ceremonies, to committing to living yoga, to attending the love and light events that eventually showed me I don’t value bypassing.
I met a lot of people that led me to lessons where I realised I belong to a tribe of truth and accountability, to embodying peace when people around me wanted me to fail, I’ve been told I would make nothing of myself, rejected, homeless, to self-sabotaging opportunities because I was so angry at the world and being financially ruined multiple times by hate and woundings of others, I attended regular therapy I really couldn’t afford but I learned to make no excuses, I did the life coaching thing, read hundreds of books, trips overseas to find myself over and over and lose myself over and over to face my fears and doing everything physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally I could to strip myself of the injustice, the victim, the pain, the trauma and the darkness that surrounded me.
My journey of seeking ended when the excavation of my heart began and in that moment I knew it could be different and I didn’t have to try so hard anymore.
I let go of fighting, I felt like I lost for a long time but what I didn’t know was that I was rebuilding myself and it took time.
Until I embraced the darkness that lived in me I never knew how powerful it was and that it was not in fact something to get rid of or fear… but something to deeply see, love, and hear what it had to say so I could finally move on. So I could change.
I decided I wanted to live and live well.
I learned that being a victim kept me very stuck and I believe now most of us learn resilience the hard way, It toughens us up until we’ve had enough then it lets us go so you have to ask who am I now?
Who do I want to be?
I’m 37 years old.
I’m sitting in a cafe with a younger part of me present that can still feel bad for asking to have my needs met, the part of me that wants to people please if it brings me safety, the part of me that gets overwhelmed and feels immense pressure when I am asked to choose or when my boundaries are not respected.
The part of me that is highly critical of herself. As I bring in the energy of this part in I know she is 4, I feel her responsibility and pain and ask if I can take it off her.
I remind her she is safe and she can let go because I’ve wholeheartedly got her back.
Releasing the burden for her.
I have discovered I need to feel safe not only physically.
I choose safety around me that comes from being seen, understood, and heard beyond the surface level.
I have a need for emotional safety too and it’s okay to choose to be met with both forms of safety as I heal and have the safe experience I never had.
As I feel through this learning while I sit in the cafe with my chai I realise and reflect.
Did I need to go to the middle of the jungle to be so radical with my healing?
Did I need to chase so hard?
Did I really need to poison myself to purge?
Did I need to wear myself out to rest?
I take a breath.
I Stop.
Yes, I did because that’s how I chose to do it. I listened and followed what called to me and I do not wish to take it back.
Then I ponder from acceptance, what’s next?
How do I heal now that I know myself better?
Fun. Play. Now feel some joy.
I am safe.
I made it to a place I never thought was possible.
I can be me in this world and I have a choice of what my environment looks like.
I am unapologetically me.
With Love in my heart and my heart is beaming open to life.
It is safe to rest and play and it’s okay to say no.
What a ride.
Jessie
