"It's okay, just move forward."

Rays on warm sun beamed in through my trailer as I chatted to one of my closest friends on the phone. I recounted my process over the last weeks since we spoke last. I told her of the highs and lows, the immensity I held deeply in the cavern of my heart. Tears poured from my burning eyes, I continued, taking my time articulating, slowly. I explained how this immense heartbreak, this grief is in fact the most profound blessing I've received thus far. She sat silently, I listened in for her gentle breath, a tether to the now, artfully rooting in, careful not to dissociate, to fly too far off and out of my body, I began. The semantics of exactly what I've experienced isn't necessary to express here and now. I will keep this still, for another time, as I process internally.

I recently saw a Somatic Therapist, she asked me why I came to see her. I have three very clear reasons for reaching out for support. First, I told her I had an intense premonition when I entered into this most recent relationship. I saw exactly how it would end, I knew it wasn't truly safe to enter. Yet, I continued on, I stepped right over my knowing to engage in a romance that would cost me so much of my Self. I want to be sure that I will never neglect or abandon mySelf again in this way. We are all blessed with this knowing, so why don't we listen? You know, when the whispers become screams...

Secondly, I wanted to be sure I wasn't negating any part of my grief, suffering, or trauma. I have swept over mySelf in the past. I have bypassed trauma and adopted coping mechanisms in order to survive. I don't want to re-traumatize myself. I am in the business of healing, so feeling into every single pang of grief is my full-time job at present. I wanted someone to witness me in my process and evaluate whether I'm here, and not dissociative. Sometimes, it's hard to tell... My reality can be constructed in many realms of existence, to have a harness to a being, that's sole role is to witness me, is crucial at this point. A mirror with no biased investment, or projection.

The third reason for coming is to redevelop healthful boundaries in my life. This relationship showed me that I have landed on the far end of the opposing spectrum. I have in the past, been immensely guarded, I built walls of stone around my heart to protect me from getting hurt. I had a prickly exterior, I boundaried everyone because I simply didn't trust other humans. Childhood trauma left me feeling like the other wasn't safe, so I didn't let people into my grotto. I kept them on the precipice of my existence, which left me feeling utterly alone in my trauma. Over the course of the last ten years, I've been chiselling away at these walls. Yoga, meditation, dance, ritual, plants & their immense medicine, community, nature, ocean, trees, Olive Tuesday, friends, covens, sistars, brothers, lovers, quiet, calm, and music, all have been healing me. Day after day, my heart breaks through the guards, the jail that I'd imprisoned myself in slowly, dismantles. I found myself so malleable, that I lost the ability to instill supportive boundaries in my life. I like to call this spiritual bypassing. I thought that if I just saw myself in the other, I could just love all parts of them. Essentially, that I could love every single part of everyone, I could love all parts of me. The reality is that our world is not at a place where we can be boundaryless. Clear lines are what create and shift change in behaviour. The ability to see where that line exists is an art in itself. To communicate that distinction is a dance that we don't really want to miss. It's a learning, a process of when to pull back, and when to engage.

So, as I began this story, I was on the phone with a dear friend. She's been holding my hand through these past seven months as I quickly burned my life down to the ground, and slowly have been rebuilding. As I recounted my session with my therapist, I midsentence completely dissociated. I left, I flew the coop, fully gone. Her breath, in and out glued me to her. I nervously admitted to leaving mySelf and asked her to just stay with me. I quivered as I spiralled into a loop of trauma. My body halts to a freeze, my mind just twirls like a dervish, round and round. Fractured, split in two, apart of me here witnessing the splinter and the other, in a trance-like state. I found my own breath through the notion of hers, the soundscape rocked me back into the present moment. I said, "Maybe we'll just leave it, I'm sorry I just lost myself in the wheel of this experience." She told me,

"It's okay, just move forward." But, a part of me was left there in that fractured state of being. I felt fragile, raw and vulnerable but fully safe and held by her. She helped me tremendously at that moment to feel safe enough to slowly reengage myself, and before you know it, I wove myself back together. I told her I recently had an interaction with a friend whom I've had a hard time fully connecting to over the past few years. This person has deeply wanted to build a friendship but my intuition always kept me at arm's length. I couldn't isolate exactly why, I just never leaned in. This past week, they approached me with how they felt after I cancelled on them, yet again. They called me names, and I realized in this interaction that my wild self kept me from them this whole time. That I knew my being wasn't safe, which is why I never stepped deeply into the connection. This time, I calmly said I wasn't interested in investing any amount of myself in this relationship, and asked them to kindly walk away, to just let it go. In the past, I would have tried to fix something, I would have tried to get them to see my side, to find a solution. Now, I just trust me. I don't have to have everyone understand me. I don't even want everyone to like me anymore, that's huge. I've always known myself to be a people pleaser, to want everyone to acknowledge my intention as pure of heart. I know my intentions. The wonderful souls I'm so blessed to have around me, know me. They see me, and I'm so grateful. I'm healing. I'm learning to reside in a place between the way I was when I was aggressive and in fear, barricaded behind protective walls that left me suffocated and when I landed in a bypass state of malleability.

I'm reaping the benefits of sorrow, grief, heartache, shedding skins of old patterned coping mechanisms to arrive in a more balanced state of existence. I'm humanizing. We are here to remember just WHO and WHAT we are. We are not our traumatized version of our BEing, we are actually much more than that. We have to safely go into those fractals, in order to collect our splintered Selves. We have to weave ourSelves back home. It's work, and it's not easy. But when you experience a breakthrough, you can feel the fullness of your existence take up just a little more space in the world. And we deserve the space.