.png)
Welcome back, friends.
How has this week been showing up for you?
In sharing with my friends the past few days, I’m constantly reminded how much of our inner worlds are connected. Sometimes, it feels we are going through such similar experiences in our own stories.
And whew, what a whirlwind of a week it’s been for us all.
On Uncovering Fears
I’ve encountered a string of unnerving events recently, specifically strangers pulling into my driveway, videotaping me sitting in my car, and yelling at me through their windows. I felt energetically overwhelmed by these experiences and found myself analyzing them - what could possibly lead them to do this? Did I cut someone off? Did I do something wrong?
It clicked with me while editing this: what a reflex to automatically assume you caused disharmony when someone around you is behaving belligerently? You may have similar instincts if you encountered gaslighting as a child.
After several days of these encounters, I shifted my focus and asked what these experiences were inviting me to learn about myself. I narrowed these encounters down to how they made me feel: paranoid and unsafe. Many fears and limiting beliefs were unearthed as I let these two emotions lead me to a deeper understanding through journaling and hypnotherapy the past few days.
Turning deeper into what was truly scaring me, I understood the experiences I encountered were not actually unsafe, I simply interpreted them this way because my mind was vigilantly trying to protect myself in a world that has felt full of threats since beginning this challenge.
It has felt cellularly uncomfortable and unsafe staring directly at the subconscious beliefs lighting fires in my life. It feels unsafe writing about them and unsafe for others to know my secrets and limitations so publically.
For children of narcissistic parents and anyone facing chronic trauma, it can be terrifying to sign yourself up to dive deeply into these wounds where you know you have been so tragically hurt. A tool I’ve developed to face these fears is a practice to preface the deep work. Before a therapy, journaling, or any type of healing session, do something that builds up your confidence. Perhaps it could be a meditation that aligns you vibrationally to extraordinary self-worth, dancing, listening to a voice memo of you gassing yourself up, or creating lists of your greatest strengths and moments of pride.
This way, when we peek at the shame and trauma we’ve taken on, we can remember our being is greater than any of the challenges we face in evolving.
& How The Fear Can Move Through Us
On Sunday, I became incredibly overwhelmed. Facing the chronic trauma of growing up with a narcissistic parent felt like pulling on the edge of a spider web. After a few days of pulling, I stepped back to see a whole intertwined masterpiece that infiltrated every area of my life. I flew into a panic, deciding suddenly I could not face my entire life at once.
I purged feelings of insecurity, rage, and overwhelm through some Avenged Sevenfold and Green Day music. I sang and danced it out, allowing the music to amplify my mood so I could lean into these emotions to fully release them. Giving myself this moment allowed me to naturally change my experience and emotions without forcing them away.
On Monday, I woke up with what felt like an emotional hangover. I puttered around my house and decided to take the trigger of feeling unsafe through To Be Magnetic’s Daily Reprogramming Exercise for daily triggers that pop up on the path of subconscious healing. Dropping into a theta meditative state, my subconscious sent me into the earliest memory of fear I have - a mysterious hand reaching behind a curtain into my crib.
In this meditative state, I imagined my highest version of self appearing over the edge of the crib, picking me up and explaining exactly what happened, telling me I am safe, the world is safe, and my sensitivity is my superpower.
I cried as I released this memory - it felt as if a pillar of a subconscious fear reality crumbled in a matter of two minutes. My subconscious guided me through memories of an older self, all stemming from this original fear.
Looking back at the memory in the crib, it clicked this week that was the earliest memory I can recall of spirit. As a young child, this memory morphed and intertwined with the inconsolable fear of death I felt, turning a memory image of a graceful hand reaching through the curtain to show me the gateway of worlds into a monster hand, someone coming to take me into darkness.
Several hours after reprogramming the paranoia fear memories through TBM, the power went out at my house. Rather than panicking and assuming a murderer had cut my power and was breaking in, I glanced out the window and saw the power on the entire block was out and remembered a massive storm had just flown through the area. So, I plopped in bed looking at ideas for styling my living room - and suddenly looked up at the ceiling to witness myself, calmly coping with this power outage.
Eyes burning holes into my ceiling, I realized I found myself on another side of my healing. Just as Zoe instilled last week, I found a sense of peace and calm when I wanted to. I realized it was always available to me, and thanked the universe for sending me these experiences to understand how radically I am safe, held, and supported in the world.
Diving Deeper
Tuesday morning, I began To Be Magnetic Unblocked Inner Child and … wow. I have completed this workshop in the past as I’ve been a member for two years, but my body went wild in meditation. During the workshop, my third eye zoomed in and out, and I felt my entire body spinning in an energetic space. I started to feel really nauseous but breathed into this discomfort and it released. Unfamiliar and uncomfortable in many ways, I surrendered to these new sensations and felt flood gates within my head opening up, energetically preparing and building space within my body.
In the first stage of this workshop, I built a magnetic home in my imagination to safely address the following days of inner child healing within. I remember my childhood home as toxic, even within the physical architecture. It’s like it was set up to separate all of us completely.
In my imagination, I built a massive treehouse with a water slide that swirled from my bedroom down into a lake where we danced and dried out on the grass in the beaming sun. My room was layered with textures and artwork, the treehouse reserved sanctuaries for all of our privacy and exploration. I felt free, wild, and safe all simultaneously. The perfect stage to address inner child reprogramming later on.
On Wednesday, I started the day with an intuitive session with Alicia Michelle. We met through a Facebook group for a podcast we both adore - Your Own Magic. Alicia posted about the services she offers and my intuition lit up every cell within my body in a “hell yes, go for it!”. I thanked my guides for allowing me to feel a strong intuitive yes within my body and messaged her immediately.
Everything Alicia intuited resonated with me deeply. Her guidance opened a road map for me to release the leftover fears within my body and transform the energy back into love. We explored some deeply ingrained ancestral and past life trauma in the intention to transmute old beliefs that no longer serve me.
Alicia began the reading with information coming in from past life experiences. As a young equine therapist and horse lover, I tragically passed away at 15 when my horse got spooked and I made a fatal decision to hold on instead of listening to my intuition telling me to let go. Alicia suggested I draw the strengths from this life and release the fears around not listening to intuition, holding on for too long, fear of time and dying young, the need to do everything at once, and the nervous system activation at things jumping out from places unseen.
Just as giant puzzle pieces colliding into place, Alicia noted the horse crushed my ability to trust my intuition and on a cellular level, intuition began to mean death. Reflecting on my first memory in my crib, I understand a bit deeper how connecting with spirit as an infant became intertwined with a fear of death.
Lastly, Alicia intuited something that occurred within my family dynamics when I was five years old where I put metaphorical shades on to protect myself from seeing something. She suggested part of my soul contract within this life is to take off mine and others shades so clearly that other people have no choice but to see the truth within us. This left me with some interesting breadcrumbs I can follow as I continue inner child hypnotherapy. I will share further clarity I gain around this event and what it means for our collective healing.
I took this picture while visiting my grandparents in Tennesse - two weeks before my reading with Alicia - where my grandmother pointed out this equine therapy center and I felt compelled to capture it. I see you, universe.
On the Body
When deep traumas emerge into our conscious minds, we all have the ability to transform this energy and bring back peace and love. We may pinpoint the areas in our body these fears or surges of emotion surface and ask our cells to release the trauma. Some accomplish this through meditation, yoga, weight lifting, dance, reiki - whatever suits your groove.
As I am learning this week through The Body Keeps The Score, integrating our physical body in healing our minds is absolutely essential. A common coping mechanism for those who have endured chronic trauma is to freeze, instead of fight or flight. If your trauma becomes activated and you feel numb, it may be helpful to lead healing through your body until your mind feels safe enough to open during these activations.
This is especially common for children of narcissistic parents. Often if we become the punching bag for outbursts of our parents’ emotions, we learn to shut ourselves down and tune out their words for our safety. For me, it has taken years to pry this coping mechanism open to hear my heart and mind when triggered. It may take many more years of healing and reprogramming until this coping mechanism dissolves.
When we decide to evolve ourselves, we admit this process never truly ends. There will be lifetimes of wisdom available for us to unlock and move through ourselves and we will not get to it all. As everything, we do the best we can and humbly admit we will never be perfect, nor "healed".
We can commit to showing up, being honest with ourselves, and choosing to grow as often as we feel capable. It will look a mess and like we're doing nothing on some (or most) days, but as we focus on transforming ourselves, it naturally goes.
Remember even if you don't feel it, the energy of transformation is surrounding us all right now. We all have the innate power and tenacity within to utilize these moments and propel our lives forward in a greater magnetism than either of us can imagine. Let's keep going and remember all we seek is just around the corner.