Seeds Planted, Sproud

What are you growing?

I love the metaphor of a planted seed, and use it all the time. I love thinking of these tiny little things settled in the cold, wet dirt, sprouting and growing and reaching for the light, eventually breaking through the surface for all of us to see. I love noticing even the most mundane little plant, doing its job of simply existing, transforming our exhales into inhales, rooting down in the remains of the waste, the bodies of our human ancestors, and all the other creatures that once roamed the earth. I love a blade of grass with a little drop of dew on it. GOD! I love a patch of moss, imagining the indestructible microscopic water bears within, building and maintaining the foundation of life itself. I’d like to lie down in a bed of moss to die, when the time comes; nothing between me and the earth. I can’t think of a better way to go out. I’ll probably settle for a body farm–it’s apparently illegal to even decompose. Sometimes I think we should stop to ask ourselves What hath we wrought?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the seeds planted, which got us to the traumatizing state of the world we are living through right now. Nixon’s desire to have total control over the media (interesting, because it was journalists who took Tricky Dicky down), Reagan’s post-hippie conservative swing, with his murderous homophobia and unfiltered antichrist energy, Daddy Bush and his eflish evil and obsession with oil, Clinton and the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing downhome sex pest sex appeal, his legalized-slavery inspired drug laws, and then the Baby Bush of it all, the demonstration of overreach that never really ever dialed back after it escalated, the fear, the islamaphobia, a post 9-11, post “we can declare war on an idea” world. Barack Obama’s intelligence and charm, his beacon of progress, his war crimes, the marginal moves forward, the refusal to move forward enough, and his Blackness, which White Supremacist America is still reeling from. Think about the Occupy movement and the foreplay to the fascism we are all living with today– the ridiculous Tea Party. That was when the line between reality and satire really started to blur. All the murders of Black people by police and neighborhood watch members and anyone paranoid and power hungry and racist and dead-inside enough to take another human life; the mass shootings, the movements, the protests, the ever-growing lists of names we commit to remembering–it’s the least we can do–and the learning and unlearning, too. Realizing the power of organizing, of sharing stories, of providing justice when we couldn’t get it anywhere else– #metoo and Black Lives Matter and Queer Liberation; learning how to look at the world with a critical eye; how to challenge white-supremacist-capitalist-cisheteropatriarchal hegemony within us and without. It really felt like we were getting somewhere! But Bernie didn’t get the nom and now never will, and the maintainers of the status quo did just that and continue to do so, looking down at us with more of the same, which the left and right can agree (and when do we ever do that?) none of us wanted, like gentle parent influencers, saying, condescendingly “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.” We didn’t even get that far!! We got as far as the inner work and knowing things needed to change, starting to realize how to do it, and starting to see movement in the direction of hope, at least. It was slow, and we were angry, but at least we were seeing representation and pronoun conversations and trans people getting to move through the world a little bit more safely. At least the people clinging to their ignorance kind of knew they could get in trouble for overtly displaying their bigotry. But that’s part of what got us here.

Never underestimate the destructive power of white “victimhood.” Anyone raised by a narcissistic white woman knows how deeply that little martyr complex can cut. These people took one look at the possibility of an unfortunately superficial-at-best consequence and went full Third Reich. “Went” is the wrong word choice. “Went” implies they weren’t always there. It is one of my conspiracy theories that all generationally wealthy white conservative-leaning families have a secret room with Nazi memorabilia in their house. I am a little bit psychic, and I’m telling you, it’s just in the vibes. Plus, there have been a number of news stories and media depictions of this phenomenon that have come out over the years that do corroborate this theory– it is way too pervasive not to be a thing. It’s like how you feel when you watch Eyes Wide Shut and you’re like “Yes, I believe rich people really do this shit” and it turns out, (Diddy, Epstien) They Do! I used to write celebrity gossip, and the stories out there about celebrity orgies are WILD. Lemme be clear, I’m not anti-orgy or freaky sex at all (which I’m sure most of you know at this point lol), but creepy rich and powerful men and young women (and young men and sometimes children) and the expectations of transactional sex with power imbalances, coersion or force, and having these massive systems in place, all this cooperation and secrecy and protection to keep things hidden and happening in perpetuity... It’s just a little on the nose, is all I’m saying. I don’t think anyone watches Eyes Wide Shut and is like “This is prePOSterous!!!” Anyway, my point is, Fox News has become The White Tears Network, and the conspiracy-subreddit-Rogan-fan-MAGA subset is in their special snowflake era, and we are all living with the consequences.

I remember in my early days of learning about feminism, I read an essay about how women are often considered too emotional but a man will murder someone for rejecting him, punch a hole in a wall because he loses a video game, do a coup because his daddy never told him he was proud of him and they still get to be considered models of emotional regulation. This level of escalation feels new, but the impulse, the idea, was a seed planted a long, long time ago. This is what conservative America has always wanted (whether they admit it or not). This is what policing the bodies, the gender, the race, the status based on arbitrary borders, and the financial stability of people leads to. This is what unchecked accumulation of wealth leads to. This is what environmental collapse leads to. This is what no access to resources leads to. This is what late capitalism leads to. This is the culmination of the choices that have been made in this country from day one. Actions, meet consequences. This is where we’ve always been heading. It’s like an abusive relationship– while you’re under the spell, you can find an excuse for every controlling behavior; it all feels so romantic, so passionate, so exciting, but once you’re out of it?? You can’t even find the beauty in the person anymore. All you can see is the immaturity, the insecurity, the volatility, the desperate grasp for control. Sometimes things have to get really bad before people surrender to change. Think of every bit of stubbornness in you, in your loved ones; think of all the times you resisted til your body ached, til every muscle was in knots, til you thought your heart would explode. Think about the rubble, the ash, the disaster that lay at your feet when the inevitable fall finally fell. How bad did it have to get? How loud did the wake-up call have to be? Think about all the grief, the resentment, the frustration, the responsibility, the anger, the pain that went unfelt for so long. Those moments, for me, became compost; a dead thing to create life from. Maybe we’re still in the death phase. It feels like the old world is dying, but still, frustratingly, destructively, terrifyingly trying not to.

My Queenie (that’s what I called my grandmother) died what feels like recently, but it could have been months or over a year ago. Linear time has never been my strong suit (hence, my tagline “They exist beyond the confines of gender and time.” I thought about adding “genre” in there too, because that’s true, but I wanted it to be snappy.). My aunt, who has become the backbone of the family and who, I am so grateful to say, really took the reigns on getting me back in touch with them, made me feel safe enough to try; I always describe her as “a bitch on wheels,” which I say with truly all the love and admiration in the world, told me how much Queenie resisted at the end. She told me how she once read that narcissists often have the hardest time dying–they resist it so hard, and they get so angry about it, because it’s the one thing they can’t control. I am so grateful to have surrendered my control a long time ago. Practicing all my little deaths: my orgasms, my sneezes, my changes of mind and transformations, my proven wrongs and meditations. Ego deaths. I used to look at Queenie when she’d rage at me–throwing a tantrum– she always reminded me of a toddler when she was like that, or a teenager (the kind of teenager I never was, incidentally, I never earned her rages.) and I’d think How have you not worked on this yet? You can resist forever if you want. It’s possible! But it doesn’t lead to a very happy or free life.

A seed has been planted in the good direction, too. I can’t tell you how different I am, how much more honest and loving my perception of the world is now. The overlapping Venn Diagrams of oppression, for me, come up in every single conversation I have with anyone. There are more people out there motivated to change than there ever have been before. While some people have the strength of will or depths of fear or whatever personality flaw it is to be able to close Pandora’s Box once they open it, for most people, realizations cannot be unrealized. To RECLAIM the EXREMELY TRANS 1999 film The Matrix, once you take that red pill, you cannot go back to sleep again. Even if you could, you could never really forget. Some of the seeds that were planted in me that have grown into a Holistic Liberation way of living were planted before I was ever born, by people I will never meet, but who’s thoughts and work and minds are as dear to me as anyone I love in the here and now and with my own two hands. It’s already happened. The Tower already fell. I know the disorienting experience of Tripping Balls and being around people who are stone sober, marveling at how we could be looking at the same thing and having completely different experiences, wishing they could see what I do, because it’s unbelievably beautiful. It’s like how you might look at someone you love and think You are a miracle of creation, you are sex on a stick, your brilliance and capacity for love take my breath away and they can feel, at that exact moment, like they don’t even like themselves or have anything to offer. GOD! What I wouldn’t give to be able to play our loving perceptions of each other like movies for one another to experience, to understand how much we mean to each other. Words fail to do the profundity of love justice, to my constant annoyance. Or maybe I’m just not that good of a writer. Idk.

This whole thing reminds me of something very silly, so let me cook. The Rapture. I said, LET ME COOK!! Many Christians are kind of like Teresa Guidice from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, in the sense that they do not understand metaphor, and that often leads to table-flipping conflicts. They are also very goth, which I would think was fabulous and sexy, if they didn’t want me to hate myself so much. The Rapture is a metaphor for awakening. The people who “ascend” will essentially return to the (sang in the style of Mayem Gaga, Amen) Garden Of Eden!! Life will be beautiful for them, abundant, they will have everything they need; there will be no more suffering, very “imagine all the people…” and then there will be those still-asleep souls who get Kirk Cameron Left Behind™, forced to live in the hell of a world they created. Poetic. Fierce. I kind of stan. Look at the world!! There are those of us in stark reality; struggling, forced into a system we don’t agree with, held hostage by work, all while witnessing one of the most heinous genocides the world has ever seen, losing rights left and right, falling into fascism, feeling shame at how judgmental we were of the people of the past, sitting on our high horse wondering how could they have let this happen and here we are, not “letting” it happen necessarily, but seemingly powerless to stop it. I get so triggered by this particular feeling of stuck, like being held down by my mom’s boyfriend, my 10 years on earth not even flashing before my eyes, most of them too dark to remember, instead all I could think was I’m going to die. I wasn’t even scared, exactly. I was just stating it like a fact. I can’t breathe. What weight those words carry now, in this present moment, given all the lives ended with a boot, a knee on a neck, one body pinning another to the ground, and the memory of his over mine with a toy chair pressing into my windpipe. I tear up as I type them, I can’t breathe.

Denial is a hell of a drug. The thing about being a truth-teller is that you know the simple truth that It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way. You sense the goodness in yourself, in others, in all the potentialities of the future. You understand that we are only as stuck in these patterns as we allow ourselves to be. You know how to unpack a thing in your mind when it doesn’t resonate any longer. You have allowed yourself to undergo the ego death of letting yourself be wrong, being able to change your mind when presented with new information. You may tango with absurdity, but you never let yourself fall into nihilism. There is hope in wanting things to be different; in believing they could be better. There is so much love in that desire. You are courageous in the face of feeling your feelings, you haven’t smothered the empathy impulse within you because it hurts too much to feel. It does hurt. But you know the importance of that discomfort. You want to connect, to care for, to communicate with, to build community with others. You know how to show up vulnerable, to be authentic, you know your boundaries and you lay them; you know the power of speaking up. To me, that is the Garden of Eden; that is awakening. Maybe the way we are forced to live doesn’t match the liberation within, but when I was homeless and squatting in an empty house, or sleeping on a friend’s couch, I used to write in my journal I have a safe place to live over and over, allowing myself to tap into the energy of what that would feel like– I can’t tell you I knew it would happen, but I can tell you it did. It’s hardest to see where you’re heading when you’re in the thick of it, and we are in the THICK of it, honey! But the world becoming more uncomfortable, those in charge making choices that hurt the majority of us and help only a chosen few (the most sociopathic and exploitative among us, at that) is a sign of those sprouting seeds. Look at the way people respond to rude celebrities! We are losing our patience and willingness to be distracted by the illusion. The Red Pills (please remember I’m reclaiming this, ugh, the association of cringe at Matrix references because of a bunch of fucking nerds who missed the point entirely is SO not fair to the Wachowzki sisters) have awakened. Our seeds aren’t just sprouting, they’re taking root.

#personalgrowth #healing #leftist #antifacsist #liberation #hope #therevolution #awakening #awareness #selflove #selfhelp #selfcare #recovery #trauma #toxicrelationships #change #transformation #surrener #thetower #abundance #manifestation #howtobehappy #howtoloveyourself #howtoembracechange

The Astrology of May 2025

This month should feel a lot more energized and forward-moving, as so much (even the outer planets!) is in direct motion. There is a Pluto retrograde afoot, but we’ll discuss that a little bit later. Last month’s theme was “alignment.” The theme of this month seems to be “clarity.” May 2025 promises some passionate progress in communication and in the movement for liberation. Let’s build community, let’s practice solidarity, let’s step further into authenticity, let’s align with love, let’s get into it!

May 2: Venus Conjunct Neptune in Aries (1°)

Sabian Symbol: A woman just rising from the sea. A seal is embracing her.

This Sabian symbol reminds me of the myth of the Selkie. “Selkie” is the Scottish word for “seal.” Selkies are part human and part seal; they can live on land or in the sea. This myth is thought to be part of the inspiration for The Little Mermaid because selkies are said to be tricked into marrying humans. If, when they emerge from the sea, a human finds and hides their skin, they are stuck with the human and unable to return to the sea until they can find it again. These marriages, built on dishonesty and coercion, are rarely happy, as the Selkie always longs for the other part of their dual nature and true home.

This is a dreamy aspect that is great for vibing– get baked and put on your favorite record, watch a movie that makes you feel nostalgic or romantic, read a spicy novel, daydream to your heart’s content. Neptune is the planet of illusions and delusions, though, so don’t take anything too seriously. If you’ve been denying a harsh reality or refusing to acknowledge a less-than-ideal situation, things may be coming to a head this month. Likewise, if you’ve been taking a good connection for granted, or haven’t been able to see the cream rising to the top, this may be an eye-opening day for you. You may feel called to make bold declarations or engage with romantic gestures–maybe just feel it for the moment—give the energy a chance to level out. Anything initiated during this transit may have a tip-of-the-iceberg vibe whose culmination/payoff/reveal may turn out to be the consequence of rose-colored glasses. Let your heart soar, but try to keep those feet on the ground.

Where are you the selkie, trapped and limited by something outside of yourself? Where are you the human, creating stability at any cost–even the autonomy of another? This could be a struggle going on within you. Allow the magical energy of this day to inspire you embrace your multifacetedness, to be yourself as fully as you can manage, if only with yourself. In time, with practice, it will become easier to embody all of you all of the time. Or at least more of you more of the time. Vibrate toward those people who can hold your love for the land and the sea and away from those who would stoop so low as to make you choose.

May 4 : Pluto Retrograde in Aquarius (4°)

Sabian Symbol: A Hindu Yogi demonstrates his healing powers. This is about healing imbalances. This is about the arrogance of man to think he can commodify and control nature. It’s a reminder to listen to the elders who uphold the traditions of living in harmony with the earth and the cosmos. Degrowth, shedding the ego trap of capitalism and colonization, allowing the wildness within to connect with the wildness of our home, which has given us everything we need. We just have to learn moderation, balance, surrender, gratitude, and empathy. To feel the earth as if we are her, because we are; to feel one another as if we are each other, because we are. It hurts to feel so deeply, but it is also profound, and it makes doing harm so much more difficult. Healers are doing this work. Find them, listen to them, celebrate them, learn from them. Do this and I promise we will be alright.

So everything but Pluto is direct this month. We’re re-retreading ground already covered, going over things to make sure we’ve crossed all our ts and dotted all our…lowercase js. Pluto is deep transformation; an uncovering of the darkest wounds. Pluto will be moving backwards until October of this year, so get in loser, we’re going healing! We’re further analyzing power structures, systems, ways of being, philosophies, and unpacking our commitment to them. Look around you. The revolution is happening. Every day, every moment. Attune to the vibration of hope. Get your needs met so you can keep fighting the good fight. Don’t stop questioning, don’t stop introspecting, don’t stop loving. We are further along than we can see right now. Hold fast onto hope. The time for nihilism is through.

May 5: Mercury in Aries, Sextile Jupiter in Gemini (22°)

Sabian Symbols:

22° Aries - “the gate of the garden of desire”

22 ° Gemini - “a barn dance”

Immediate manifestation. DREAM BIGGER. You can have it if you let yourself. We often know what we want and immediately dismiss it as impossible, a pipe dream, but what if that dismissal is a self-fulfilling prophecy? Like Agatha Cromwell said in the 1998 Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown “Magic is asking for what you want, and then letting yourself have it!” A barn dance suggests a rapid-and-often switching of partners (swing your partner round and round, do-see-do and touch the ground lol). How willing are you to see life from someone else’s perspective? Much of the time, conflict can be resolved with the invocation of empathy. How would I feel if someone did what I’m doing to them, to me? When you have the impulse to be controlling, consider how much you hate being controlled. Consider your privileges. Think of the way this world treats people of certain marginalized identities– if the sheer fact of their humanity doesn’t pluck your heart strings, imagine yourself living their experience, what it must feel like. We all just want to be free, but none of us can be free while any of us are still enslaved. We are all connected. Don’t pull up the ladder behind you, reach back and help someone else up! To quote one of my film daddies, David Lynch, “Fix your hearts or die.”

Remember that daydreaming you were doing May 2? What has stuck with you in the following days? What have you deemed too exorbitant, too out there to move from desire to reality? Is it really so far-fetched? This day can bring optimism and clear-thinking. Clear thoughts bring clear communication. Things may move very quickly and fortuitously, this day. If there is something you’ve been putting off for the “right time,” this might just be it!

May 6: Mercury Conjunct Chiron in Aries (23° and 25°) AND Venus in Aries Sextile Pluto in Aquarius (4°)

Sabian Symbols:

23° Aries -“A woman in pastel colors carrying a valuable and veiled load.”

25° Aries - “The possibility for a man to gain experience at two levels of being.”

4° Aries - “Two lovers strolling on a secluded walk.”

4° Aquarius - And “A Hindu Yogi…” which we already discussed.

Desire without assertiveness is just a daydream. When we take action toward our dreams, we ground them in reality. The birth-death-rebirth cycle is universal and ever-turning. What are you creating? What are you shedding? This symbol also stresses the importance of “moving in silence,’ sometimes revealing something too soon can let others’ doubts, projection, perceptions, and energy get in the way of getting what needs done done. Know what to conceal and what to reveal. Your intuition holds the answers. Blain Bovee writes of this Sabian symbol, “Man can only truly experience what he deeply believes he can experience.” This goes back to those Halloweentown bars. What do you want? Do you believe you have what it takes to get it? What would it take, after all? There is also something here about the inner and outer experiences… how can you better integrate the two? Authenticity requires this alignment. It is available to you, believe it! Duality is a law that is meant to be transcended. Find the nuance. Find the truth of you. Find the awareness of your experience. Electricity cannot be created without both positive and negative energies. Through this union, something new is formed. None of this is new information, in fact its very very old. There have been attempts to remove it from consciousness, but there are those who never forgot, there are those working to remember. You can wake up at any time.

This day can support you in taking bold action towards romantic or financial goals, as long as you act in accordance with your values. Mercury and Chiron together point us in the direction of looking at our wounds regarding communication. Where have you felt silenced? You may feel called to speak up about the ways you’ve been hurt in your life. Chiron is the wounded healer and empowers us to help others by telling our own stories. This requires a quieting of the voice of shame. Meet with your chosen family and dive deep into what you’ve been going through, schedule an extra therapy session, be there for someone who needs support, pour your heart out, pour into others, let them pour into you. The intimacy we can nurture here is divine. Let yourself be seen. It might feel uncomfortable at first, but it can bring such healing, too.

May 12: Mercury in Taurus square Pluto in Aquarius (3°) AND the Full Moon in Scorpio (23°)

Sabian Symbols:

3° Taurus - “Natural steps lead to a lawn of clover in bloom”

3° Aquarius - “A deserter from the Navy”

23° Scorpio - “A bunny metamorphosed into a fairy”

Blain Bovee says of 3° Taurus, “Resolute perseverance improves one’s lot step by step.” The abundance that comes from tenacity, diligence, and patience may not bowl you over–a slow burn is called that for a reason–but the middle path is often more stable and sustainable than one that comes on quickly and burns out just as fast. Break those big dreams down into the babiest steps you can, then feel the grown and sexy thrill of checking off your to-do list. Look up once in a while and realize you’ve come pretty far, actually! I talked about 3° Aquarius in last month’s astrology report: jumping ship, a change in status, social rejection that comes from marching to the beat of your own drum. Finally, 23° Scorpio speaks of finding magic in the mundane, and how existing outside of the status quo can have others undervaluing or underestimating what they don’t understand. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be labeled an eccentric than lauded as a conformist.

May 11 Mercury moved into Taurus, which feels like a grinding halt after being in quick, impulsive Aries. That’s where that resolute perseverance comes in. Sometimes things slowing down can feel like a vacation! After last month’s breakneck pace, this shift is welcome and needed. Don’t live by someone else’s timeline, don’t get on the life-escalator if you don’t want to. Stay curious, stay open, stay questioning. Honor the people, places, causes, and pastimes your spirit calls out to. Shed “Should.” Step into alignment, it will protect you like no walls around your heart ever could. Release urgency. When you feel the call to go faster, try slowing down instead. Take a deep breath. See what happens. Let me know how it works out for you!! Tell me in the comments! That Full Moon in Scorpio may bring revealed secrets, deeply hidden wounds, and powerful transformations (like the bunny to the fairy!). Pluto rules Scorpio, too, so these energies are amplified by the retrograde. Dig deep, baby. Let the energies show you what you need to uncover. If it’s coming up, you can handle it. Unburdening yourself from the past comes from allowing yourself to feel what you’ve been working so hard to avoid. It’s ok. It’s just part of the process. Surrender. I am paraphrasing YouTube astrologer Lori Lothian here: “If you’re scared or unsure of yourself, consider what the caterpillar must imagine the butterfly to be like.” It’s like when you’re in kindergarten and you meet someone in high school… that’s gonna be me?? One day?? Yeah! It is! And it will be scary and sad and messy and gorgeous and fun, and it will change you forever. And so it is.

May 17 : Sun conjunct Uranus in Taurus (14°) AND Mercury in Taurus(12°) square Mars in Leo (14°)

Sabian Symbols:

14° Taurus - “On the beach, children play while shellfish grope at the edge of the water”

12° Taurus - “A young couple window shopping”

14° Leo - “A human soul seeking opportunities for outward manifestation”

The Temperance card is number 14 in the Tarot, which features the Archangel Gabriel on a beach, pouring water from one cup to another, one foot on water, one foot on land. We all exist in that complementary and oppositional duality of being in this world but not of it. We are all antennas for the Universe. What frequency are you transmitting? Are you making your unconscious conscious? Are you able to hold the complexity of life? The beauty, the pain, the bliss, the loss, the joy, the grief, the miracles, and the tragedies? Be the alchemist, allow the experience to make you softer, closer to that which created us, all the time. That internal shift will lead to external changes, so be on the lookout for what you want to call in. Align yourself with your desires. Allow them to come in. You are the conductor and creator of your destiny. What you do today has consequences tomorrow, so choose lovingly–you’ll thank yourself for it later.

These transits on this day could bring sudden changes, or sudden urges to change. Taurus and Leo, both fixed signs, can be intensely stubborn. Here, Taurus wants to slow (and calm) down, and Leo wants to ACT! This can lead to feelings of tension and unease, but this, too, shall pass. Expect conflict, be prepared to navigate these challenges with diplomatic honesty. Don’t be harsh! But do be real. Get out of your comfort zone, veer from the routine–that’s one of my favorite ways to tap into my intuition, by allowing my day to tell me what it wants to be. You might be feeling a little more rebellious than usual–it’s a good day for protests, just temper your ego and don’t do anything too risky or impulsive; Uranus rules accidents, so literally tread carefully. Go to a town hall and speak your piece! Call your representatives! You’re fired up! Use it. Regardless of any tension or tumult, try to stay open to any insights, opportunities, chance meetings, and changes that should fall in your lap today. Things are shifting, see if you can ride the waves.

May 22: Venus in Aries trine Mars in Leo (16°)

Sabian Symbol:

16° Aries - “Nature spirits are seen at work in the light of sunset”

16° Leo - “The storm ended, all nature rejoices in brilliant sunshine”

Wow! What gorgeous images! The foundation of a healthy society should be to ensure that everyone is supported in living a holistic life. We shouldn’t have to squeeze in rest, self-care, time to connect with nature, time for each other, or a spiritual practice. Unfortunately, we do. Make some time today to connect with the spiritual realm. Meditate, walk in nature, tune in, drop out. Something astral wants to connect with you, tap in by being fully present with whatever you’re doing today. It will lead to something beautiful. “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” The sunshine after a thunderstorm is one of my favorite vibes. Shift your gears to a new age of enlightenment–don’t let the Dark Ages we’re living through right now distract you from where we’re going. We could change everything if we chose to. Think how good it will feel when we’re on the other side of this. When we’re seeing the harvest of this hard work. Eye of the Tiger. Eye on the prize, baby. Eye on the prize.

This is a hot and spicy day! Love and desire connect, commiserate, entwine, and align. It’s a good day for social and romantic endeavors. Want to confess your feelings to your crush? Attend a networking event? Collaborate on a creative project? Today is the day to do it! In existing relationships, this transit inspires closeness and eases the way for resolving long, drawn-out issues or tensions. A tough conversation could lead to a deeper commitment! Feel yourself, feel someone else, get out there, mingle, and shine that little light as bright as you can stand! Fortune favors the bold.

May 24 : Sun in Gemini trine Pluto in Aquarius (3°) AND Saturn enters Aries

Sabian Symbols :

3° Gemini - “The garden of the Tuileries in Paris”

3° Aquarius - “A deserter from the Navy”

The garden of the Tuileries is a garden between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in Paris. It was first created by Catherine de Medici and later renovated by Loius XIV, who was king in France for 72 years! (There’s the 14 of the Temperance card again, btw). I’ve never been, but it looks like one of those super fancy manicured, sparse-but-opulent Italian Renaissance gardens that I appreciate because I love beauty and symmetry and design, but I would rather see trees and wildflowers and nature looking like nature. My opinions aside, it was only made open to the public after the French Revolution–before that, only rich people got to hang out there. Old Louis was kind of a supercolonizer and war monger with a #boymom who believed in the absolute power of the monarchy. I’m no history buff, but idk, I can see the parallels. I watched a video essay recently about how men who hate women are often raised by toxic boy moms (Diddy being one of many examples). It resonated with my experiences. Louis XIV was also an accomplished ballet dancer who used ballet for propaganda?! Fascinating. I DIGRESS! Anyway, these gardens were designed with contemplation and meditation in mind. The main message here is that we can only transcend the ever-thinking mind in the briefest of moments. We receive something cosmic and profound, and then we bring it right back down to earth to analyze it, obsess over it, make sense of it, reject it, whatever. It is the combination, the BALANCE, of intuition and intellect that leads to true clarity.

The Sun in Gemini trine Pluto in Aquarius is a good time to study and make logical sense of the esoteric. It’s a good time for favorability of superiors and people in positions of power– thinking of asking for a promotion or applying for a grant? Today is a good day to do it. There is an obsessive quality to this transit; you may be inspired to deep dive into a topic that you’ve been curious about for some time. Follow your bliss, baby! Also, Saturn enters Aries, God BLESS! Get out of Pisces forever if you want to. It’s been in dreamy, hard-to-pin-down Pisces for two years. We learned about how intuitive discipline can be if we allow it. It’s been a challenge, though! This ingress into Aries will feel like a real fire under your butt. Saturn rewards hard work, discipline, and clearing your karma. What has been coming up for you about routines and work? What patterns have you been recognizing? We’ll be in this energy until September, when Saturn retrogrades back into Pisces, so buckle up, buttercups! We’re taking action!

May 26: New Moon in Gemini AND Mercury enters Gemini

Clarity!!! That seems to be the theme of the month. What are you making sense of? Mercury in Gemini is one of my favorite placements–Prince had this one! It makes for great writers, comedians, and musicians. Gemini rules the hands, so it can make one very dexterous. This New Moon, set goals and intentions around writing, communicating, learning, teaching, and short-distance travel. Mercury moving from slow, methodical Taurus to fast-talking, fast-walking Gemini will feel like quite the shift. You may be seeing some seeds take root! Keep on keepin’ on!

May 29: Sun Conjunct Mercury in Gemini (8°)

Sabian Symbol:

8° Gemini - “Aroused strikers surround a factory”

There is A LOT of protest energy this month! The people are speaking, honey!! Look out! Is there something you’ve been holding back from saying, worried about how badly it will be received? Have you ever felt this way before, hemming and hawing, so scared to just spit it out, but once you do, it goes fine? You feel better regardless? That’s the vibe! It’s a good communication day/several days coming off of that New Moon energy. Get it out. Holding it in will only ensure a more explosive conflict later. Be honest, be loving, be kind, but say it with your whole chest. It might just turn out better than you think.

Sun conjunct Mercury can bring communication with friends, neighbors, siblings, and communities. It can encourage and inspire short-distance travel or seeking out new or deepening old areas of study. There is such a social energy to this month, which makes sense with Gemini energy, and there is so much potential for casting a wider net for connection. Put yourself out there! Have you been thinking of writing or creating, or releasing something into the world? Do it! Trying to find the right time to have that tough conversation? It’s now! Want to get involved in activism or volunteering in your community? There’s no time like the present! This year, so far, has felt kind of like trudging through a swamp; slow, laborious, heavy, thick. These shifts will have everything feeling lighter and– dare I say– a little more fun? Faster, at least. Enjoy! Enjoy the sunshine, the greenery, and the moment. Blessed be!

Want to know how these transits are impacting you personally? You can book an astrology consultation with me! Just click the link in my bio and then the “services” tab.

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Question Everything

Curiosity is the first step towards healing. Asking yourself questions like "Where is this coming from?" or even "What am I feeling right now?" Or "When was the first time I felt this way?" can open your life up in the most beautiful and unexpected ways. Unpack, analyze, and research your own experience. You’ll be shocked at what you learn, how you grow, and how much you really can love yourself.

Because of the white-supremacist-capitalist-cis-hetero-patriarchy, we're so conditioned to not feel our feelings, to lock into the life escalator, and not think too far outside of the day-to-day pay-to-play karmic hamster wheel of "life." As children--at least when you have authoritative caregivers--we are often punished for asking "Why?" But the impulse to ask why is an innate one. We are thinking, feeling, discerning, questioning beings. We have access to our consciousness in a way that feels mystical, in a way that–as far as we know– no other earthly beings have. I think it’s a freakin’ miracle, but for people who bristle at such things, you have to admit, it is at the very least a profound gift, a fortuitous accident, idk. So why not use it? Bask in it. Be grateful and have reverence for it. Question joyfully, question often, question everything!

I find a lack of curiosity unbecoming, at best, and dangerous, at worst. The personality that says “I am going to cling to the way things are and I Do Not Care To Know Why. It is what it is. That’s the way I am, take it or leave it” is a very challenging one for me to deal with. Someone else’s rigidity should have no bearing on me, but when you’re relating to someone deeply UNcurious, your curiosity becomes an active threat to their rigidity. This brings conflict, and when you’re having conflict with someone who lacks self-awareness, things usually get a little tricky. They come at me, armed with society’s weapons (We Live In A Society!!) and usually trigger a deeply-rooted shame response. It can be so hard to live outside the status quo, when the message that you are Wrong and Weird and Deserve to be Rejected is reflected back to you from so many different directions. I always leave these interactions questioning my whole being and way of life, I wonder if I have a clear understanding of the world, I do a lot of considering and re-considering. I shed what I feel needs to be shed and recommit to what still feels right. Once I get myself regulated, I notice I walked away from this interaction a little shaken, using it as a mirror to check myself before I riggedy-wreck myself, and the rigid person feels righteous and affirmed, self-satisfied, proud of their doubling down. I am always left feeling like if your tower can be undone with simple questions, maybe it isn’t as enduring as you thought it was.

I have found this lack of curiosity in the deeply dogmatic, the intensely privileged, the controlling, the exclusionary, the Power-Over subset—all people who have a lot to lose in undoing hierarchies. A huge red flag for me is any person, power structure, or spiritual system that says, “Don't question me.” Blind faith has never been my strong suit; I prefer to lead with a question, with curiosity, and should I witness something that inspires belief, I welcome it. If not, I keep it pushing. Even then, sometimes my lack of belief prompts me to want to investigate why others believe it. Regardless of where curiosity leads me, it always teaches me something about the world, other people, the universe, and myself. It really is that simple. It really is that complex.

Fear of the other is an example of rigidity. The ego says I DON’T NEED ANY NEW INFORMATION!! I DON’T NEED MY WORLDVIEW ROCKED!! I REJECT ANY THREAT TO MY SENSE OF SELF AND ITS PLACE IN THE WORLD!! This is what happens with terfs, capitalists, and white supremacists alike (funny how…close that Venn diagram is). It’s the modus operandi of the Christo-Fascist far right. They have to keep a wide array of dehumanized identities in their back pocket, otherwise, who will they scapegoat for all the problems they created? This is a good example of why taking responsibility is a revolutionary act. Make yourself aware of where you cause harm, allow others to show you the places you overlook, be open to the reality collapse of recognizing your privilege. This can be part of your daily practice—and should be!! Being proactive with change is one thing that helps it feel less jarring when the big changes come calling. If all you’ve ever experienced is negative change, of course you’re afraid of it!! Microdose it with curiosity!

Why is a great place to start. Why do I do that? Why are things the way they are? Who decided they have to be that way? Do I agree with it? If I could design a life for myself, what would it look like? Am I happy? What do I want? What keeps me from getting it? What beliefs do I have about myself? Where did they come from? Do they actually resonate with me? What was I indoctrinated into? What did I choose for myself? The list of questions to start with is endless. Take some time, maybe write the answers in your journal or record a voice note for yourself. Doing a self-inventory like this can be huge for clarifying your values, boundaries, and goals. A deeper understanding of yourself can improve your confidence greatly. It gives you what you need to more deeply understand others, as well.

Question everything! Questioning doesn’t have to have a negative vibe, it can be extremely gentle, proactive, and positive. Just a gentle curiosity, nothing more. It does tend to have roots, so it can lead you to deeper places than you initially anticipate, but deeper is never a bad thing (😜). Allow yourself to explore! If you think and feel critically, if you engage with self-inventories often, you’ll avoid the experience of operating like a Sim, just regurgitating whatever rhetoric you think you’re supposed to, and running that buggy default operating system doesn’t serve anything but the white-supremacist-capitalist-cishetero-patriarchy. Tap into a holistic life, an intersectional understanding of the world. It will only make you kinder, gentler, and more self-loving. Everyone benefits when you do this work

Life rewards those who are open to life with rich experience. Rigidity is limiting in every possible way. Aligning with something you didn’t choose is a shortcut to a life filled with resentment and resentment has the worst fucking vibes. You can’t live your truth until you know what that truth is, and you can’t know until you investigate it, until you uncover all that isn’t true. This is hard work. There is so much grief to be felt at time lost, at pieces of yourself others denied you, at the way we’ve constructed a way of being that is so detrimental to our spirits. Grief is meant to be felt. It’s a way of honoring what was lost. Mourn it, release it, commit to being staunch in your authenticity, and in your divine right to change your mind. Honor your autonomy, use it to build an interdependent community. Learn to love without losing yourself. Learn to have faith outside of dogma, doctrine, two-party political theater, constructs like the gender binary, or any other Should that does nothing but hinder the natural, fluid nature of a spiritual being having a human experience. What a joke!! To limit the limitless!! Talk about self-sabotage.

I will leave you with my favorite Bruce Lee monologue, which I listen to when I get all blocked up and forget to flow, or when someone else’s expectations of me tempt me to compartmentalize my multifacetedness. Fuck that. Be water, my friend.

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DARVO

DARVO is a manipulation tactic used by psychological abusers. It stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. Once you unpack the patterns of one abusive person, it seems like they all operate from the same playbook—you start to see it everywhere. This isn’t just a pattern that plays out interpersonally, it can also be seen systemically and on a global scale. Imperialism, capitalism, and oppression of all kinds persist through these very same patterns and require very similar work to heal. The effects on the victims of this kind of control dynamic are familiar, if not identical, regardless of the context (whether micro or macrocosmic). 

Thanks to being raised by people who never learned to meet their own needs—who obtained love by force, coercion, and manipulation—my idea of love was intimately intertwined with abuse. I repeatedly and almost exclusively chose people who were volatile, selfish and treated me more like an accessory or an extension of them, instead of an individual with my own wants and needs. They saw my ability to love as a weakness to be exploited. And they did just that. Leaving these relationships always left me feeling confused, heartbroken, and like a shell of my former self, which was, tbh, a shell of a shell of a shell already. 

Extricating myself from these situations was usually harrowing, to say the least. I was met with smear campaigns, denial, deflection, gaslighting, anger… I had to lose everything, or almost everything, to get away. Whether I was discarded or walked away, the refusal of the other person to take any responsibility left me grappling with my sense of reality; wondering if I’d asked for it.

As I started to heal and research these types of dynamics, I started seeing the same patterns happening in the world politically. “History belongs to the victors” is a great example of DARVO. We see the past through the lens of the people with the power. It takes a concerted effort to look beneath the chosen narrative to see the truth. The state of the world, much of the generational wealth of the world, wars and genocide, and fascism, are founded on the mass marginalizing (aka systemic abuse) of communities of color, oppressed religions and cultures, queer people, disabled people, elderly people, children, and women. Anyone who wasn’t able to access power (decided by the people hoarding the power) was considered less than human. Part of the goal of propaganda is to dehumanize the “enemy,” so they become easier to kill.

The way we have been taught about protests, uprisings, revolutions, colonization, slavery across the ages, across the globe, and even genocide is rarely from the standpoint of the victims, but of the perpetrators. Even the way that the younger generations buy into conspiracy theories denying the holocaust is an example of the effectiveness of the DARVO technique. Or the way people back Israel’s genocidal narrative about Palestine without looking more deeply into the situation.  The lens of the white supremacist capitalist cisheteropatriarchy is thick. To see past it, you have to want to, you have to unpack it from moment to moment. It’s pervasive. It distorts everything. 

I was taught all through my public school education in Virginia that colonization was a good thing! That we owed industrialization and the “modern, civilized” world to the brave explorers who discovered land that already had people living on it, tending to it, with cultures rich with tradition, beliefs, and languages. We were taught that being colonized was good for them. Christian missionaries to this day think they’re really doing something good for humanity when they travel the world inflicting their belief system on people who didn’t ask for it. Erasing the humanity of someone is one of the worst things you can do to them—reducing them to property, to a problem, to a wayward soul to be saved. It’s fucked!!

“That didn’t happen. Or if it did happen you deserved it” is the mantra of DARVO. It protects perpetrators of harm from ever having to take responsibility. This is why healing from abuse is so often a solitary endeavor. Looking for closure or confirmation usually just ends up in more denial. Smear campaigns serve to cloud the waters, so it becomes difficult for people outside of the situation to be able to tell who’s causing harm. It serves to further isolate the victim and enable the perpetrator to access more energetic supply from people rallying to their side. Some people are prone to always align themselves with power. Others tend to gravitate to the underdog, intuiting when someone is being hurt. 

Getting away is a blessing, no matter how messy the way out is. Even if it means losing everyone. Even if it means you look like the bad guy. Unpacking and healing internalized biases that perpetuate harm to historically marginalized communities is loving work. It will only serve to liberate you, too. People obsessed with power benefit from others unable to see how they obtain and maintain that power. This white supremacist capitalist cisheteropatriarchal system rewards high conflict, selfish, low empathy people with status and money, enabling them to exploit and control to their ego’s content. 

A future where love is the law is available to us, only if we arm ourselves with knowledge—if we see the patterns and hone our discernment. Only if we learn to move differently than we’ve ever allowed ourselves to before. Let honesty, integrity, softness, empathy, and consideration lead the way. Things can be so much better—if we let it. 

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Remember Who You Are

I went to a healing workshop in Bushwick when I first moved to Brooklyn where the facilitator said “Healing isn’t about creating something new, it’s about uncovering what has always been there.” I’ve thought about it every day since. 

The prospect of healing can be so daunting when you’ve been through trauma and abuse. That’s why most people don’t do it. Wading through the shame and regret of moments when you didn’t know and couldn’t do better. Embarrassment about times when you weren’t your best. Grief at the time lost. Not to mention the PTSD, the fears and anxieties, the not knowing who you are. 

My safest caretaker when I was a child was overbearing, emotionally volatile, and deeply invested in a fantasy of who I would become. I learned to fawn, to submit, to be perfect, in order to receive her love and approval. Every ounce of autonomy or individuality I managed came hard-fought and with many consequences. The lack of safety didn’t always feel worth it—the emotional blackmail, the guilt. Every failure or fumble felt like a tragedy, like I could lose everything if I showed that I wasn’t perfect. I molded myself into who she wanted me to be, and I didn’t know how to be anything else. 

This pattern stuck as I moved into adult relationships. At work, in my friendships, and in my romantic relationships, I was accommodating and overgiving. I left my real self, including my needs, boundaries, and feelings at the door. I gave until I crumbled. I never had to really let anyone in. I protected my vulnerability by aggressively taking care of everyone. I grew resentful. I got my feelings hurt. Whenever I needed someone, I found myself handling it all alone. 

Every toxic relationship I’ve experienced (and there have unfortunately been many) was a carbon copy of the one I had with my grandmother. When they inevitably ended (thank god), I would be left not only heartbroken but as a shell of myself. I didn’t know how to function without an overbearing partner telling me who I was or chasing someone by making me who they wanted. I didn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have someone to take care of. The grief came with the realization that I had lost myself was soul-crushing. This is why, when I look back on my 36 years, I often feel like the happiest times in my life were times when I was single and with very few friends. They were the times I would do things alone, and spend my time on what I wanted to do. I would begin to uncover the me that has always been underneath the trauma. Because of the aching loneliness that would set in whenever I was alone too long, these glorious phases of self-discovery didn’t last. Luckily, the things I uncovered about myself tended to stick. Sometimes they were covered up again, but never as bad as they used to be. Nothing was beyond healing. I’ve come to learn that very little is. 

Over the last few years,  I ended another one of these cycles—one that has spanned my entire life. One of the most difficult I’ve ever experienced. One that snuck through the cracks of all my healing work. When I walked away, my confidence, my boundaries, my inner peace, my safety, my focused vision of what I wanted, all of it was gone. I was like a-not-caterpillar, a not-yet-a-butterfly pile of goo. I was in the purgatory stage, the void of this-thing-I-so-heavily-identified-with-was-gone-but-who-am-without-it. The sadness felt like it was going to swallow me whole. I had to deal with all the usual feelings of ending a toxic situation, plus I had to deal with the intense grief at realizing how much of myself I had lost. All that I had worked to uncover over the years felt lost to me. But then I remembered that all I had to do was remember who I was. 

I had already laid the groundwork, I knew how to heal. So I got to it. I talked it out with trusted loved ones. I made sense of it in my head. I felt my feelings all the way through. I wrote myself love notes. I took every compliment and word of affirmation given to me by someone outside myself to heart. I wrote them down. I read them again and again. I flowed away from anyone who didn’t seem to have a kind word. I learned to be drawn to reciprocal love. I restructured my life. I remembered the things I loved to do, the things that made me feel good. A newfound (though modest)  financial stability helped me acquire the resources I needed to tend to my physical health, to have the tools I need to make my art—which is a tremendous part of who I am—and something I went way too long without. I started learning to love life again. 

To be honest, after four years of starting this cycle of a lifelong wound, I’m still not all the way back. And that makes me really sad. But I know it’s a process, and after I reach equilibrium, I will no doubt face these wounds again, as I climb the healing spiral, knowing myself ever better, hopefully loving myself more and more.

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How to Heal from Betrayal

A betrayal wound is one of the most difficult to heal. It warps your reality and makes you doubt yourself. It’s embarrassing, which triggers shame. It makes it hard to trust, which makes intimacy in future connections terrifying. It’s what creates the vibe of always waiting for the other shoe to drop. That’s a heartbreaking way to live. 

Trusting someone and having that trust broken is just a motherfucker of a thing to get over—especially if you experienced betrayal in childhood. Trusting in the first place feels like a feat of strength in and of itself, because it is such a vulnerable thing to do. 

You should know that if you’ve ever trusted someone and they betrayed you, that does not make you foolish. That is no reason to beat yourself up. To be vulnerable is a strength, full stop. Discernment is another thing—it’s just a necessary tool that those of us who were raised by people who were not safe have to teach ourselves later on in life. Discernment is not a psychic power. It’s just knowing what you will and won’t tolerate, and paying attention to the red flags and patterns. Someone else’s decision to betray you 100% is On Them. 

Unrequited loyalty is a burden and a half. Being a loyal person and being attracted to people who aren’t capable of reciprocating is an isolating experience. If they’re malicious with it, or unable to take responsibility for it? That can be crazy-making. You can get to the point where you don’t even trust YOURSELF. 

So, how do you find your way back from betrayal? Well, to start, you put the responsibility of the betrayal on the person who did the betraying. If someone’s going to move through life like that, they are going to regardless of the actions, love, patience, worthiness, whatever, of the people they are going to leave behind in their path of destruction. It’s about them and their dysfunction. 

People who struggle with codependency often tend to take too much responsibility and people who tend to mistreat others tend to take too little. This creates an inner monologue of “What could I have done to prevent this?” Outside of having a stronger sense of discernment and paying closer attention to red flags, probably nothing. Hindsight is HD and all that. Take it as a lesson and move differently in the future. 

It is a strength to have grace for others, to be able to trust and to love wholeheartedly. Being able to give people the benefit of the doubt, to understand the whys of who they are is such a lovely way to show up in relationships. But sometimes the pendulum needs to swing a little the other way, and we need to learn to give those things to ourselves at least as much as we are willing to give them to others. And then take it one step further and make sure the people we let into our hearts are capable of reciprocating what we have to give. 

Betrayal causes a reality collapse, especially if there’s any amount of gaslighting involved. It can make you question your sanity. It is so important to get back in your body with your feet on the ground. Seeking out external help in getting clarity on the situation, whether through friends, a therapist, a spiritual practitioner, or a mentor. Anyone who is outside of the situation, who can see it clearly, is invaluable. 

Carrying yourself through the grief is crucial, as well. Betrayal comes with all the mourning of the end of a relationship, plus that gut-wrenching grief that comes from feeling like nothing about the relationship was real—that you aren’t even allowed to feel joy and reminisce in the happy times, because they were all based on lies. Let yourself feel that. It’s fucking sad!! Understand that relationships have lots of layers and if what you felt was real, that’s all that matters. Try to think of the ending as for you instead of to you. 

Sometimes it takes something big and terrible for the people involved to take the leap of walking away. Our suffering has to get to a point where we feel like we can’t take it anymore. Change is a lot! We have to be sure, especially before we really learn how to flow. What is meant for you will never pass you by, so if something is passing, try to let it go. If someone can’t love you and honor your loyalty, you’re probably better off without them. 

Part of the beauty of destined goodbyes is the inevitable glow-up that follows. Allow yourself to flourish, to feel the absence of something that was weighing your spirit down. Feel this without guilt or regret. Just be in your new life, free to find souls aligned with your generous spirit. Expand, fill your cup with your own love. One day you’ll look back at the betrayal and, even though you might not be able to imagine it now, you’ll say “thank god.” 

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How to Stop Overthinking

Overthinking comes from our evolutionary impulse to recognize patterns. Our ancestors benefited from tracking their environment—prey and predators, weather—it’s basically a natural predilection for vibe checks. This natural tool for survival turns into a kind of toxic constant vigilance when combined with childhood trauma. When everything is a threat, it becomes difficult to differentiate when to run, when to fight, when to freeze, or when to fawn. We become used to being in a state of hyperarousal. We scan everyone around us (especially any unstable caregivers) for danger, never knowing stability, always trying to anticipate how safe we are. Once we escape the instability, our brains have a hard time learning how to relax. That’s kind of what trauma is; the body and mind don't understand when the danger is no longer present. It runs itself ragged, not understanding it’s jumping at its own shadow. Often, we find ourselves repeating patterns that are very similar to what we went through in childhood. We haven’t yet created an environment where we can begin to learn how to relax. 

Overthinking can be torturous. I used to have moments before I started healing where I would break down crying because of how sick of myself I was. I couldn’t sleep because of my brain’s incessant thinking. I was exhausted. I felt like if I had to live in this hell for the rest of my life, I didn’t know how long I could stand it. So I decided to figure out how to get out of my head. 

I dove into self-help books and YouTube channels, therapy, spirituality, tarot, and meditation. I started taking loooonnnng walks outside. I started following my intuition. I started teaching myself to take action. 

It helped to find spaces to emotionally dump and unload the thinking spirals. I needed a safe space, a nonjudgmental space, and a place to go where I could do no damage by speaking what was going through my mind. My journal was the first place I felt comfortable. I have journals on journals full of pages on pages of spiraling thoughts, fears, anxieties, patterns, and my deepest, darkest self-hating beliefs. When I go back and read, everything is so clear, but at the time, when I was just putting pen to paper, I had no idea. 

Next, I went to therapy. This was revolutionary. Having someone there to witness my patterns and spirals, to point out the things I was missing, to mirror empathy back to me, and to give me the tools to move in a more positive direction changed my entire life. My healing started happening more quickly. The realizations were coming from every direction. I sobbed through every session, sometimes through the week following, but eventually, I started to feel lighter. I was starting to feel my brain slow down. I was starting to feel unburdened by my trauma. 

My spirituality was unfolding simultaneously with the journaling and therapy—and once therapy ended, it carried me through. The self-reflecting nature of tarot, my connection with my spiritual guides through meditation, and my connection with nature helped regulate me even further. 

I remember getting a tarot reading from a friend who told me that I needed to work on my solar plexus chakra because I didn’t know how to take action. That was way harsh, Tai. But 100% true. I was blocked from being able to take action on anything. The merry-go-round of overthinking was too overwhelming. I had what is called analysis paralysis. Even the thought of action would trigger my imposter syndrome, my self-doubt, all the horrible things that people had said to me in childhood, and all the different scenarios of how things could go wrong. I had interpreted the unstable patterns I saw in childhood and projected them onto my adult experiences, making even the most positive situations terrifying and overwhelming. 

With every uncovered wound, the most amazing thing started happening. I started being able to take action, to put myself out there, to let myself have things I wanted. My life started shifting in the most beautiful ways. There was still grief, pain, and failure, but the shame that usually came with those emotions was abating. It made my energy feel even lighter as I moved through my life. 

These days, after a little more than a decade at this work, I still find myself overthinking when I get triggered or overwhelmed. The difference now is that, because it isn’t my constant state of being, I recognize that it’s happening. I have an entire tool kit of self-care that helps me get myself regulated. I have built a support system of people I can reach out to. 

Stopping yourself from overthinking is a liberating gift to give yourself. It can help you learn how to feel safe, how to feel stable, how to know what you want, know yourself, and take action toward your goals. It helps you parse out how you ACTUALLY feel from how you’ve been conditioned to feel. It makes life feel neutral at worst and like a daydream at best. It frees you from feeling like your patterns are happening to you because you are choosing new patterns. It helps you remember who you are. It helps you see that you are in charge of your life. And that changes everything.

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Notice

I get a lot of guidance when I’m on my yoga mat. The combination of presence and relaxation and movement really puts me in an open state; a quiet mind leaves room for my higher self to come in. You could call your higher self anything— God, the Universe, clarity, whatever. It all applies. A couple weeks ago, in the middle of a stretch, I heard “notice.” 

It was a reminder to notice the stretch in my body, notice how it felt after I released it. To take a moment to feel the elongation, the blood flowing, the energy release. But also to notice myself, my vibe, my thoughts, my feelings, my mental state. 

I first learned this lesson in a yoga class at the LGBT center in Norfolk, Virginia 10 years ago. This wonderful light of a person taught free classes there on Monday evenings. He used to say “notice how it feels in your body” between every stretch. And it unlocked so much for me. 

When you experience trauma, especially at a young age, you become separated from your body. It’s why modalities that include somatic healing are so powerful. To put your consciousness back in your body is empowering, it’s grounding, it brings you to life. 

Remembering to Notice these past few weeks has shifted my awareness yet again. I’ve been noticing how good working out feels, and how necessary my hour of stretching in the morning is for my holistic health. I’ve been noticing how certain connections resonate (or don’t). I’ve been reminded to tune into the tuning fork of my body to connect to the frequency of everything. It’s made all the difference. 

All the things I love doing, but which take a concerted effort—discipline, concentration, motivation— to do every day, have stopped feeling like chores. They’ve started feeling like gratitude. And isn’t that amazing?! 

I’ve been walking through all my tasks and chores and jobs with a lightness that makes them feel easy. This is a feeling I have accessed before, but noticing—really stopping to notice— how they feel in my body makes me want to return to them again and again. It also makes resting blissful. I don’t need as much rest as I used to, because the rest I am getting is high quality. I also take care of myself in such a multitude of ways, that rest has become built into my work days. But that has taken time. It also has taken a shift in perspective.

Thinking “I get to” instead of “I HAVE to” has created the shift that has stepped my pussy up in a big way. Especially because I remember what it’s like to Not get to. 

Noticing is a gateway to presence. Think of being in nature—noticing the beauty around you gives way to awe, which always gives way to gratitude. And gratitude is the highest vibration. Gratitude is an overflowing cup, it just aligns you with more gratitude, which helps you accentuate the positive, which quiets the negative thought-spiraling mind. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Before you know it, life starts feeling more gentle, more supportive, and less antagonistic. 

Start small. Start with a moment. Noticing something beautiful. Noticing when you’re happy, when a bite of food is extra delicious. A deep breath. A good vibe. Then expand that out, until you embody presence, until every moment is a meditation. Until you just Are. 

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We Are Our Actions

The thing about the healing spiral is that from a certain vantage point, you start to be able to understand where everyone is coming from. You understand the patterns, the whys and the hows, the intentions, and the pure, loving soul beneath. This level of awareness is dangerous to attempt to force before you’re ready, though—before you’re ready, the difference between intention and action is too murky to navigate. It can keep you from upholding the boundaries of distance. It can keep you from healing. 

Because of the nature of toxic relationships— the denial, the deflection, the gaslighting— it can be tough to respond to people’s actions as opposed to their words. 

Before my healing, I took everyone at face value. That’s not even completely accurate. I took everyone at the core of them that I could sense underneath. The loving spirit, the glowing potential. They could look me in the eye and say “I am a terrible person” with the kind of conviction that would make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I would reassure them that they weren’t, even as they were stabbing me in the back. It took me years sometimes to see the truth of someone’s actions—to understand that just because I could intuit why someone was behaving in a way that was causing me harm, didn’t mean I had to put up with it. 

When I think of the people who have pulled away from me, those who were hurt by my lack of ability to receive love, my attraction and devotion, and my prioritization of less healthy people over them, I get it. I know my intentions. I know I was doing my best. I know the way my traumas influenced my choices, and that I was operating from a dysfunctional place. I was in incredible pain. I was barely surviving. I couldn’t always think my decisions all the way through. I was so dissociated and so sure that I was inconsequential that I didn’t even realize anyone noticed what I was doing, that anyone cared. I was asleep at the wheel. I know, after so much self-reflection and radical self-acceptance that my intentions didn’t matter, the ways I was struggling didn’t matter, my actions did. And that’s what I have to live with. 

Holding someone accountable for their actions is not the same thing as holding a grudge. It’s a logical, necessary, and self-loving thing. It’s none of your business, really, if someone has changed. If you choose to maintain your distance because of things done in the past, if you have no interest in checking if the person has changed and would do better by you, if you are sure they haven’t, it’s ok to stay away. It’s ok to protect your peace. 

Our actions are our responsibility. Once you start to heal, you become more conscious of your actions. You move more carefully through life, or maybe a better way to say it is that you move with more care. You think your actions through, you soothe the meltdown-having-triggered inner child, and you respond instead of reacting. Your best gets better and better. 

You can see your past actions with the HD vision of hindsight, of knowing better. You can hold space for the wounded you, without excusing or deflecting responsibility for your actions. And this leads to more compassion for those that have wronged you. This helps you release resentment. This helps you let go. This helps you understand why someone you hurt might be lost to you, and, while you wish you could show them your growth, you know you’re not entitled to that. 

Get your words, intentions, and actions in alignment. Speak carefully, move lovingly, and consider the marks you’re leaving. Are they kisses or scars? Become a person of integrity. Say what you mean, and walk your talk. After all, we are our actions. 

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Healing is a Miracle

There is this liminal space between the old leaving and the new coming in that seems to go on forever. I guess that’s kind of the nature of liminal spaces. It’s so painful, the void. It makes you question everything—was it all worth it? Am I always going to be alone? Am I unlovable in my authenticity? Is my truth too much of a burden? Is the purgatory of the dark night of the soul the healing spirit’s final destination? Is seeing things as they are too much to carry? There’s no going back, but do I have to keep going?

You do. You should. 

I love the adage “You never have time to do it right, but you always have time to do it over.” Rebuilding the correct way takes time. It takes patience. Honing discernment is a training ground fraught with barbs and backslides. You will make the wrong choice (although wrong is relative—if you learned from it, can it really be wrong?) waaaay after you thought you’ve figured it allll out. But one day, after learning to take this life day-by-day, forgetting to look up once in a while to see the bigger picture, you will stop to notice your progress, and you will see a gentle life you don’t recognize. You will think I know I built this with my own two hands, but it feels like it just happened. It feels like a miracle. 

And it will be. A miracle of your own resilience, your own tender heart, your own strength and courage. It will be a gift your past self left for you when they had next to nothing to give. It will be a gift your current self is refining for the future you to receive with awe, what did I do to deserve this? You healed. You chose you. You grew towards the light, you trimmed your dead leaves, you uprooted and moved on. You looked in the mirror, honest and raw, and saw the ways you could become softer, and did. Though everything you experienced told you harder and more numb was the only way to make it through, you felt it all and then some. You surrendered. You found gratitude at every wrong turn and torn-open wound. You endured every failure, betrayal, and ending with grace. Your wins only made you more humble. You embodied your purpose. You became of service. You radiated the frequency of love. You left fertile ground for others, even those who cursed your name and watched from the shadows rooting for your downfall, you did it for them, too. Knowing the world will only shift for good when we all heal. 

The blessings will start as a trickle, barely felt. Maybe they’ll be conditional—good with an expiration date, simply a glimpse of the good to come, but not yet, not yet. Then a drizzle, a brook, a stream, a rainstorm, a flood, a tidal wave. The good comes one day, in a way that leaves you overwhelmed. Is this good?!? Could it really be this good?!? It can, it is, you were there when you created it, step by grueling step. 

It’s not that there won’t be bad days, wounds triggered, heartbreaks and losses—but when they come they wash over you, like waves on the shore. You will feel your feelings, all the way through. You won’t have to search for the silver lining. You won’t have to burn it all to the ground, anymore because all that you have created will be yours. Will be true. Will be made from love. You will feel righteous in your boundaries and solid in your self-love. Your inner child won’t need tantrums, because you keep them safe.

If you’re in the thick of it, if you only see everything going but nothing coming in, if you wonder if you’ll ever feel safe or stable or like you’re living a life you love, take it from me, you will. I lived so long in that liminal space. Some days, I feel like they’re barely behind me. And I can assure you, from the depths of my soul, it will get better. It probably already has. When I started my healing journey, my only goal was I just want to feel better. And I do and I have, every day, a little better. If that’s all you have, cling to that. That’s beautiful. To feel better? That’s a miracle.

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A Daily Practice

It is so synchronistic that this week's blog/podcast episode is about the power of a daily practice, because I have never been more grateful for mine. 

Something happened this week that I’m not ready to go into specifics about yet, but I will say that it triggered me in about 100 different ways. It’s one of those sudden tragedies that would throw even the most well-adjusted person for a loop. Thankfully, I have been riding the waves of grief like a pro surfer and I am so unbelievably grateful to have taught myself how to do that. 

There was a time, at the very beginning of my healing journey, when getting triggered could knock me on my ass for weeks, if not months! It would derail any progress, bring forth those dreaded default settings, and unravel any good habits I had worked so hard to establish. I would have to isolate, hibernate, and melt into the goo of my emotional chrysalis. It was all I could do just to process. 

I talk in the podcast about a metaphor I often utilize to describe the feeling of traveling through life pre-healing and it’s one I stole from vampire lore. There are some vampire stories that speak about vampires being able to turn themselves into a mist, in order to move in and out of spaces undetected. That was me, in the before-times—a mist. 

Organization was not an option. Focus was accessible to me, but only in extreme amounts. It was either 12 hours on a task, resisting stopping to even eat or sleep, or nothing for months and months. My extreme executive dysfunction and struggles with linear time (lol) were a constant source of frustration within myself and for the people around me. 

Like so many intuitive decisions that the universe has inspired in my life, I didn’t initially realize I was beginning a daily practice. I just gravitated towards what made me feel better; lighting a candle, writing in my journal, pulling a tarot card, and prayers of gratitude. After a couple of years, I added stretching and eventually (after a lengthy struggle) work. But it was a long process of streamlining and organizing. As always, a balanced marriage of the spiritual and practical was what served me best. But that is much easier said than done. 

When I received the news this weekend, I braced myself to fall apart. But when I woke up Monday morning, all I needed was a good, hard 15-minute cry. I let it all out, then let my body move me through the steps of my daily practice. Waking the dog, breakfast, yoga and meditation, rehearsal, work. The steps are as autonomic, at this point, as breathing. All the self-care I need is built into my schedule. I don’t need to disperse into a mist or fall to pieces, I am tethered to the earth by my daily practice. It nurtures me, it protects me, it reminds me how I heal. I don’t have to build anything or tear it apart, all I have to do is step into the flow, and there it is. There I am, on my way to the other side of this moment, this wave of emotion, this way of being.

A daily practice is a foundation you can build on. It’s a holy offering to the altar of yourself. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. It channels your energy into an arrow of manifestation, aiming right for the bullseye of the life of your dreams. 

My daily practice is my sanctuary. I didn’t realize how committed I was to it until this week—a week I would have barely made it through—even a year ago. I am full of gratitude for past me, for putting each brick into place, removing and replacing the faulty ones, escalating on the healing spiral, revising and revisiting and facing my faults, mistakes, and struggles, and accommodating my needs and difficulties. For doing The Work, which now allows me to live; in my truth, attuned to the vibration of love, in healing, allowing me to know that I can carry myself through anything. Blessed be. 

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A Sense of Self

Developing a strong sense of self is a crucial step on the path to recovery. Getting familiar with who you are over the course of a lifetime is the whole point of coming here as a soul and manifesting in the physical. Unfortunately, the limiting and conformity-demanding system we have all been forced into and the ways that those programs play out in our families of origin make that process an uphill battle. 

Most people’s parents create them with a set of impossible-to-meet expectations about who they will be. Then, we all spent a significant portion of our lives attempting to live up to these expectations. It’s painful, it’s futile, and it’s not fucking fair. One of the more difficult parts of developing a sense of self is learning how to disappoint people. Difficult, but necessary. After all, you aren’t responsible for someone else’s unrealistic expectations. 

This pattern of creating a false—or at least compartmentalized—version of yourself that will help you acquire someone else’s (conditional) love verbally trickles down into adult relationships. 

Having a strong sense of self makes having boundaries easy—you know what your core values are so you don’t waffle on them, you know how to listen to your intuition which empowers your discernment, and you don’t second guess when someone has a bad vibe or can’t respect a boundary. Having a strong sense of self also helps you own your shit because you are well aware of your shortcomings, and can give yourself grace when you slip up. You can apologize and do better without having to navigate the emotional quicksand of shame. Knowing who you are becomes a cloak of protection. Manipulative people won’t waste their time on you, your authenticity attracts only people who can meet you where you are. 

I struggled with having a sense of self my entire life. I started out totally unaware that there was anything wrong with me and proceeded to get repeatedly and unkindly rejected by my peers and my family of origin alike. I got the message that I was at once too much and not enough very early on, and being someone who takes criticism well, I got to work. The first issue of business was to be less bossy, less angry, and to take up less space. I tempered my “smart ass mouth” and started wishing my powerful, strong, chubby little body away. I embraced hunger, acquiescence, invisibility. Not being seen became my safe haven, my comfort zone. I became less wild, less free, and less me. 

Everyone knew me as sweet. I hardly ever spoke. I lost my funny, my brave, my tough cookie, my take-no-shit, my truth. I let other people tell me who I was because I had forgotten.I had stuffed so much of me beneath the surface. I felt lonely everywhere I went, even surrounded by people. I knew people loved me, certain people who, because of their intuitive nature and our resonant frequencies, but I couldn’t take it all the way in. I hated the body I lived in, I hated the mind I felt trapped in, I was resentful and terrified and numb to the grief I desperately needed to start feeling. 

Eventually, the pain became so big, I cracked open. And what came out, was authentic. It was so scary because the people I had let close to me had become accustomed to a version of me that wasn’t real. It was part of me, but it wasn’t the totality of me. They felt lied to, they felt shocked at my unfolding. My growth became a betrayal. It became “go back to how you were or I won’t love you anymore.” It was my worst fear realized. The real me wasn’t lovable. 

But something then something surprising happened. In the absence of the expectations of others, I was left with myself. I found what I liked, I took myself on dates, I convened with my inner child. I reflected on my patterns, my dependencies, my strengths. I became my own priority, my own best friend. I fell in love with myself and my journey. This empowered me to make choices for my life from an internal place. I came out, I laid boundaries, I started understanding my power.

Moving through life with a strong sense of self has been the best tool I have in my spiritual tool belt. It’s where everything starts—confidence, discipline, recovery, relationships. It has become a protective and guiding force, ensuring that all my close relationships are grounded in authenticity and respect. There is no gossip or eggshell walking. It’s just all love all the time. And it starts and spirals out from me. And that’s unshakable.

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Me vs We

I write a lot about codependency. It’s been such a struggle in my life. Growing up with emotionally immature caregivers—many of whom struggled with addiction— trained me early. My sense of self has been something I’ve had to work very hard to uncover. It was buried deep.

I was reluctant to get close to people for a long time, but that led to such deep loneliness and longing that once I managed to get someone to stick around for more than a minute, I became desperate to keep them. I would shove myself into the tiniest places, bend over backward, leave my Self in the dust, just to experience a glimmer of what it felt like to be loved. Who could blame me?! I was starved!

But it didn’t work. Eventually, the real me would rear its autonomous big-haired head, and I would start to crave freedom. There was this confusing dichotomy going on inside me where I was obsessed with love, I was sure it would fix everything, but once I got it, I couldn’t wait to get away from it. I have come to recognize that as an anxious-avoidant attachment style.

I was raised in such a way that I was either being smothered, neglected, or abused, there was no in-between. This made it extremely difficult to actually get my needs met.

Me vs We is the balance between the self and the other. This should be a balance that comes relatively naturally when someone experiences healthy attachments as a child. This means their parents were attentive, but not overbearing. This creates confidence in the child that allows them to be interdependent. I’ve seen it in children I’ve nannied. They go and play and explore and attempt to make friends and try things, and then when they get overwhelmed, they come and check-in. Then, they get some love until they feel better and then go merrily on their way. But, for many reasons, most children (aka future adults) don’t experience this.

Maybe their caregiver was enmeshed with them and took their individuation personally, infantilizing them and leaning too much on them, creating a bond that would disempower their child from individuating from them. Maybe they were emotionally distant, neglectful, or downright abusive, cultivating a “running” impulse later on. Any dysfunction tends to lead to problems in relationships in adulthood. Someone who grew up as their parent’s Emotional Support Child will probably either end up extremely avoidant, feeling that love and connection are burdens, a people-pleaser with poor boundaries, or some confusing combination of the two.

Interdependence is when a person knows that, truly, no man is an island. No one gets where they’re going on their own. Family, community, and partnership, it’s all just as important as one’s relationship with oneself. All of these connections require boundaries, forgiveness, and vulnerability to be healthy, stable, and sustainable. They require a balance of me and we.

The balance of give and take can be a difficult one to maintain in a societal program that sustains itself on exploitation. We are literally conditioned to give until we have nothing. Work takes precedence over all things, even our own well-being; and we are taught that consumerism is our only solace in this terrible, stressful, disconnected world.

So, how do we first achieve, and then maintain balance between ourselves and others?

I don’t know, I’m still working it out lol

I think we get there by internalizing the fact that all people need love. It is not a sign of weakness to crave connection. It’s entirely natural. Humans, like all other primates, have always been communal beings. Our social lives are important to our survival. Next, understand and believe that everyone is inherently worthy of love. Everyone deserves to be seen and understood. Everyone deserves to have good quality friends and partners to rely on. Everyone deserves to be cared for and respected. No, nothing you went through makes you the exception. Everyone is worthy of love. Just by the sheer act of existing. After that, it’s about pouring into that cup of yours.

Assess relationships past, present, and visualize those of the future. What patterns do you tend to play out again and again? Where do you overgive? Where have you taken too much? Where were you afraid to love or be loved? We all tend to play different roles in different relationships. Each connection causes different wounds and facets of ourselves to flare up. Take stock. Be honest. Do it with compassionate clarity. You don’t need to judge yourself or feel shame through this process, you are simply teaching yourself something new.

Next, figure out your boundaries, and learn how to be honest about them (with yourself and others). Practice with the people you feel the safest with. Sometimes it will not go well and that will be hard. Sometimes people who aren’t used to you standing up for yourself will be able to get used to it, sometimes they won’t. Try to be discerning about who resists this self-loving endeavor. Try to figure out why they might. Exert more energy on the connections that receive your vulnerability and communication with love and gratitude. Go where your grass is watered.

After that, it’s about learning how to self-soothe when the people you love lay boundaries with you. If the ego gets triggered or some abandonment issues rear their head, learn to sit with the feelings of discomfort. Reassure yourself if you can. Ask for reassurance from your loved one if you need it. Reassure them back.

Mastering the Me vs We axis is an exercise in radical self-acceptance. It’s about surrendering to the process. It’s about the humility of starting out every day as a novice—of self, of others, of life. Embrace the mess, the heartache, the frustration, the fears, the mending, the heart-to-heart honest-to-goodness love that washes over you.

Real love will never ask you to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the relationship. Remember, like Dr. Maya Angelou said, “love liberates, it doesn’t bind.” Choose love you feel free in, love others in a way that makes them feel free, too.

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Looking Back to See What’s Coming

As I get older, I am stepping into this profound gratitude that I have so much life to look back on.

Once, when I was a kid, I was skipping through a shopping center backward at full speed. I rammed into a brick column and stumbled back, dazed, before bursting into tears. It took my breath away! That’s how my twenties felt. I was skipping backward through life, running into brick column after brick column. I can’t blame myself for not knowing what I was doing, it was my first time being an adult, after all!!! All I had to look back on was my childhood, and that was no walk in the park, pretty much everything I learned there needed to be unlearned by the time I reached my late 20s and my Saturn Return. But now? Now, at 35, almost 36 (Happy Libra Season!!) when I look back at the previous cycle I see an adult. A full-grown person! And I can remember everything I went through, I can remember making conscious choices to go to therapy, or end a relationship, or move somewhere new. Life was no longer just happening to me, I felt like an active participant.

When I look back on the past, I see my patterns so clearly. I see how they were reflections of the patterns that were passed down to me by my family of origin. I see how much we all were suffering. But I see the good patterns, as well. Being able to hold space for the duality of a situation is a sign of maturity, I have come to learn that too.

When I look at the present, I see every choice I made back then meeting the consequence of the Now. Some exciting, some less than desirable. Seeing the fruition makes me more discerning with my current choices. I know there will be culmination, I have seen the proof, myself. I am happy with most of my choices, but it wasn’t a flawless ride, by any means.

When I look into the future, I am not afraid. I feel like I have a good sense of what’s in store, because I choose every day with love, discipline, and focus. Even when I rest it’s focused. I know my wounds as intimately as I know my strengths, I hold both in very high regard. I understand what an exercise in humility healing is, and I trust my own resilience. I fully know how little I actually know, so I don’t require any ego-shattering experiences like I used to, but if one should come, I will understand that it’s for my highest good. I can look back at every redirection, failure, block, heartbreak, illness, and all the other life-altering experiences and see the way they ebb and flow; the same lesson in a different box. I am always down to learn it again.

Settling down into the groove of healing is just a commitment to surrender. Fear of change, your own expansion, or the growth of someone you love is normal, but it is meant to be faced and overcome. Look at how many yous you’ve been! Look at all you’ve let go before! Some things have gone, probably, yes, that is as it should be. But look at the things that stayed!! Are they not beautiful? Are they not bountiful? Are they not sacred? Are they not the most honest reflections of the true you?

What a blessing it is to have lived and learned and loved so much, and to be able to keep doing so. When I was young, I used to look at certain older people and marvel at their nonchalant wisdom, their vast database of experience, the total comfort of their souls in their bodies, and the richness of a life lived.

Looking back isn’t a weakness, though it’s important to keep nostalgia, that tricky little devil, in check. Looking back at your experiences is like picking up the breadcrumbs you left behind so you could find your way back to yourself. The Universe sets us up with repeated cycles on the spiral of life. You might revisit the same core wounds for the rest of your days. They aren’t meant to be “gotten over” and then left behind, never to be heard from again. That’s just avoidance masquerading as moving on. They are meant to show you where you need the most patience, the most kindness, the most compassion. They are there to help you uncover, recover, become what you have always been. An infinite reservoir of love. A living being. The Universe, knowing itself.

Stand with your feet firmly planted in the present. Make every decision, knowing that your future self is watching you with gratitude for how well you’re preparing life for them. Be confident in your ability to create a life you love. Look into the future with excitement more than trepidation. Things can change so quickly and in such magical ways. Look back into the past, not with shame or criticism, look back with gratitude for all that you’ve endured. See your challenges as a classroom, see both your wins and your losses, alike, as information. See each experience as a story you’ll one day tell some young person, who’s marveling at your well-lived life.

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The Pause

Inhale like a wave called home,

clinging to the shore,

but still,

going.

Muscle fibers woven in between rib bones

lift

like butterfly wings to make room for

air.

Bubble gum lungs fill up! up! up! and!!!

Pause.

Feel the fullness.

Expansion.

Living awareness.

Energy,

that great

pulsing

frequency of

life.

Exhale, like waves on a shore.

A crash or a tickle.

A release of tension.

A surrender of the belly

like a body roll

top first, then down

down, down until

empty.

And then?

Begin again.

There is a frailty to being human that we are conditioned to try to overcome. This futile effort puts humility and gratitude on the back burner while force and ego take center stage. When did we start expecting the impossible from ourselves? Who was it that taught you that you were always expected to ignore the softness of your body; that it was a virtue to ignore the sacred call of rest, of balance? Who was it that first punished you for “falling short?” 

I’m in a flare-up right now from a little bit of stress, PMS, and poor sleep three too many nights in a row. It’s thrown off everything!! My perfectly and well-thought-out calendar filled to the brim with work, my daily workout and meditation practice, my ability to focus, my patience with everything (including myself), it all crumbled.

Last week, though?? Last week was a flawless week. I checked every single thing off my to-do list, every single day. I worked out harder than I’ve been able to in years, my meditations were deep and fruitful and my work flowed like breathing. I was able to breathe into The Pause with blissful ease.

Last week I made the fatal mistake of believing this is it!!! This is my life now!! Gone are the days of being bedridden, gone are the days of distraction and that chronic case of the grumpies!!! I’m cured!!!!!! I have the energy and organization to accomplish everything!!! This is a sustainable and achievable goal!!!!!!!!!

This week, it’s the bizarro version of that. I am in the foulest mood. I can’t think straight. There were fireworks late last night and I overslept this morning. I fell while rehearsing and made my already sore, tight, and crampy body even more sore, tight, and crampy. I kept dropping things (my phone, a drink, various snacks, my soap and razor in the shower), I’m bloated and my heart isn’t in literally anything I requested I get done in the bright, delusional sunshine of last week. My brain keeps spiraling this is it, I’m sick now, and I’m never going to be able to work again. Everything will fail because I am Not Capable of functioning. I am never going to thrive. Life, the world, the universe, MY MISBEHAVING DOG are against me. Things are never gonna be good again. This is my life now. 

Here I go forgetting the illusion of permanence, that This Too Shall Pass. Here I go forgetting that every day is a clean slate, and the energy is new every day. Here I go forgetting about the importance of The Pause. 

The Pause is what I call the space between the inhale and the exhale of the breath. It’s also the nickname I give the rest, recovery, burnout, sickness/flare-up, and/or life circumstance that forces me to lay the fuck down once in a while. It’s that diffuse state of learning where you walk away from the active practice of learning in order for your brain to integrate the information. It’s crucial, it’s natural, it’s a gift. 

Going through an experience that requires you to prioritize rest–whether it’s chronic illness, injury, losing a job, depression, etc etc–assures that you get well acquainted with pausing. If you can unpack that capitalist nonsense that says we should always push ourselves to work harder, and that it’s admirable to be able to overcome our bodies’ needs, humility blooms. Grace towards yourself and others starts to occur to you. You no longer flip out when someone needs to cancel plans, you don’t force yourself to do things you aren’t up for. Your self-care game elevates. Your boundaries become iron-clad. All from learning to embrace The Pause. 

Hindsight being 20/20 and all that, it’s much easier to look upon the past and see the moments where a pause we were resisting actually ended up serving us. So let this be a reminder to you, in moments where you are struggling with the fallibility of being human.

The Pause is the fuel station of your energy, inspiration, productivity, and grand plans. The pause is the place where you recalibrate between one growth cycle and the next. It’s that astral corridor you stand in between one door closing and another one opening. It’s a temple, it’s presence, it’s where you hear the voice of the universe. It’s loving awareness. Without it, you’d just go and go and go, never stopping to take a shit or smell the roses. 

I know this. I just recorded an episode on this lmao. And still… this week… I struggled. So lemme go take my own advice and get back in bed, allow this day to pass with as little resistance as possible, reminding myself to stay thankful for The Pause.

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The Paradox of Tolerance

image from @mattxiv on Instagram

A double standard is a tricky thing to navigate. It’s like how young girls are tasked with maintaining their virtue while “boys will be boys.” It’s how the poor receiving government assistance are “shirking the system” while the banks receive bailout after bailout and nobody bats an eye. It’s injustice incarnate. It’s the kind of thing that makes my inner child want to stomp their lil foot and shout THAT’S NOT FAIR!!!!

Philosopher Karl Popper spoke about the Paradox of Intolerance, making the point that “unlimited tolerance will lead to the disappearance of tolerance.” And we see it happening around us every day.

On a political level, it’s “news” outlets providing coverage of leftist protests against fascism and actual terrorism by actual fascists as “two sides of the issue.” It’s giving bigoted election fraudsters a platform. Twice. It’s alpha male grifters making millions by doing misogyny on social media sites, which are mining our attention and obliterating our ability to critically think, but activists receiving death threats for talking about how a piece of media could have better representation. It’s debate bros in the comments section with no stake in the game, playing devil’s advocate against someone just expressing their right to exist. We are swirling around the paradox like a turd that just got flushed down the toilet.

The tolerant left, the neo-liberal/center of the political spectrum prides itself on its lack of integrity. “I don’t need to get angry, I’m better than that.” And therein lies the tolerance. We’re not talking about “tolerating” marginalized people by improving the way the world treats them, we’re talking “tolerating” intolerant people. Bigoted people. Difficult people.

Picture it, pussycat. A holiday is approaching and the whole family is planning on getting together. Your “tolerant” mom pulls you aside and asks you not to bring up politics because it might upset your conservative uncle and make things awkward. This is the uncle who shouts his shitty opinions from the rooftops; who misgenders you, or disrespects your partner, or believes the earth is fucking flat and Don*ld Tr*mp is here to save the children from alien sex offenders, or all of the above and then some. But you must be tolerant of his intolerance because “we are tolerant people.” If you do choose to let your feelings be known and things get heated, you get in trouble for '“being divisive.” Does anyone correct or reprimand him? Usually not.

The Paradox of Tolerance.

I’ve also seen this play out interpersonally. The double standard that occurs in almost all abusive relationships is a perfect example. The person who controls the relationship expects to be able to yell, leave, cheat, lie, manipulate, triangulate, gossip, use, steal, and all manner of other bad behavior while suffering few-to-no consequences. They expect the people who care about them to stick around, to have the patience of a God, to have impenetrable feelings, to never know better, to never love themselves more. After years of putting up with mistreatment, maybe one day, someone lays a boundary or calls them out in some way. Suddenly that person is the devil, It doesn’t matter what nice things the toxic person thought and/or said about their friend/partner/whatever moments before— they deserve it, now. They committed the cardinal sin, they stood up for themselves.

I always find it funny how the meanest people are also the most sensitive. They will tell you you need to learn how to take a joke as they widdle you down to nothing, but if you say something innocuous that could be taken offensively by them, it’s over for you! Here comes the smear campaign!

There is this sentiment that doesn’t sound right until you’ve done a fair bit of healing. “We teach people how to treat us.” Sometimes people get triggered and defensive at that statement, taking it to mean that the abuse they endured was their own fault; like they deserved it or something. But really, healthy people don’t fall for the abuser’s game. They might give them a chance and start to get to know them, but after they drop a few red flags, the healthy person will pull away. It’s not about deserving, it really isn’t. It’s about having boundaries. It’s about no longer putting up with mistreatment because you’re afraid to be alone. It’s about not continuously breaking your back to prove yourself and your love to someone who has a vested interest in always moving the finish live. It’s about not tolerating intolerance.

At the end of all my abusive relationships, after the love bombing had long stopped, I always started to wonder does this person even like me. Not because of insecurity or self-worth issues, but because they were constantly criticizing my every move. They would make fun of my ideas, they would critique my jobs, and belittle my spirituality. They would act like spending time with me was a huge burden. But then, when I would finally work up the courage to end things, here they would come acting like I’m taking the best thing that’s ever happened to them. They would fight and (sometimes) stalk and send their flying monkeys after me and I would always be shocked! SHOCKED!! Why are they trying to make it so difficult for me to walk away? They don’t even like me!!

Well, that’s because it was more about losing than it was about losing me.

They weren’t used to consequences.

In our sweep-everything-under-the-rug-codependent-ass-society, we are conditioned to always cater to the most difficult person in the room. That’s why the most difficult people in the world are in charge of everything. But remember, consequences are good actually. They may act like you’re literally torturing them to death (/drama) but a boundary is an act of vulnerability—an act of love. Give the difficult person you love the gift of no longer tolerating their intolerance. Maybe the discomfort of receiving that boundary will give them the pressure they need to change. At the very least, you’ll set yourself free.

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Living With Intention

Do something today

that your future self

will thank you for.

There is a before and an after to my life.

Before healing

and after.

The best way I can ever find to describe what it felt like before is being asleep. Existence felt like a dream; hazy, distant, just beyond my consciousness. I was hardly ever present.

In therapy speak, I was dissociated. I had spent so much of my time chilling outside my body (as a survival mechanism, of course) that it became my primary way of being. The moments where I was able to find presence stick out to me, looking back. Like the beam from a lighthouse, guiding me home.

I can understand why so many unconscious people find it so hard to take responsibility. When you are asleep, nothing feels like your choice. Your trauma guides all your decisions. We become addicted to running the same scenarios over and over again, trying to manifest the desired outcome (I am worthy of love, I am good enough, I am safe, I am whole) through similar situations to the one that caused the wound in the first place. It makes sense, but it usually doesn’t work that way. Instead, we eventually have to learn that we shouldn’t have been put in harm’s way, to begin with. Adapting to abuse isn’t a healthy roadmap for life. We learn to put down our walls and weapons, to grieve, to love and be loved, and to choose.

It’s a bruised and bloody battle. My metaphors are always things like jumping out of planes, crawling through barbed wire, standing on a cliff facing a towering shadow monster—the journey to awakening isn’t easy. But it is beautiful.

Living with intention is a commitment to being present. It’s a choice made in every single moment. Yes, there is faltering, there is slipping back into old patterns, there is failure, but there is also a new opportunity to commit, with every single Right Now. A fresh start.

Anything can be done with intention. Loving with intention means understanding your own blocks, wounds, and projections, and ensuring to communicate carefully and with love, instead of defensively or reactionarily. It’s being proactive and productive. It means never going on the attack or hitting below the belt. It’s giving your presence, your respect, and your understanding. It’s knowing when to give the Benny of the Doubt™ and using your discernment in choosing who to love. It’s knowing when the kindest choice is to walk away. Eating with intention means honoring your hunger, nourishing your body the way it needs, recognizing when you are nourished, choosing foods that help you instead of hurt you. Sometimes, for me, that’s french fries and dairy-free ice cream, sometimes it’s a smoothie and a salad. It’s almost always (about 99%) gluten-free lol. Shopping with intention means doing your due diligence, making sure you aren’t buying mindlessly or out of compulsion or emotional pain. Activism and art with intention means creating from a place of true generosity and integrity, instead of ego. It means checking that capitalist grind-mindset bullshit at the door. Living with intention is putting the ego in the backseat and leading with love.

There is a discomfort that comes with living with intention—it doesn’t really let you get but so petty. It often leads you to take the high road when what you’d really like to do is get down in the mud and start swinging. It means feeling those pangs of shame and regret (and I mean really feeling them) when looking back on moments where you didn’t know better yet. It means understanding the weight of the consequences of every decision.

It isn’t all hard work, though. There is a gentleness, a bright light, a profound wisdom and magnetism that emanate from someone who lives with intention. They are the kind of people who always seem to know what to say. They are the kind of people who have a positive impact on most people they meet. They become the kind of people that garner great respect, not out of fear or intimidation—they are not tyrants, bending everyone to their will with brute force or manipulation—they just walk their talk. And that’s contagious.

I encourage you, from wherever you are on your healing journey, no matter how many mistakes you’ve made or how far you’ve fallen, make the choice to be intentional with how you move through the world, how you consume, how you connect, how to speak to yourself, and notice what happens. Do you feel lighter? More loving? Do you feel like you have your wits about you? Can you feel it? Is the gratitude settling in?

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Accentuate the Positive

We’ve all been there—stuck in a quality time situation with someone who is so deeply negative that it starts eating away at your sanity like someone is cheese-grating your brain. We’ve also all probably been the source of the brain grater. Negativity is a fucking bummer.

But so is life. And I consider complaining to be a sacred practice. It’s good to get the bad vibes out. Holding them in or pretending they aren’t there is just stuffing them down to deal with later, because what you resists, persists. So, how do we walk the line between venting or honoring our frustration and dwelling in it?

Like so many things, I think it starts with grace.

Grace, to me, is the inner voice of the archetypal loving parent. The parent that doesn’t get angry, that sees every mistake as a teachable moment, a bearer of life, and a bringer of unconditional love, a being with infinite forgiveness. This is the type of love we all crave that most of us are denied. It takes a being of exceptional healing to love like that, and most people aren’t doing their healing homework. I think many of us would love to embody that type of love, but when it comes to pouring that love outward, we often fall short. That’s ok. The best place to start practicing loving unconditionally is to you from you.

Reparenting yourself with grace means gently guiding yourself back to the right path every single time you veer off in the wrong direction and doing so with patience, with loving redirection, with understanding. Everyone knows what it feels like to make a mistake, everyone once experienced what it felt like to not know better—why do we berate ourselves so hard when we struggle through the grueling learning process that is Life? Because we were never taught any other way.

An emotionally immature person will meet a mistake with criticism, the more immature they are, the more toxic the criticism will be. Most of our parents and their parents and their parents were emotionally immature. People who haven’t unpacked their own harsh upbringing tend to think that the only way to teach people is to berate them into being better. I don’t think it’s as effective as they would like to believe. We become accustomed to a pattern of negative attention being the only attention we get.

I have heard so many people complain about this in regard to their superiors at work. I only hear from my boss when I’ve done something wrong, I never hear a peep when I’m doing a good job. I hear a lot of people say similar things about their partners, parents, and even friends. There’s this phenomenon on social media where if you were to get 100 positive comments on a post and 1 negative comment, you’d pay more attention to the 1 negative than the far more prevalent positive ones. This comes from that cycle of negative attention.

There are a lot of negative experiences in the world, and most of us have experienced way more trauma, mistreatment, exploitation, and struggle than we have peace, joy, love, abundance, or even simple contentment. The world isn’t set up for us to enjoy our lives. It’s by design. So our default setting is to accentuate the negative over the positive.

This is why cognitive behavioral therapy is so helpful to so many people, it’s main focus is retraining our thoughts in a positive, gentler, and more loving direction. Reframing our experiences as positive (even if that just means calling it a “learning experience” can drastically improve our confidence, our ability to access gratitude, and can make life feel a little bit more bearable. Knowing you have what it takes to get through tough times is seriously half the battle.

A negativity spiral can make a bad moment turn into a bad day, a bad week, a bad life before you know it. It can fuck with your executive functioning. It can exacerbate anxiety and depression. It can cause you to withdraw or others to withdraw from you. We’ve all encountered people (and have probably been this person at one point or another) who have a negative retort for every piece of advice, who bat away every compliment like a cat swatting at a fly. It’s frustrating for the person who’s stuck in the negativity spiral, it’s frustrating for the people who love them and are just trying to help.

So, how do we begin to redirect ourselves toward a more positive mindset? Catch the negative spiral. Pay attention to your thoughts. When you experience something negative in the world, try to notice your reaction to it. After the moment passes, how often are you returning to it in your mind? Are you simmering with rage, shame, or sadness? Are you obsessing over what you could have done but didn’t? What stories are you telling yourself about what happened? What is it triggering in you? What feelings are coming up? What is the spiral and what is true? Is there a way you can give someone the benefit of the doubt? Is there a positive spin you could put on the situation? Or if not positive, a more neutral spin? Can you bring yourself back to center? Can you let it go?

There is a lot to be unhappy about in life. There is so much suffering in the world, so much injustice. Accentuating the positive isn’t about ignoring that fact. It is so important to honor your feelings, even the less desirable ones, after all, the only way out is through. We have to express our feelings to be able to transcend them. Creating positive or neutral stories from some of our struggles is just a practice in restoring balance. Since childhood, many of our minds have been floating in a sea of negativity where we internalized messages like I am unworthy of love or nothing good ever happens to me or I am a burden. Accentuating the positive doesn’t sound like Life is perfect and I am happy no matter what happens to me, it’s more like I made a mistake but I am still loveable or I am a work in progress or shit fucking happens but this too shall pass.

Practice giving yourself credit for all the things you survived. Celebrate your wins like you would a friend’s, and if you wouldn’t celebrate a friend’s, work on that.

This Little Light of Mine

I was at the playground with a baby I was nannying who was just learning to walk. We were practicing with one of those little push walkers when he got distracted by a little girl, about 7 or 8 years old, who was parkouring all over the jungle gym. She was flipping and jumping and spinning and having the time of her life. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her! Eventually, she noticed and laughed “That baby is watching me!!” I said, “he’s mesmerized by your cool tricks!!” She said “Yeah… I do have a LOT of cool tricks!” Then she started doing cartwheels and monkey bar climbing while the baby and I clapped and cheered. After a few minutes, she jumped down in front of us, got really serious, and said “Sometimes when I’m doing my cool tricks, someone will say “show off…” kinda quiet so I won’t hear, but I do hear them!! It really hurts my feelings!” I said “Oh my goodness that is not very kind! I think you are amazing and you should be proud of all the things you’re good at. Those people are probably just upset because they think they can’t do what you can.” And she said “Exactly. They THINK they can’t, but if they tried, they probably could!”

I think about her all the time. I think about my inner child—so bold and brazen and bossy and so sure of what I was good at. Where did they go? When did I lose them? Why is it such hard work to get them back and keep them?

Well, it’s probably because I have always found myself surrounded by insecure people. I was literally taught that a woman knowing how beautiful they are automatically makes them less beautiful. I was taught that “if you get too big for your britches, God finds a way to humble you.” I developed a kind of OCD superstition around feeling good about myself. If I felt like shit, things would go well. If I felt good about myself, though, something bad was bound to happen.

For so long, every time I ever stepped off stage after, repeatedly facing my debilitating stage fright to perform and perform well, somehow, by the grace of God, I always had someone waiting there, someone’s who’s approval I was desperate for, to point out how flat I was, or how shy I seemed, or how the microphone wasn’t loud enough, or how if I just lost 5 pounds I’d be perfect. I was never allowed even a moment of pride or gratitude or appreciation. And I never heard son much as an unqualified “good job.”

Capitalism holds no place in our interpersonal relationships—a scarcity mindset and chronic competition doesn’t leave much room for real emotional intimacy or trust. It’s often one of the biggest barriers to really being able to truly see one another.

I’ve been trying to make art my career off and on for my entire life and I have seen some shit, ya’ll. Whether it was cutthroat opera singers playing psychological mind games in the audition waiting rooms, burlesque performers who’d seen Showgirls 100 too many times, at the ready with a handful of beads for anyone they perceived as a threat, or trust fund kid artists in the city who literally get jealous of their peers’ poverty origin stories because they think it makes them less interesting bi proxy (which it does lol), the scarcity mindset is everywhere. And the people with the most power are always the most belligerent, the most stingy, the most ruthless. People will tout “community over competition” while backstabbing their best friend for a little power. Everyone has crossed paths with someone like this at one time or another… I’m sure someone specific popped into your head as you read that.

It’s so unnecessary. Everyone is special and no one is more special than anyone else. Our mission here is to shine our unique light as brightly as we can to be a beacon for those who will follow in our footsteps. We are supposed to be confident, guided by our intuition, authentic, and generous. We are supposed to uplift and encourage one another, hereby easing our individual burdens. We are supposed to support each other as we follow our respective paths.

It’s hard out here! There are so many unconscious people trying to tell you what’s right is wrong and what’s up is down. Many of us even know the particular trauma of having our own mothers compete with us! It’s wild! The white supremacist capitalist cishetero patrairchy is constantly making itself known through bosses, media, our peers, and authority figures in our lives. There are hoards of systemically zombified Judgey Judgersons just waiting to tear us back down to size the moment we start to shine our light. Who needs God to humble you when your “Best Friend” will do it any and every chance they get?! Unpacking is not enough, we need constant vigilance to stay in our right minds and grounded in our integrity.

In the grand scheme of things, we’re all just Hungry Hungry Hippos, fighting for a few little white balls. It isn’t our fault, it’s how we’ve been taught to survive in a system that refuses to give us what we need, even though It’s got it to give. We didn’t create scarcity, but we do need to do the work to transcend it.

Think of the people you love… Aren’t they each unique? Don’t they each carry a vibe that is specific to them? Isn’t the love you feel for them completely different than the love you feel for anyone else? Not better, but different? What feelings do they inspire in you? What do you think you inspire in others? When the people closest to you compliment you, what do they say? That’s a clue! A first step toward knowing what you bring to the table.

If we’re all here to be a genius at a few things, then to take that genius and share it in a way that helps others—if we all have an integral piece of the cosmic puzzle, but we’re so busy competing with each other to recognize our own, much less anybody else’s—how are we going to get anywhere?

The need to feel superior drives a lot of toxic behavior. It chips away at the self-esteem of those around us. It can stop people from following their own divinely guided path. It has stopped me from following mine. I always get back to it after some recovery, but boy have I faltered. When you’re putting yourself out there and the people closest to you have nothing good to say, how are you supposed to feel?

When you feel ready to show off your cool tricks, don’t let anybody call you a show off—and if they do, just let it roll off you like water off a duck’s back. Just as importantly, when you see someone else shining, don’t go over there trying to hide it under a bushel or snuff it out with your purposefully withheld congratulations or petty gossip. There is infinite abundance in the world, tap into it. Embrace your light! There has never been another like it before you came here and there will never be another one exactly like it again. Remember that, keep it in mind as you navigate a world brainwashed into mindless competition fueled by fabricated scarcity. You are special, not more special, definitely not less special, perfectly special, and miraculously you. Unleash that heart space glow, recognize your gifts and talents, let that appreciation for yourself pour out into everyone who comes near you, then recognize and appreciate theirs’ as well. Feel the warmth of the vibration of the frequency of love emanating from you and let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!

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The Teachings of Suffering

Little Green

Sometimes a broken heart 

pours more freely.

Tender as ever and 

strewn about in pieces, 

the pink astral substance 

flows out unencumbered by 

fear-made damns,

untainted by the poison 

of pain past.

I'd like to build a stone 

sarcophagus around 

the foolish organ. 

Wall it up.

Let it shrivel and die,

and be bitter, 

like everyone else 

seems to be.

But it won't let me, 

and I don't know why, 

except that sometimes, 

a broken heart 

pours more freely. 

Suffering has been one of my greatest teachers. I know that sounds like bullshit, but it’s true. The ways that I have suffered in this life have helped mold me just as much as the strokes of luck, the falling in love, or the occasional glimpse of success. Looking back, some of my most proud “loving myself” moments have been when I was deeply hurting.

I didn’t always have this perspective. After being hurt by religion one too many times, my late teens and early 20’s turned me into a surly skeptic. I was jaded and closed-off and sure that I was right that there was no way to improve my situation. I got offered good advice, which I shot down, I was recommended spiritual teachings, I laughed at them, and I mostly just partied my way through while emotionally white-knuckling life.

I was someone who needed to learn the hard way, until I struggled enough to learn how to let in good advice when I heard it. And I did. But all that pressure and grief and fear and struggle started to cause something beautiful to happen—I started to soften. I started to notice the patterns playing out in my life. Whenever I found myself going way too far down the wrong path, I started correcting myself sooner and sooner. The wisdom I had gained from suffering started to help guide my way. I was getting more sure-footed with every step.

Inside of each of us is a duality. We are, at any given moment, fluctuating between our default settings and our higher self—usually distress causes the default settings to come forward, but the higher self is the one that urges us to move more lovingly and thoughtfully. My default settings are a stark reflection of my abusive childhood. When I think back to the rawest version of me, I was angry. I got in fights all the time. I was a walking, talking trigger. I was sensitive, I was bossy, I was controlling, I was competitive, I was blunt to the point of rude. I was fearless in a way that was dangerous. I struggled socially. I almost quit school in the 7th grade because I was too depressed handle it most days. I was mercilessly bullied for at least a few years and honestly that was a relief compared to what I got at home. If I had allowed my suffering to harden me, what would I have become? It makes me scared for myself when I think too long about it. It makes me so grateful that I went the other way.

The thing about life is, it’s full of suffering. From the second we are ripped from the universe and then again from our mothers’ bodies, it starts. The missing, the longing, the sadness, the anger, the worry. So many of us find ourselves in such strong resistance to any experience that isn’t perfect (or any experience period) because we are trying to avoid suffering. Think of the person who got their heart broken in high school and now they’re 37 and have managed to avoid ever trying to love again (leaving a path of destruction in their wake). That’s irrational!! Part of loving is losing. Not everything is supposed to last forever!! Each relationship comes into our lives to teach us something and the pain is often a big part of the lesson. To miss out on a whole lifetime of love because you’re scared of a little heartbreak?! Sounds like a one way ticket to Regretville to me.

It really isn’t about avoiding the suffering. That’s impossible. It’s about changing your reaction to the suffering.

Getting your heart broken will always hurt, but the hurt doesn’t come with so much extra baggage if you just see it as a rite of passage in service of the goal of learning how to love and be loved. Being born into a family that traumatized you is awful, the trauma really does do everything it can to ruin your life, but it can also make you careful, it can push you to heal in ways that people who grew up in loving households might never understand. Being bullied can lead you to be someone who stands up for the underdog, it can make you staunch in your authenticity, because it came at great cost. Being marginalized can radicalize you into being someone who fights for the liberation of all people—someone who could change the course of history.

It’s not easy to allow yourself to acknowledge the teachings of suffering. The ego gets in the way. It knows that to embrace the full experience of being human is to keep it in the back seat, far away from the power it so voraciously seeks. Surrendering to the full spectrum of human emotion and all that can happen to us in one lifetime is a cheat code for life. It is the key to transcending attachment, opening up to intimate connections, and even reconciling with our own eventual death.

Allowing suffering to soften us is one of the ways to stop repeating cycles of generational trauma in their tracks. You can be sure you are learning and healing when you realize you could never imagine treating anyone the way your were treated. You’d be surprised how many people feel entitled to cause others to suffer because of the fact that they have suffered. But that’s because they let their suffering harden them.

Look back on your life so far and consider those moments of hardship, heartbreak, loss, and disappointment that ended up being blessings or lessons or warnings from the universe. Look at the ways that suffering has taught you, guided you, softened you. See if there isn’t any gratitude to be found in that, or at the very least, a shift in perspective.

We leave the blissful oneness of being the universe to come here, put on these awkward human suits, and love and fuck and fight and cry and cringe and die. It’s a MESS! It’s full and fun and absurd and a roller coaster ride and the most profound classroom. If you remain open-hearted and present, if you allow the transformations to wash over you like a river over a pebble, smoothing you out, you will reach the end of your life knowing you lived it well. That’s a fucking miracle. And besides all that, remember—a broken heart pours more freely.

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