Healing the Common Traits of Adults with Childhood Trauma

my poem from my chapbook Flight of the Final Girl which you can purchase here

One day I got tired of running.

I got so tired I couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs at work.

I kept telling the doctor something was wrong with me.

At times I was sure I could feel myself knocking at Death’s front door.

The crumbling of the illusion of functioning I had haphazardly stitched together

started to shred at the seams like the thighs of my favorite jeans.

I wanted love and yet I ran into the arms of ambivalence,

I wanted safety but I looked for solace in dwellings of danger.

I was so lonely though I seldom let myself be alone.

Healing began in the burst of a bubble,

a flood of tears that wouldn’t stop coming,

a surrender to “broken” that didn’t give way to shame,

or did but I kept feeling anyway.

The reality is, the things that kept you safe in childhood start to look like dysfunction once you’re grown.

Correcting the toxic patterns that once served as lifelines to survival is the hardest and most beautiful thing I have ever done. It is my greatest achievement, my biggest passion in life, and the most loving thing I have ever done for myself. This is my life’s work and it’s the place where all my other work flows from.

The autonomy that sprouts from awareness is empowering as all get out. The ability to protect myself from people who mean me harm, from situations that aren’t good for me, and the temptation to step out of my integrity heals something in me that is so deep I think I may have come into the world wounded. Maybe we all do.

I am tap dancing in the dark through life, just like everybody. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I do know this

You can absolutely heal yourself.

No matter how far you think you are from feeling better. No matter how far off course you may have drifted. Just put one foot in front of the other—and one day you’ll look back and marvel at how far you’ve come.

listen here // watch here

#childhoodtrauma #cptsd #healing #selfhealers #selfhelp #selfhelpblog #selfhelppodcast #walkonpodcast #podcast #selflove #selfcompassion #selfforgiveness #forgiveness #wounding #childhoodwounding #innerchildwork #selfhealers #healing #personalgrowth #poetry #poet #blog #blogger #mentalhealth #mentalhealthblogger #childhoodabuse #abusesurvivor #fromsurvivingtothriving #mystic #mysticism #selflovecoach #healingtrauma #traumarecovery #codependency #codependentnomore #toxicrelationships #howtoheal #howtoloveyourself #recovery #youcanhealyourself #spirituality #spiritualblog #spiritualpodcast #howtobehappy #howtofindlove #healthylove

Common Traits of Adults with Childhood Trauma

I am a product of the self-help section of my local bookstore. My first planted seeds of healing were in the words of Dr. Maya Angelou via Oprah Winfrey waking me up from my afternoon naps after the energy-zapping days of public school. Dr. Angelou wasn’t exactly self-help, but the way she explained life and love and healing definitley taught me (and Oprah!!) a thing or two. Sometimes if I want to nap I will put on the Oprah show and wake up expecting to hear my grandma clangin’ around in the kitchen. I tried Eckhart Tolle and The Drama of the Gifted Child and everything under the sun. The most powerful and transformative being Toxic Families: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life by Susan R. Forward. I cracked that one open 10 years ago and began the crawling-through-broken-glass-and-barbed-wire journey of self-healing that I am still on today.

Spirituality came into play and joined forces with the practical application of these mental health strategies and here we are. It never fails, though, when I’m working on a wound, I return to the self-help section.

I know many people regard this as cheesy pseudo psychology, but where I’m from in Norfolk, VA there aren’t many mental health resources (or medical health resources to be honest with you) and you are often left to your own devices as far as feeling better. Many people turn to substances. Some have felt so hopeless as to consider taking their own lives. I have experience with both of those things. When you don’t have a hand to reach for is it so far-fetched to think that any help could make a difference?

I recently read Adult Children of Alcoholics by Dr. Janet G. Woititz EdD because I grew up knowing that nearly every adult who took care of me was struggling with one addiction or another. I was told my whole life that I had alcoholism in my blood and that if I wasn’t careful, it would happen to me too. I was scared of drinking. That’s why I didn’t even have my first sip of alcohol until I was 19—and didn’t get drunk until a year later. But then, I lost control. I loved the feeling of oblivion and I went there again and again and again.

I have been completely sober for several months now, for the first time in about 15 years. This clarity of being has lead me to the ACoA book, which affirmed much of what I already knew, but has helped me commit ever deeper to my newfound and sacredly-held sobriety. I was finally ready to heal the wound surrounding substance issues, escapism, not being chosen, instability, and much more. What I found was a checklist that applies to almost everyone I know who suffers from any kind of childhood trauma—its more universal than the title of the book would have you believe.

So, like always, I studied and researched and now I’m reporting my findings to the void

Adults Survivors of Childhood Trauma may

• Have to guess at what ‘normal’ is

• Have difficulty following through on things

• Lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth

• Judge themselves without mercy

• Have difficulty having fun

• Take themselves very seriously

• Be extremely responsible or extremely irresponsible

• Overreact to changes over which they have no control

• Constantly seek approval or affirmation

• Feel inherently ‘different’ from other people

• Have problems in relationships

• Be extremely loyal even when it is undeserved

• Be impulsive

Any pattern of behavior created by childhood trauma is heal-able, is correct-able, and it’s never ever too late. Self-help and self-love can be a safe tool for building a sense of self based on healthy behaviors, a more loving inner voice, and the kind of confidence that glows from the inside out. If you see yourself in this list, don’t worry, there’s nothing to ashamed of or feel hopeless about. You can cultivate within yourself the love and safety you’ve always longed for. One day at a time.

Want to know more about which books have helped me heal? Listen here!

Listen here // Watch here

#podcast #podcastlife #childhoodtrauma #acoa #adultchildrenofalcoholics #healing #personalgrowth #selflovecoach #selflove #selfhelp #selfcare #selfcompassion #howtohealyourself #howtoloveyourself #cptsd #complexptsd #trauma #healingtrauma #traumarecovery #codependency #toxicrelationships #spirituality #mystic #spiriutal #wounding #howtohealyourwounds #spiritualpodcast #mentalhealth #mentalhealthpodcast #selfhealers #blog #adultchildrenofalcoholics #traumasurvivor #blog #mentalhealthblog #selfhelpbooks #spiritualblog #selfloveblogger #mentalhealthblogger #selfhelpblogger

The Golden Rule

@ryunosuke_kikuno

School School,

The Golden Rule,

sign your name at the Golden Gate…

So many things we teach children about sharing, about respect, about consideration, honesty, love, believing in ourselves, and even things like the magic and mystery of life, we forget as we grow older. The Golden Rule is definitely one of them.

Treat others how you wish to be treated

It’s so simple but we make it soooo hard. Our wounds, our subconscious drives, our egos all get in the way of this tenant of common courtesy which reflects the deeply spiritual truth of oneness, of “namaste.”

That, which is Universal in me, sees and respects that which is Universal in you

That’s it! That’s all there is to it. It doesn’t mean you have to like everyone you come across, it just means that respect should be the minimum you give to every other living being on this planet. If we could have The Golden Rule as our foundation, there would be a lot more love, patience, and understanding in our interactions.

I find it really interesting how, when everyone is pretending to be perfect, that inner knowing that they are flawed turns into shame. One of the most base ways to get out from under shame is to project it onto someone else.

This is the primary mode of operation in most Christian Congregations I’ve ever spent any time in. Everyone is all up in everyone else’s business to slight-of-hand style distract from the mountain of skeletons piling up in their own dang closets. The people who are the most judgmental often have the most to hide. This is why I teach self-compassion.

Shame doesn’t serve anyone. All it does is help the ego feel superior, all it does is cause more hurt. You can’t shame someone into healing. You can’t shame someone into changing. You can’t shame someone into being straight or cis or able-bodied any other weirdo expectation humans like to set for one another.

What if we could re-contextualize flawed into “learning” or “growing” or “healing?” What if we could stop expecting perfection from ourselves and extend that courtesy to others bi proxy? What if we accepted ourselves and one another as works in progress? What if we treated each other how we’d like to be treated?

One thing that living and suffering in New York City has taught me is a lesson that I first learned playing field hockey. When a good team plays a bad team, they are often tempted to play the bad team’s game, meaning their technique and strategy go out the window when met with the chaos of none. Its like when you’re playing Street Fighter against someone who’s really good but you’re a button masher so every once in a while you get win on ‘em by playing absolutely nonsensically?? Existing in New York is the same. Everyone is in such a rush. Capitalism is in the air, in the lunch people inhale while rushing to the next thing, in the horn honking, in the shoving getting onto and off of the train… it’s hustle culture to the extreme. While living here (especially if you’re not from here), there is a strong temptation to play their game, to think “well if everyone is in a rush, I need to be in a rush too” or “if everyone else is racing to get fed, the only way to get my piece of the pie is to beat them to the plate, man!!”

Chaos begets chaos,

rudeness begets rudeness,

disrespect begets disrespect.

I talked in my CPTSD episode how rushing can be deeply triggering for people with complex-ptsd. It can trick the nervous system into an emotional flashback by creating the feelings of stress when no actual threat is present. It’s monumentally healing to simply

sloowww!! the fuck!! down!!

Since living in New York, I have leaned into slow. I don’t want to play their game. If someone wants to go faster than me, I let them go ahead. If someone is pushing me to get a seat on the train, I let them sit. If the train is too crowded for the door to close, I wait for the next one. I take my lunch sitting, I smell the flowers, I scoff at those who refuse to acknowledge my humanity and I feel genuine compassion-centered pity for them. How miserable must it be to be so unconscious? How dull to never stop to notice the beauty of living? To only experience the gloom?

Once, in the throws of my spiritual awakening before I had left my hometown of Norfolk, VA, on a beautiful spring day, I stopped to sit on the beach on the way back from my daily walk to the library. I felt my heart open wide and smile as I observed the joy around me. I had been healing from the worst heartbreak of my life so far, but, thanks to my healing and connection to the Universe, all it did was open me up further. There was a mom and her two daughters playing with a golden retriever puppy who has flopping around them in zooming circles while they laughed and laughed, there were three old men sitting in silence, in quiet community, fishing poles planted in the sand bending with a bite every so often, there was a young couple who couldn’t stop loving on each other, laughing and taking selfies, not the least bit afraid that it wouldn’t last, there was a father and son flying a kite dancing in the wind. I teared up. The sunshine and the waves and the sand under my feet and the beauty. I couldn’t believe the overwhelming love I was feeling.

I could feel an energetic tether connecting all of us.

they are me

i am them

we are love

this is love

amen

amen

amen

What you do to another, you do to yourself. What you wish on another, you wish on yourself. When you hurt another, you hurt yourself. When you truly love another, you love yourself.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

listen here // watch here

#thegoldenrule #treatothershowyouwishtobetreated #dountoothers #oneness #namaste #love #unconditionallove #agape #universallove #energy #respect #divinity #workinprogress #healing #personalgrowth #learning #growing #philosophy #spirituality #mysticism #judgment #shame #releaseshame #cptsd #rushing #respect #lovethyneighbor #compassion #selflovecoach #mentalhealthblog #spiritualblog #enlightenment #openheart #heartchakrahealing #patience #selflove #selfhelp #selfcare #selfcompassion #podcast #walkonpodcast #vlog #vlogger #mentalhealthvlog #youtuber #radicalselfacceptance #themirror #otherpeople #anticapitalist #community #spiritualcommunity #healingcommunity #mentalhealthcommunity #lifecoach #motivationalspeaker #selfhealers #guidance #advice #howtohealyourself #howtoloveyourself

Mindful Communication

@timmossholder

Every episode of the Walk On Podcast is about something that I have learned the hard way. Every thing I teach about comes from a place of absolutely failing at it for so long that it basically wrecked my life. I teach from a place of humility because ya’ll?????!!!!!!

Life is hard.

For someone with so much Libra in my chart, communication has been very difficult for me. The combination of autism, selective mutism, and codependency, plus an early anger problem, plus being raised by some of the meanest people I’ve ever known, left my education regarding communication and how to do it… a liiiiittle bit lacking.

When I was a kid I developed a really big anger problem. I would black out and beat the shit out of my friends. I had daily screaming matches with a verbally abusive step-father-figure who would occasionally escalate things physically in sometimes life-threatening incidents. My mom was an unstable and rageful alcoholic who was often physically abusive, and everyone else—at best—handled things with gossip (you would have to hear through the grapevine that someone was upset with you and the attacks of your character were often venomous and hard to swallow) and—at worst —they were a little on the Machiavellian side. There wasn’t a healthy relationship anywhere to be found.

Sound familiar??

I realized one day, at the ripe old age of 11, after beating up my little sister pretty bad that I needed to get my anger under control. I didn’t want to be like them.

I was just angry at so much—the injustice of life, being hit almost daily, being screamed at, called names, bullied everywhere I went—sometimes it felt like all I had was brute strength and a smart mouth to protect me. But after so many slaps across the face you start to wonder if there isn’t a safer way.

So I started doing this counting exercise. Instead of swinging first and asking questions later lol, I started counting to 10 before acting. This became my early introduction to breath work and meditation, as well as the power of the mind. I realized I could have control over my emotions. It really changed everything.

As I got older and got a better hang of ““femininity,”” I drifted to the other extreme. I became soft, a caretaker, a receiver, a mother-like presence, a submitter, a reliquisher, a people-pleaser, a doormat. I don’t think I put the word “no” through my lips until I found myself in therapy because trying to do polyamory with no boundaries had blown my life up in irreparable ways. Chaos had descended and my misguided “yes” was at the center.

I took care of others as a defense mechanism. I was quickly traveling down the path towards toxic martyr-hood, because I was growing more resentful every day. I was so lonely. I felt like I knew everyone but no one knew me. I felt like I was a sponge, soaking up everyone else’s energy and whenever I dared need someone, no one was there. I was getting angry again.

Learning about boundaries and how to communicate them has not been an easy transition for me. First, I learned to put down my anger before it got me in real trouble or really hurt someone I loved. Then I had to learn how to release my other defense mechanism, over-giving. Then I had to be authentic. But, it was terrifying, because people only seemed to really like me when I was sweet, submissive, feminine, available, showing up for them, stepping over myself to meet their needs.

I started losing people who didn’t like me once I learned the word “no.”

Then I had to grieve those losses.

It does fortunately/unfortunately take two to tango.

But then, what was left was authentic. And what magnetized itself to me after was too.

Everyone in my life now holds space for me. I don’t ever need to check who’s giving or who’s receiving because there exists a natural flow. My discernment, my constant vigilance is replaced with trust. And I no longer have to prepare myself for hard conversations around feelings, or put my guard up in service of my softest parts, because everyone here is soft, too. Everyone here knows how to speak their truths without cutting, everyone here honors everyone else’s wounds.

That doesn’t mean that everyone is perfect, that everyone doesn’t have triggers or get disappointed or get scared or defensive, it just means that everyone is willing to do the work.

Mindful communication requires a setting aside of the ego, a plain and clear expression of one’s truth. It requires holding space while actively listening, receiving, not listening just to respond, but listening because you want to know where the other person is coming from. It’s not walking on eggshells, but understanding, lovingly, how to walk through the other person’s energy without doing unnecessary harm. Its gentle. It’s kind. But it’s honest. It’s uncomfortable, at times. Being seen is one of the most uncomfortable feelings I’ve ever experienced. It took me years to feel it without flinching. It’s also sharing of oneself with trust. It’s learning on the job.

You would be amazed at how bonding conflict with mindful communication can be. Imagine a world where a conflict doesn’t drive an untenable wedge, but instead forges a stronger connection.

It’s OK if you can’t, for most of my life I couldn’t, but I now know it is not only possible, it’s the reality I have co-created.

If you are wondering about how to get started, here a couple simple tips.

• Understand the difference between a “Me” problem and a “We” problem. A “Me” problem is a conflict you are having inside yourself like “I am insecure and that makes me feel jealous.” A “We” problem is like, “we have over-booked ourselves and now we both feel distant because we haven’t had enough quality time together.”

• Don't ever, for any reason, do anything for anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what. No matter where. Or who, or who you are with, or where you are going or... or where you've been... ever. For any reason, whatsoever.".*

*that’s a Michael Scott quote lol

• But forreal, don’t EVER say the meanest thing you can think of. Don’t do it. It doesn’t serve. If that’s the way you operate you should look into some healing work because you need some help, baby. It’s ok. Defensiveness is just a sign that you’re hurting. Like a wounded animal, you lash out at those trying to love you, but that is not gonna get you what you need, so put that guard down. There is a clear and concise but kind way to get your feelings across and pulling away or going on the attack is in opposition to that, so try it a different way. Someone laying a boundary with you is a loving act. Listen, receive. Laying a boundary with someone you love isn’t a crime against them, it’s an attempt to evolve the relationship into a healthier, more mutually satisfying, and sustainable place. Re-frame it that way in your mind.

When you were unreasonably punished for speaking the truth as a child (all children are truth tellers cuz they don’t realize not to address the elephants in the room), you learn to keep your mouth shut. There is so much healing in being heard.

Wouldn’t it be beautiful to flow into and out of relationships or situations, to flow into an out of conflict, to transition from lovers to friends or colleagues to acquaintances or whatever without traumatizing each other in the process?

Be a soft spot in this harsh world. Communicate with your heart on your sleeve. Be seen, felt, and understood. Be loved and Be Love.

Listen here / Watch here

Want to hear more about my trauma?? Lol

#trauma #childhoodtrauma #abuse #abusesurvivor #codependent #codependencyrecovery #authenticity #vulnerability #Mindfulcommunication #awareness #healthycommunication #howtocommunicate #howtohealyourself #selfhealers #personalgrowth #healing #relationshipcoach #selflovecoach #Motivationalspeaker #healthyrelationships #toxicrelationships #toxicfamilies #healthylove #boundaries #healthyboundaries #anger #resentment #peoplepleasing #martyrcomplex #overgiving #receiving #howtoreceive #podcast #vlogger #mentalhealth #mentalhealthblog #spirituality #meditation #mindfulness #emotionalintelligence #howtobeemotionallyintelligent

Self-Love

Every day I feel grateful for the decision to love myself.

I didn’t know when I began this journey how it would pay off ten, twenty, a hundred thousandfold. I didn’t know how much grief would come, or how much gratitude. I just took one little step at a time and then one day I looked up and I had traveled miles.

The loss was great. One partnership, five. One friendship, twenty. This career, that career. This home, that home. There was a moment when I lost everything and had nothing. But I was OK.

Because I had faith, because I trusted in my guidance and connection to the universe because I prayed devoutly because I had already been shown that things would work out.

They did.

But then I lost some more.

I have 6 years of daily journals that I have carried with me through everything. 10 moves, homelessness and squatting and living out of my truck, a life-altering move to new york city—some of them are dirty, coffee-stained, crumpled with rainwater. They chronicle a life. My 2nd life. My (I really wish the Chr*stians hadn’t made this phrase so dirty) Born Again Life.

I like to go back and read them to see how far I’ve come.

Andy Warhol has this quote

“And your own life while it’s happening to you never has any atmosphere until it’s a memory.”

My journals hold my life’s atmosphere. They show the imprints of my steps on this lifetime. When I read them I feel such love and appreciation for the me who was drunk and crying over one too many romantic rejections, the me raging over the ruination of my burlesque career at the hands of petty gossips, the me stuck on someone who wouldn’t love me back, the two steps forward ten steps back that became the process of me walking away from my most difficult relationships. The little bits of doodles and notes and prayers and frustrations, the struggles with self-love and sobriety, the tarot readings and tracking the astrology. It’s all there, in my own writing.

It’s hard to argue with your own writing.

To read my own words with such candor and intimacy is pretty cringe at times, and I do find myself frustrated with how long it took me to learn certain lessons but there’s even a lesson in that.

These pages are where my self-love journey began. Journaling has been so important for me in the long process of finding my voice. I have struggled with selective mutism most of my life, and often find solace in my own silence (especially in moments of high stress or trauma), but that seeped over into areas where my inability to speak my truth hurt me. I am a fawner and a freezer by nature, so when met with conflict, I would often completely shut down and set about smoothing things over and keeping the peace.

My journal was my safe space. My place to get out how I was feeling. My place to join my experience with my emotions. It paid off big time. It helped inform my choices. It helped me stay grounded in the face of conflict. It helped me gain self-awareness over how I was wounded in childhood and how that drove how I responded to life. I gained an abiding sense of empowerment. I learned how to be free.

I’ve put many of the tools that have helped me heal (including daily journal prompts) into a Self-Love Course for anyone who is struggling with where to start or with the discipline in how to prioritize this kind of self-care in their busy lives. This course comes with guided meditations, self-care rituals, body-positive mirror work, letter-writing exercises, and lots more.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for being here. Thank you for doing the work.

Happy Healing!

Sign Up Here!

#selflove #selflovecoach #selfloveblog #selflovepodcast #howtoloveyourself #howtohealyourself #selfhealers #mentalhealth #mentalhealthblog #journaling #journalwriting #trauma #codependency #attachmentwounds #cptsd #selfconfidence #forgiveness #walkingaway #selfloveblog #howtobeconfident #conflict #boundaries #healthyboundaries #walkon #selectivemutism #throatchakrahealing #fight #flight #freeze #fawn #love #radicalselfacceptance #healing #selflovejourney

Conscious Coupling

@timmossholder

Safety First

She had no regard

for her own well being.

Plunging off of cliffs,

chest first, arms out,

free falling like a skydiver

who’d been doing this

a long time.

But she wasn’t.

And she hadn’t.

Everything seemed

exhilarating right up until

she collided with the concrete.

Too naive to have even 

thought to pack a parachute.

Scraping sinew off

the landing strip,

she put herself back together

using tape and string,

thinking it was the same thing

as being back in one piece.

Not realizing that each time

she leapt, and fell,

and crashed, and burned

little bits of her were left

to decompose in the dirt

so that being whole

was no longer an option.

Was she ever even whole at all?

Probably not considering

how heartbreak hung heavy

in her life from the start.

One jump in particular

took too great a toll.

It wasn’t just atmosphere

she crashed through,

but barbed wire.

Tree branches.

Shark infested waters.

Torpedoes, bullets,

weapons unleashed

at the hands of a man

who’s heart was 

closed for business.

She tried pliers and

sledgehammers, 

sweet melodies and

poetry.

But it just couldn’t be reached.

She barely walked away.

She learned from her mistakes.

First taking smaller

and smaller leaps,

suddenly afraid

of injury.

Realizing there wasn’t much

left to spare or share,

she traded her adrenaline

for a feather down blanket

on top of a memory foam mattress.

Finally preferring her feet

planted firmly on

the Goddess’

green ground.

Feeling right at home

in the confines of

her own walled-in heart

Safe but sad;

knowing that she

will never

love easy

again.

“Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.”

-Toni Morrison, Jazz

I was at the mercy of love and she wasn’t kind.

I fell. I was addicted to falling.

I couldn’t ever manage to settle down even though that’s what I longed for.

Instead I got hurt, again and again.

I used to say “I got my heart blendered” when I was heartbroken. It was more brutal than a break. It was less like The Notebook and more like a Saw movie.

Why couldn’t I figure it out?

The person I was chasing was always chasing someone else and there was always someone chasing me who I was running away from.

What unimaginable torture.

This notion dawned on me mid-meditation during the falling apart of another relationship who’s circumstances a healthier person would have never agreed to, when I met with my 9th dimensional spirit guide Glorp Glop (his real name is xkxgsxxkgxshxkgs and is unpronounceable to the human mouth so I settled on Glorp Glop). He looked at me lovingly, his one giant eye in the center of a bulbous neon and bumble-gum pink membrane body, atop his planet of black onyx, next to his swirling vortex of chaos, and said

you have a preoccupation with love, my child.

you need not search for love, you are love.

a drawing I did of Glorp Glop in my journal

I wanted to argue, to throw a tantrum, to fight the dawn of the realization, the lightening strike that would cause my tower to fall, but I knew it was true.

It took me several years, lots of rejection, lots of tough acts of discernment, lots of embracing change, lots of loneliness and being alone and even a bout of celibacy but I figured it out.

A peace entered my life. A patience. A faith.

I need not search for love, I am love.

And with that, love came. First a deep and abiding self-love that cloaked me in a force field of protection—no petty insult or sabotage could touch me. People who operated at a lower frequency, who couldn’t love me as much as I loved myself just vibrated away. My friends, my work opportunities, and my partnership were suddenly of a quality previously seemingly unavailable to me. I wasn’t even aware that people who could love like that were out there in the world. No one loved me in a way that caused me to crash and burn. I didn’t love anyone from a place of misguided loyalty. It was an easy love, a stable love—just rare hearts staring at each other and seeing the truth of the light of authentic, simple, grounded, real love. Basking in it. Thriving in it. Rising in it.

listen here // watch here

The Healing Power of Consent

@dainisgraveris

The first time someone asked

if they could cross the threshold

beneath my waistline,

and again before penetrating

the portal presumed to be

entitled to boys before—

they'd never asked,

I'd never known to

expect them to—

but when she did

I lost control of

the water in my eyes

and between my thighs.

My body

finally

felt like mine.

Consent was a rocky road for me. Being sexually assaulted was the first thing I experienced but couldn’t remember—it was the first truth I told, but wasn’t believed. It was the first thing about me that most people knew because of how

other

it made me.

And yet, as it turns out, I wasn’t other at all.

Consent is a word we have had to familiarize ourselves with because we participate in a culture that requires we turn off our questions, put up with misinformation, and ignore our feelings of unfairness and the violation of our divine human frailty in order to make a living. In order to be a “fUnCtiOnAL mEmBeR of SoCiEtY!” We aren’t allowed to be scared, hurt, disabled, tired, or sick. We aren’t allowed to say no. The people in charge of this country decide all things for us and barely hear us when we say no.

It’s no wonder there’s no less than two alleged rapists on the highest court in the country.

Violation of consent trickles

d

o

w

n.

When we uphold the white supremacist capitalist cishetero patriarchy, we uphold violations of consent. When we stifle our emotions, when we deny our pain, when we pretend to be stronger than our trauma, we are out of alignment with the free will which is our right to embody as living beings walking this earth—and expressing our own free will, our right to say no with no explanation, is a sacred and unalienable manifestation of consent.

Betrayal by omission is a violation of consent. Manipulation is a violation of consent. Cheating is a violation of consent. Harboring feelings and hopes for a romantic relationship with someone with whom you’ve never had a conversation about said feelings and then growing resentful of them for “friendzoning” you is a violation of consent. Lying is a violation of consent. So is the repetitious cycle of behavior that abusers employ to keep their victims attached to them via a trauma bond. Misgendering someone is a violation of consent. Microaggressions towards marginalized people. Gentrification. Colonization. Capitalism. War. Even ignoring the Earth’s warning signs of her suffering at our hands by way of the climate crisis is a violation of consent.

Consent is mandatory, yes. Consent is necessary. Consent should be the standard and it doesn’t have to qualify as “sexy” to be that. The invocation of consent’s defender ‘Boundary’ can sound a lot like

fuck off, motherfucker.

Sometimes it’s a block button.

Sometimes it’s a whispered warning about a

predator

to someone who doesn’t know better.

But the expression of consent can also be sexy

It can be a conversation about what you like

that feels like foreplay.

It can be a yes

yes

yes

oh my fucking

god

that feels so

fucking

good!!!

And a check in can be as filthy as a

do you like that, baby?

mmm do you feel me?

show me what you want.

Or as thoughtful as a safe word.

Or stopping at a slight tensing up

or withdrawal.

The feeling of safety that develops for me when someone is honoring my consent when I have a say in what goes down with my own body is unmatched—when someone is vulnerable with me when they give me all the information and give me the freedom, the space, the love to make my own, fully educated decision—when I can really trust someone?? That’s where intimacy develops. And intimacy, true emotional intimacy, that’s the foundation for love. Real, grown, honest to goodness, so-sweet-you-don’t-mind-how-long-you-went-without-it love.

That’s acceptance.

That’s unconditional positive regard.

That’s freedom.

That’s the healing power of consent.

listen here // watch here

The Insatiable Ego of War

Integrity is a hindrance on the way to attaining power—if your beliefs, your morals, your core values are too intact you don’t seem to climb as high. That isn’t to say success isn’t available, it’s just to say that someone of strong integrity probably doesn’t even want to be a CEO or a President or Darth Vader. Anyone who’s spent any time in the New York City art scene can tell you that the people who rise up the ranks the fastest are often the people with the biggest, most unchecked egos. Why?

Well, entitlement for one. Like in the fable The Emperor’s New Clothes, people tend to believe people who say things with confidence. It’s the Trump-style method of self-promotion “I am the smartest. I am the best.” All he’s missing is the wave of the Jedi Mind Trick hand motion. “These are not the droids you’re looking for.” Actually, they are lol. And actually, you’re not.

The other hallmark of exorbitantly successful people is a willingness to step on, to squash, to backstab, to steal from, to alienate, to compromise, and to use others for your own personal gain. There is not a single person who did business with Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg who didn’t get burned. The “I stepped on several people’s skulls to get over the wall and into capitalist heaven” just doesn’t sound as good as “self-made.”

None of this is something to strive for, it’s just the way the system is set up. A Bernie Sanders will never get as far as a Hillary Clinton—he won’t sell out his values for power. He had values in the first place. The best leaders are reluctant leaders, but they usually aren’t the ones that get the job. Capitalism is built on exploitation, and that is the only thing that trickles down from the top.

How one can sleep at night, enjoy the flavor of food, make love or enjoy nature with presence and gratitude when they are responsible for the deaths of innocent people is beyond me. How can someone justify mass murder with an explanation of adherence to imaginary borders, currency, or the fabricated scarcity of nonrenewable resources (fabricated because if we culled our dependence on them they would last longer)? Is that all it takes?

Fascism is alive and well in the world today and it comes in the form of warmongers, the way it always has. Being anti-war, many people claim, is a simplistic stance—but to me, it shouldn’t be complicated.

Every life is sacred. Every human being walking this earth deserves the bare minimum of safety, security, and having their material needs met. No one asks to be born. No one asks to be born in a particular country with particular rules. Everyone is caught up enough in surviving—why does one small-minded, greedy, egoistic asshole’s most base desires come before the needs of the many? Who decided that’s right?

Thanks to the mishandling of covid and the slow-to-no response to the growing threat of climate change, dissatisfaction with the ruling class is at an all-time high. We, the working class, hold the power. Without us, they are nothing. We should have a say in how the world is run beyond choosing between a power-grabbing sociopath and a slightly more overt power-grabbing sociopath. Power-over is a red flag that something has gone terribly wrong and it’s gone that way by design. We need to remember—remember our power, our strength, the divinity in ourselves as individuals, in each other as physical manifestations of the universe, and in our collective strength as the vibrational frequency of love.

In the working-class experience, if you don’t do a good job you get fired. They aren’t doing a good job and yet!!!!! because they have money and resources and power-over they get to control every aspect of how we live—down to what we pay for gas, for groceries, in taxes, what is taught to children in schools, who gets to live, and who has to die— they even get to erase the objective truth of history???

We don’t live in the same reality. We are just numbers on a page to them.

We’ve lost nearly a million people to covid. Nearly a million. And still, nothing is being done. In fact, less is being done than ever.

They are public servants, meant to represent us. If they aren’t doing it right, something needs to change. On a global scale, power to the people.

That’s ALL power to ALL people.

listen here // watch here

#podcast #walkonpodcast #podcastlife #war #ego #powerover #greed #control #conflict #power #freedom #divinity #lifeissacred #love #givepeaceachance #selflovecoach #motivationalspeaker #abundance #scarcity #spirituality #healing #selfhealers #selflove #selfhelp #selfcare #selfcompassion #selfforgiveness #howtoloveyourself #howtohealyourself #aswithinsowithout #fascism #capitalism #whitesupremacy #justice #socialjustice #systemicabuse #abusedynamics #narcissism #sociopathy #awareness #love

The C-PTSD Survival Guide

Sebin Thomas

In the

BEFORE

I walked through my life as if

in a cloud

a m i s t

a f o g

Low visibility;

In a state of inertia

I sat without comfort,

I slept without rest,

I rested without recovery,

I loved without receiving,

I acted without moving.

Like snow on

warm ground,

nothing stuck.

Healing hit me like a ton of bricks, one piano-falling-on-my-head of harsh clarity after another. I lay crying for weeks at a time with just the thought that someone I loved wasn’t who I thought they were. People are their actions, sometimes. After basically a quarter of my life spent waiting—waiting for someone to love me back, waiting for someone to get sober, waiting for the slap on my cheek, waiting for someone to come sleep in the bed left open for them, waiting for some movement forward

I REALIZED!!!

It was up to me. I realized every moment I spent pointing the finger, making everyone else’s problems my responsibility, and my suspended animation theirs was just another moment, month, year of my precious time wasted. I broke down. And then built back up. And then broke down. And then built back up. It was labor-intensive joyous work. It was an uncovering of the truth of me.

The thing about truth is it demands to be shouted. Every boundary I attempted to lay was a gift of trying to “make it work” and most of the time it failed. I learned I couldn’t force anyone to come with me—that even that desire was a symptom of trauma.

Sleep became a savior, a respite from all that fucking feeling I was doing. Damns of grief and anger and more truth and fear and mourning for the me I never was spilling over in tidal waves washing me away from a life I’d built on a faulty foundation. I didn’t know better. But I learned.

Healing became my center, my roots (and boy were they were thirsty) and they took over my life. The shifting and shaping of my path unfolded in ways I never could have seen coming and often my lessons looked like failure, like heartbreak, like loneliness. I carried on, anyway. I grew stronger and more agile as I fought through the booby traps and snags and crumbling of limiting beliefs and suddenly life felt a lot less miserable. Things that used to wreck me barely left a bruise. Suddenly I was protected by discernment, acting from a place of intuition, unencumbered by the voice in my head playing someone else’s story.

Suddenly, I was free.

Listen here // watch here

Walk On Podcast Episode 78 : Your One Wild and Precious Life

Aziz Acharki

In an alternate universe,

I did everything I was supposed to.

In an alternate universe,

I was “successful”

at “settling down.”

I made a career out of

something that would

pay the bills

or at least

almost.

In an alternate universe,

I didn’t listen to the

STOP

of my fragile body

or

the pull of my

longing for more.

Didn’t hear the hurt

of my inner child

or the

truth

of what I wanted.

I wasted away;

bloomed bitterness

where bliss could have been

and made everyone else

so happy.

Jon Tyson

What if the perception of the outside view of me that said good person good daughter good granddaughter good hungry woman good quiet girl good outfit good figure good putting out but only if he loves you good get married good stay put good life escalater good don’t question good don’t wonder good don’t take a chance you might fail good never leave never grow never prosper unless it's the way I want you to good suffer in silence good strong good giving ‘til you’re empty good cry only when no one’s looking good be good do good good perfect had been enough?

Everyone liked me a lot more when I didn’t have boundaries. Everyone liked me more when I didn’t like myself. My walking away has always been met with projection, rejection, criticism, and abuse. But I did it anyway. I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t going to survive the old life. There was something deep inside me that told me that change was a blessing, so I walked step after unsure step—blindfolded like the two of wands, not knowing where I was going, but sure it had to be better than this.

Kirill Balobanov

Your life is yours. There is an alternate universe where you are allowed to be happy. There is an alternative universe where you are worth more than your work, your sacrifice, your service. There is a world where the authentic you isn’t met with judgment, but with joy. There is a world where you look in the mirror and like it. There is an Other Side to the fear you feel when you consider putting yourself out there. Failure isn’t as bad as it is in your head. Or maybe it is but the always wondering what could have been is much, much worse.

No one at the end of their life thinks

“I’m so glad I didn’t take that chance, I’m so glad I didn’t tell that person I loved them, I’m so glad I never chose myself, I’m so glad I didn’t chase my dream life, I’m so glad I didn’t speak my truth.”

Dakota Corbin

We come down here, we choose our bodies like building video game avatars, we want to learn our lessons, we want to come home to ourselves. Knowing yourself a little bit better every day is a gift bestowed on you by the universe which made you in their image, so explore. There is no one on this earth like you and isn’t that a miracle?! Freedom and love are your divine right as someone alive on this earth at this moment. Just be and you’ll find it in little pockets of joy, in little glimpses of magic. Like all living things, some shedding is necessary for growth and there is grief and that’s good, actually! Don’t fear the feelings that well up in you as you jump from obstacle to obstacle and unfurl the truth of you one layer at a time. Feel gratitude for the you who did the best they could, but when it’s time, step into the new with gratitude, too. Make it your goal to feel better, do better, love better than you did the day before and watch experience open up to you.

Grow, flow, be, become!! Waste not a moment of your time being anywhere other than where you want to be. Every day move close to the true expression of your being. When you are authentic to yourself you exude a light like a beacon that will show you the way. Trust the path, trust the process, trust the failure, trust the love, even trust the lonely, and trust that you are safe to live—REALLY LIVE— your one wild and precious life!

Listen here // Watch here

#podcast #blog #writer #selflove #selfhelp #selfcare #selfcompassion #selfhealers #howtoheal #howtoloveyourself #growth #personalgrowth #healing #spiritualblog #spirituality #selfhelpblog #authenticity #howtobeauthentic #howtobeconfident #vulnerability #openhearted #carpediem #living #regrets #gratitude #passion #faith #trust #failure #failureisateacher #lifelessons #soul #soulgrowth #spiritualteacher #enlightenment #awakening #justbe #belove

Walk On Podcast Episode 77 : Owning What You Want

Austin Chan

I was raised to follow the rules. Make myself smaller, be quiet when I walk, sit like a lady, only speak when spoken to. I was raised to be pretty at any cost. I was told that I was never going to be liked if I kept being so bossy, that it was my fault I wasn’t more palatable. I swallowed my big to be more lovable. I followed the rules.

Whenever someone complimented me on my social grace I always said “I’m not comfortable, I’m just a good actor.” I learned that head up, hair done, outfit that accentuated my waist, blank slate, smile, laugh at the right time was the safest way to behave.

I hid away.

Estudio Bloom

I’ve never been one to do anything half-assed, so when I was in my codependency, I gave it 100%. I ate what I was told to eat, I dressed how I was told to dress, I liked or disliked what was expected of me, I had absolutely no sense of self.

Having a very over-bearing and controlling family matriarch, and being her favorite golden child came with a lot of expectations. Being a reflection of someone else is exhausting. I was perfect as long as could be, as often as I could be. But, inevitably, I failed.

It was in this failure, this cracking open that I found me. Flawed, stubborn smart ass. Masculine, capable, bossy, sweet, shy, fat, foul-mouthed slut. Artist, sex pot, nurturer. Free spirit, acid-head hippie. Commie scum self-healer. Queer witch artist and raging disappointment. Boundary laying nightmare. Thank God for failure.

Nong V

I spent a lot of time explaining myself in the hopes of being understood. I wasted a lot of time defending my choices in the hopes of mining some of that unconditional love I had been told I was entitled to. Ultimately, I was rejected.

This is the cost of owning what you want. It comes with judgment, ridicule, everyone telling you you’re doing something wrong. People being hurt by your choices.

“How could you do this to me?!”

It has nothing to do with you.

Its not to you

Its for me.

Chela B

If you find yourself totally lost as to what you want, know that that’s normal. Capitalism is contingent on us sacrificing what we want in order to meet our material needs. We make an offering out of our most precious and nonrenewable resource (time) for the “pleasure” of living a life we didn’t ask for, that doesn’t prioritize our well being. Considering what you want is an act of resistance. Learning yourself, knowing yourself, actualizing yourself, questioning the status quo, engaging with self compassion and self care—it ultimately leads to a realization of core values that are out of alignment with selling our labor. That’s dangerous to the power structures that benefit from our oppression.

Owning what you want? Now that’s active resistance. It’s a level of boundaries, of discernment, of authenticity, of bravery that is un-fuck-with-able. You own that you want a healthy relationship? Every sub-par option and half-in situationship falls away. You own that you want healing? You release anything that causes you pain. You own that you want freedom? You choose freedom over everything. You own that you want a better life? And every move you make acts in service to building one.

Once you know you deserve better

you no longer accept worse.

You are allowed happiness, inner peace, fulfillment, safety, love, rest, pleasure, joy, freedom and so much more. It is your divine right as a soul having a human experience. You are the universe knowing itself.

Own it.

Listen here // watch here.

Walk On Podcast Episode 76 : How to Stop Self-Sabotage

Susan Wilkinson

I didn’t know I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know that even when I did know, I didn’t feel worthy. I didn’t know that not feeling worthy led me to accepting less.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate.”

-Carl Jung

I was calling it fate.

It was probably self-sabotage.

Growing ever more frustrated with my own lack of progress, my own two steps forward, three steps back approach to life, I started to realize

(gasp)

I may have been playing a part in this.

While I was growing up, I was often made to feel not good enough. Whether through my emotionally unavailable caregivers, through a purposefully withholding and guilt weapon-wielding narcissistic matriarch, or just by being constantly criticized for being weird, fat, ugly, a smart ass, a goody-two-shoes but not so good that I didn’t get into big, over-the-top trouble for the bad I did so maybe I was just a goody-one-shoe. Everything I wanted was supposedly out of my reach. “Why don’t you comb your hair, don’t you want to be beautiful?” “Why can’t you wear a little makeup, don’t you want boys to like you?” “If you just lost maybe 10 lbs I think you’d be perfect.” “I don’t really see you as a lead singer, more like someone who sways in the background.”

The way these words played over and over in my head without my permission, y’aaall—it was constant.

Everything I tried to put myself out there felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. I would try as much as felt safe for me to. I felt like if I invested too much, the inevitable disappointment would kill me—like the coyote chasing the road runner off the cliff, only falling once he looked down.

Like so much of my life that I had more of a say in then I realized, I would wonder

“WHY DOES THIS SHIT KEEP HAPPENING TO ME?!?!?!”

And then the answer came, slowly, quietly, unfolding, like a flower, a little at a time.

I didn’t know how to be happy. I didn’t know how to receive love. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted. My thoughts weren’t my own, but were put there by people who didn’t know or love themselves and who weren’t capable of giving me what I needed. So I started giving it to myself.

One toxic thought at a time, I reprogrammed. One limiting belief at a time, I examined what they were, who’s voice they were in, and whether or not they felt true to me (most didn’t). I replaced them with how I actually felt. And I grew, and grew, and grew. And I shed and shed and shed.

I started to feel, like, magnetized differently or something. As if by magic (and hard inner and outer work, obv, but when you’re in ~the flow~ the work feels effortless) things I wanted started to manifest for me. Opportunity, change, freedom, experience, love, community. In brighter and better and more positive ways. There were still hiccups, as there always will be, because there will always be more to heal (and often our wounds are revealed to us through struggle), but I was able to wade through those rough waters with more and more grace and gratitude. Life felt a lot easier.

Most of us weren’t loved exactly right. The pressures of the white supremacist capitalist cisheteropatriarchy gets to everyone. Often, the criticism we received from our parents was coming from a place of concern—they meant well. But parents aren’t always right. They actually don’t always know what’s best for us. Just like those people who don’t want student loans canceled because they paid theirs all the way off, our parents wanted us to conform the way they had to. But that’s not how progress works. Allow yourself to live in a new reality. Give yourself the gift of deciding how you feel about things—especially yourself.

Self-sabotage is just a symptom of trauma. It’s just an indication that we don’t know how to receive. You can start learning by giving to yourself: rest, grace, forgiveness, confidence, radical self acceptance. You don’t have to do it all, just take one little bite at a time.

You’re enough. And you’re so worthy. You are more loved than you realize. You are love. Say it, out loud if you can, until you feel it vibrating around you in a warm, white light.

I am enough

I am worthy

I am loved

I am love

Happy healing! Listen here // watch here

#podcast #podcaslife #healingpodcast #spiritualpodcast #selfsabotage #awareness #selfhealers #healing #selflove #selfhelp #selfcare #selfawareness #selfcompassion #manifestation #healingthoughts #lovingthoughts #howtohealyourself #walkonpodcast #hope #lawofattration #surrender #workinprogress #onedayatatime #recovery #trauma #healingtrauma #blessings #readytoreceive #justbe #mantra #affirmations #reprogramyourself

Walk On Podcast Episode 75 : Unrequited Love

I sat at my computer, stopped recording the song I was working on about the man I was in love with who didn’t love me back and bawled my eyes out. I opened my email and started venting, not knowing who I was going to send it to.

I think I am addicted to love.

I was four years deep. I had held on so tight for so long. Every morning I woke up thinking about him, every song reminded me of him, every daydream, every fantasy, every waking moment. Every poem, every song, every journal entry I wrote held him at the center of it. Every bit of every obstacle in “our” way to each other only made me hold on harder—even his rejections “I’m attracted to you but I can’t” “now isn’t a good time for me” “I am not going to do this” —only made it harder to walk away.

Jim Halpert, Unrequited Lover, The Office

He was my long-term partner’s best friend. It was wrong, it was hopeless, it was breaking my heart.

This wasn’t the first time I experienced limerence, it was just the most devastating, the most complicated, the most unrequited. I once performed a one-person show here in New York where I compiled all the poems and songs I’d written about it into a narrative piece and after the show , a woman came up to me and asked “so whatever happened between you two… did you end up together?” It brought me a sick, cathartic kind of joy to see the disappointment in her face when I said no, we didn’t. We just anticlimactically never spoke again.

I can handle this. Famous last words. I thought it when I fell in love with my college sweetheart, a beautiful, kind, and loving boy who was in a religious cult and wasn’t allowed to date, keeping me a secret from his family. I thought it again when I fell in love with a married man in an open-for-sex-but-not-for-love style relationship (spoiler alert, we fell in love). I felt it every time I developed feelings for someone who I could feel was emotionally unavailable and dove in headfirst anyway.

Ryan and Kelly, Co-occurring Limerence, The Office

I have also experienced the other side of limerence. I have had someone romantically stuck on me. That didn’t feel good either. It was frustrating, it was overwhelming, and it made me uncomfortable. I ended up having to remove myself from those situations (basically ghosting the person) in order to try and get them to move on. It wasn’t easy. So I understand what I may have put the people that I have been limerent on through.

Limerence is fertile ground for the anxious-avoidant attachment style person. It allows one to be as anxious as they want (clingy, obsessive, ruminating) while also having distance from the subject of their affection, all while remaining avoidant to anyone who might reciprocate their feelings (by remaining stuck on someone who won’t).

Julia Robert, Dermot Mulroney, He’s limerent on her until he moves on, and then she becomes limerent on him like a fucking asshole, My Best Friend’s Wedding

These types of relationships are incredibly painful. Usually, they point to some kind of childhood wounding where the limerent person was not attended to, where emotional needs went unmet, where the love may have felt one-sided. The child went on hoping, longing, and waiting for reciprocal love. A pattern was put in motion.

I have seen limerence play out in seemingly infinite different scenarios and circumstances. I have seen people stuck on an ex who’s already moved on, stuck on an abusive partner, stuck on someone who was stuck on someone else, stuck on someone stuck in an addiction, stuck on celebrities they will never meet. Really, the possibilities are endless.

The key to stopping a pattern is to recognize that it’s there in the first place. If you find yourself resonating with these tales of woe, worry not. Limerence is healable. It just requires a little strength, a little commitment to self-love, it’s an addiction and it requires recovery.

It is important to keep in mind that it is normal to want to love and be loved. It is normal and healthy and perfectly acceptable to want your needs met. It is a good thing!! Reciprocal, healthy, stable love is totally possible and available to you—maybe just not from the person you’re stuck on. And that’s ok! If you can cut contact and allow yourself to move on, if you can realize you’ve been finding safety in the avoidance of loving someone unavailable, if you can really embrace being alone without curbing the craving of codependent attachment and just learn to give yourself to love you definitely deserve, you will find the love you seek. I promise you.

Listen here // Watch here

#limerence #limerent #unrequitedlove #attachmentstyles #attachmenttrauma #childhoodtrauma #emotionalunavailability #howtoheal #selfhealers #healyourself #selflove #seflhelp #selfcare #relationships #relationshipblogger #mentalhealth #mentalhealthblogger #longing #movingon #walkon #boundaries #anxiousavoidant #codependent #codependentnomore #healingtrauma #truelove #twinflames #soulmates #attachmentwounds #reallove #healthylove #healthyrelationships #toxicrelationships

Walk On Podcast Episode 74 : Fake Friends

Fake friends are like a puncture wound. Remove the screwdriver from your thigh and you might cause more damage—but leave it in and that shit’s never gonna heal. Also, you probably need professional help to really recover cuz, baby, that shit is rough.

Toxic friendships are one of those universal situations that most people experience at one time or another in their lives. They are so common in people who are assigned and socialized “female” that it has become a stereotype for women to not like their “friends” at all. When something is so pervasive that it starts to feel like a naturally occurring phenomenon, it feels impossible to unpack, to correct, and to heal.

Toxic people all seem to read from the same playbook. Things start off heavy on the flattery, fast with the commitment, affection, near constant communication, they quickly become an overwhelming presence. Then comes withdrawal which lays the groundwork for a trauma bond—love-bombing combined with discarding, bread-crumbing, intermittent abandonment, hoovering, gossip, triangulation, gaslighting. It all becomes a delicate dance designed to keep a victim addicted to the approval, the attention, the conditional affection of this seemingly all-powerful puppet master.

Think of Regina George from the 2004 Tina Fey classic Mean Girls. Regina doesn’t have a single genuine connection throughout the entire film. She has minions. She has victims. She has sources of what is called “narcissistic supply”—ranked hierarchically based on who gives her the most valuable energy based on things like social status, loyalty, attention, love, or even sex (in the case of her boyfriend and side-piece). She is a tyrant who rules with an iron fist. She is more feared than liked, but either way it leads to a kind of celebrity status in her school and in her every day life. Even her parents seem to fear her. Being close to her offers a kind of popularity by osmosis, but like Icarus and the sun, get too close to Regina, and you’re probably going to get burned. Anyone who cares about her is subject to brutal discard, ridicule, and gossip. She doesn’t seem capable of vulnerability, loyalty, or love. We come to learn she is insecure, lonely, and, deep down, quite sad.

Have you ever had a friend like that? Obviously Regina George is beefed up and exaggerated for entertainment purposes, but I have certainly known my fair share of toxic friends that shared many of her traits and most people who have dealt with complex-ptsd fueled codependency can probably say the same.

When you grow up in an abusive, demanding, withholding household as a child, you never learn what a healthy relationship looks like. It takes a long time and a lot of conscious work to untangle healthy love from toxic love. This untangling often comes at the price of experiencing unhealthy relationships enough times that you learn what red flags to watch out for—but there is some re-wounding that happens, unfortunately. CPTSD can cause us to ignore red flags that a healthier person would know to steer clear of.

I remember in some of my most toxic relationships, I felt really special. I felt like the ‘mean girl’ whisperer. I was the only person who could get close to these tough, harsh, forked-tongued, chaotic women with emotional walls of steel. I was the exception to the rule. I was the one who was safe from their ridicule, their bullying, I was the only person they really liked and respected. Until I realized I wasn’t.

You see, toxic people try it with everyone. Anyone who has boundaries, who is turned off by their abrasiveness, who doesn’t fall for their flattery, who sees through the persona and finds them disingenuous is deemed unfit for pursuit. They are looking for someone who is attracted to the power they possess, someone who feels the need to earn their place beside them, someone who feels unworthy of them, someone without boundaries, who is down to clown*.

* become totally enmeshed

A series of conscious or unconscious tests commences wherein-which maybe they throw you a backhanded compliment and see what you do with it. Maybe they play a game where they abandon you to see how you respond (do you ““ReSpEcT their need for space”” or do you indulge them and chase them?). Either way they hold your actions over your head for future control. “Remember when you didn’t respect my space?!” Orrr “How could you not fight for me?!” Maybe they demand you choose them over an opportunity or another friendship or relationship or even your own damn well being. The harder you work to keep them, the more fit you are to be their Gretchen Wieners friend.

At my most codependent, I found myself really going to bat for these Fake Friends (I had many over the course of my teens and 20’s). They would try to steal my partners, I would sweep it under the rug. They would belittle my achievements, I would take that to mean my achievements weren’t that great and I would set out to do better. They would make fun of my weight, I would eat less. They would offend everyone we knew, I would do damage control or defend them. They would start drama, I would finish it. I was like Olivia Pope to these egregious fucking assholes— constantly cleaning up their messes. (I literally once cleaned up a girl’s apartment she had moved out of after she straight-up bailed for better plans (I had never lived there!!!!!) while one of her friends/roommates stood over me (not helping) while making fun of me for being a professional maid at the time “the way you’re bent over scrubbing that tub* reminded me you do this for a living!” (Please don’t judge me, baby needed therapy BAD!!!!)

*the tub was disgusting

I look back and my heart breaks for younger me, especially in the moments of deep pain that lead to clarity. Like all the times a mutual friend would come to me to tell me something horrible my ‘best friend’ had said about me. Or, long after the friendship was over, all the good, kind people who I got close to who told me they never gave me a chance because of the company I kept. Or all the smear campaigns that were run on me where nothing I ever said in confidence, in the trust of the sanctuary of that friendship, was ever held sacred—not my trauma, not my fears, not even my skills or talents, not my insecurities, not my secrets. All of it was fair game and laid bare for anyone who would listen. Boy, howdy, the lies that were told on me which ruined my life as a knew it in those moments!! I had careers destroyed, relationships destroyed. That’s not even to mention the deep abandonment of all the times I would really need my friend to step-up for me in some small measure of the ways that I had for them time and again and was rejected or left hanging. The eye rolls when I was upset, the constant scrutiny and criticism, the harsh vibe they projected out that I was annoying and a burden. The slow, simmering resentment if I happened to garner some attention or do something well. The passive aggressive silent treatment for days or weeks or months if, unbeknownst to me, I stepped out of line. The guilt trips, the betrayals, the emotional turmoil. The constant making fun of me. The hours of listening to them talk about the same asinine bullshit hour upon hour and, when it was my turn to talk, the absolute lack of interest. The drama!!!!

One day, it started to dawn on me that, to quote Tyler Perry, “I could do bad all by myself.” With no energy and a strong desire for no one to want anything from me, I withdrew. I faced my subconscious fear of being alone by letting myself be alone. In that time of hibernation, I considered, for the first time ever, what I actually wanted and needed in a friendship. I integrated the lessons I’d learned about that I didn’t want. I found my boundaries and I began laying them. I started taking it slow and getting to know people before I enmeshed with them. I stopped enmeshing all together. I walked away from anyone who clearly meant me harm. I blocked, deleted, unfriended, unfollowed. I welcomed in reciprocal, healthy love of all kinds. I had less friends, but the ones I had were of the highest caliber—honest, autonomous, loving people who had no ulterior motive but to love and be loved by me. It changed everything.

You deserve love. You deserve reciprocity. You deserve respect. You deserve safety. You deserve it all. Don’t sell yourself short. Listen here // watch here.

Happy healing.

#healing #selfhealers #fakefriends #toxicrelationships #toxicfriendships #meangirls #reginageorge #healing #codependency #fightflightfreezefawn #trauma #traumasurvivor #fromsurvivingtothriving #writer #traumawriter #healingblog #spiritualityblog #spiritualblogger #advice #adviceblog #howtohealyourself #walkingaway #walkonpodcast #podcastblog #selflove #selfhelp #selfcare #selfcompassion #boundaries #redflags #complexcptsd #childhoodtrauma

Walk On Podcast Episode 73 : 2022 : Accepting Where We Are

Looking around at the state of the world, listening to the activists fighting for the future, for the survival of the most vulnerable in the present—seeing the parallels in the handling of covid (or the refusal to handle, more accurately) by the ruling class and the ever-increasing presence of the fallout of climate change has inspired me to really consider the pervasiveness of denial.

I have this theory that everything stems from generational trauma, which stems from systemic oppression from capitalism (or the institutions of the past that weren’t called that, but resembled the class-race-gender-sexuality-and-ability-based discriminatory system we live under today). Scarcity, struggle, oppression, suppression, the real trickle-down economics that manifests in interpersonal abuse—a feeling of desperation in the need for some control in some area of one’s life. Think about it. Patriarchy has given men power over women but insists that men be breadwinners at any cost. Historically in war times, the men went away and came home traumatized. Though they have held more systemic power than women, working-class men still suffer from the decisions made for them by ruling-class men. Race and sexuality contribute to being squished harder and up against more by the systems-that-be. That is not even to mention the patriarchally imposed rule/belief/misconception that real men don’t have feelings, which leads to—you guessed it—denial. If we don’t feel our feelings, they burst out in unexpected and inappropriate ways. Commence self-medication. Commence tyrannical control over one’s household and family. Commence emotional avoidance and unavailability. We’re just talking in binary and heterosexual terms here for simplicity of the discussion at hand. Nuclear family bliss*

*hell lol

Mothers not getting their emotional needs met in their marital lives, having lived through their own parents’ manifestations of this model in their childhoods, did what they saw done. They enmeshed and abused their children, exerted control where they could. How did the children cope? Avoidance, dissociation, running away, eating disorders, acting out, bullying one another, etc etc etc. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Whenever a member of the family stepped out from the cycle, realized something was wrong and had the absolute audacity to tell the truth and heal, what happened? They were gaslit, smeared, discouraged, ostracized, shamed.

If we take this cookie-cutter experience and blow it up to the macrocosmic and look at society, the model is very much the same. The government does something undeniably evil, barely justified by some kind of propaganda-peddled lie, paints anyone who disagrees with the choice being forced on them as crazy or unintelligent or weak, and the populace splits into opposing ideological factions drowning each other in the hopes that they will be able to attain or maintain some kind of power-over (with the most marginalized just trying to survive), all while the people with the real power do whatever the fuck they want.

Much of the working class is in denial that the ruling class is abusing them. Scroll through any comments section and you will see people with no capital, no real chance of ever even coming close to ruling class status, defending billionaires, defending government choices made from the philosophy of property-over-people. Denial. People who vote for things like fracking and against climate-conscious legislation are literally called climate deniers. Denial. The fact that we are in the age of perpetual pandemics, climate collapse, and the worldwide power of the institution of America is very clearly hanging on by a thread and yet no policies reflect these realities? Denial. The fact that most of the country is displeased with the leadership that is supposed to represent us and yet they tell us that if we aren’t happy we should just vote about it, even though they give us no good options to choose from? Denial. Sending children and teachers and workers into life-threatening working and learning environments because “the economy” when trillions of dollars are spent on the military and billionaires don’t pay the appropriate amount in taxes? Denial. People thinking their weddings or vacations or girls’ nights or dinners in a restaurant or ability to get away from their kids which they chose to bring into the world is more important than collective safety? Denial and selfishness. But it all stems back to that quest for some kind of control in one’s life. Or at least the illusion of it.

Subconsciously, I think there is an understanding that on the other side of denial is a tidal wave of feeling. Bargaining, Anger, Depression—a whole ass fuck ton of unfelt, repressed, avoided baggage that hasn’t been properly dealt with. This is understandably scary and understandably overwhelming. But ignoring the problem has done nothing for us—except to cause us to hurt others the way we’ve been hurt, to perpetuate the cycles of generational (and systemic) trauma.

Denial is the first stage of grief and some people stay there forever--suspended in animation, never being able to see past their own pain, acting out of that wounded space, all while having no idea where it's all stemming from. As individuals, as family units, as communities, as a country, and as a species, we have been suffering from collective denial about the state of things. Maybe it's time to start accepting where we are. The only way out is through. Listen here.

#blog #blogger #mentalhealth #mentalhealthblog #mentalhealthblogger #toxicfamily #generationaltrauma #anticapitalist #leftist #activism #activismblog #advice #lifeadvice #thestagesofgrief #denial #acceptance #recovery #selflove #selfhelp #selfcare #selfcompassion #healing #selfhealers #love #collectivehealing #solidarity #workingclasssolidarity #classconsciousness #wakeup #woke #spirituality #spiritualawakening #communication #podcast #podcaster #mentalhealthpodcast #spiritualblog #spiritualityblogger

Walk On Podcast Episode 72 : The Airing of the Grievances (A Festivus Celebration)

taps mic

I got a lot of problems with you people!!! And now! You’re gonna hear about it!!!!

What a doozy this year has been. Jeff Bezos and that other bond villain went to space in giant flaming dick rockets, c*vid is still wreaking havoc on our lives, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, motorized scooters are terrorizing the streets of New York City, people are still claiming Taylor Swift is good?!

I don’t fucking know.

I’ve had it. I have literally started having chest pains because the daily fucking bullshit of existing with the consequences of living under late-stage capitalism, all while watching the g*vernment and it’s pick-me’s cling ever closer to their denial that all is not well has got me on a simmer. Maybe not a rolling boil. But I’m cooking, BABY!!

Trying to become a self-actualized entrepreneur/independent artist is tough. Everything costs money. I have anxiety and also am capable of looking around me and seeing that it hasn’t been safe to move about the world freely since January of 2020, so I am let’s just say less-than-excited about leaving my house to self-promote or play shows or sell my book or busk. And everything costs money. Maintaining a website and store, keeping my book in distribution, keeping my album streaming, heck, every time I sell a shirt I have to pay for it and get reimbursed by my print-on-demand people. I have thought about quitting so many times this past year. The only reason I haven’t is because the universe breadcrumbs me by giving me a little growth as a treat just as soon as I think I can’t take anymore.

Whenever I hear what’s being played on the radio, I get this overwhelming feeling that I’m 150 years old. Why is everyone barely singing these days? And what’s with the whisper mumbling? Is this Harry Styles, JBiebs, or Nick Jonas? Why has Drake made the exact same song 250,000 times and people still pay him to make more? Have you ever read Taylor Swift’s lyrics? Like, out loud, like a poem? It’s not good, lads. It’s not fucking good. Taylor Swift writes for Instagram captions for toxic exes who like to imagine everyone they’ve ever abused is still pining away for them even though said exes have long had them muted.

I recorded this episode before Omicron started stomping around the planet like Godzilla and wowee have things gotten worse in the last couple weeks. The numbers are as bad as they’ve ever been, except, now, the government is even more hands-off than it was last time. They’re offering even less help (re: none). Things are getting canceled and closed with no financial help to speak of. Everything seems up to personal discretion, and let’s face it, kids, if we’ve seen any proof of anything these past couple years, it’s that the majority of humans aren’t that interested in making good or safe choices. Student loan collections are back on, schools are never closing again, everyone is still being forced back into the office and for what???

Money.

Profits over people, baby.

Shit is bleak.

Any solidarity or community we had at the start of the panini press has all but faded thanks to that frog-in-a-slowly-boiling-pot phenomenon. We’re just used to it. We’re being systemically abused and lead to the slaughter by “““““““““public servants”””””””” with corporate interests who see the mass death, loss, grief, illness and trauma we’ve experienced as necessary risk. That’s easy to say when you’re in a money bubble, Scrooge McDuck.

I have no solutions. I’m just airing my grievances. I can “love and light” with the best of ‘em, but the reality is, if you aren’t mad, you aren’t paying attention.

Listen here.

Walk On Podcast Episode 71 : Jesus Fucking Christ!!

When I was doing research for this episode I found the phrase “activism the0logy” which mirrors the sentiment/mission statement buzzword that I follow, which is “sacred activism”. Apparently, there are Christian-specific activists following the plight-of-poverty-centered teachings of Jesus Fucking Christ. Thank God.

For me, my spirituality and politics are inherently entwined. The more I listened to experiences outside of my own, the more I unpacked the wounds within me and realized they could be traced back to systemic sources, the more awakened I became. Likewise, the more I connected with source consciousness, the more I listened to my intuition, the more in touch with All That Is I was, the more it brought me back to the awareness of the necessity of systemic change. How people can spiritually bypass human suffering is beyond me. A lack of empathy, an overabundance of privilege, an egoic clinging to power, I guess.

I have always loved the figure of Jesus. As a kid I loved the Christmas story, the barn, the manger, the star, the virgin birth, all that. I have always been drawn to any passionate, purpose-driven, world changer (Soujourner Truth, Dr. Maya Angelou, Malcolm X—and before I unpacked my indoctrination into colonialism Patrick Henry and TJ). Jesus was the first activist I loved. I loved hearing about him. How he fought for the underdog, how he loved the people no one else would love. I thought maybe he would love me, too, I felt like he did. Even when I was in my questioning/agnostic and eventually reactionary atheistic phase, Jesus still resonated with me.

Years later, while meditating, after spending several years connecting with what I call artistic ancestors and several months of experimentation with transcendental meditation and terrestrial higher dimensional beings, I got the call to connect with Jesus. I looked up from my yoga mat to see the sun flooding in through the window like it never had before, only interrupted by a shadow in the shape of a cross. I began researching him from a leftist point of view. I started wondering what he had actually believed. I started thinking of him more as a man than as the son of God.

Isn’t it cooler if he wasn’t anything special? Isn’t his conviction and impact more impressive if it came from a human man? I like my Jesus as a brown, Jewish revolutionary—inspired by the persecution of his ancestors. I like him angry at the imperialism of Rome, ready to risk his life to be a voice for change, a stepping stone for liberation. I like to think of him as a person, a dirty hippie, if you like, of deep, abiding integrity, that wouldn’t allow him to sit idly by while hypocrisy ran wild. Like Tupac before him, maybe he thought, “I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.”

I like to think he’d be furious at the Joel Osteens, the Ronald Reagans, the atm megachurches, the homophobic congregations, the religious parents who kick their kids out for being gay, the puritanical, capitalistic, corrupt conservative Christian right. I’d like to think he’d be flipping a table or two.

The historical and/or mythological figure of Jesus has been highly depoliticized by the Christian right. Why? Could it have something to do with the fact that their messiah's politics dramatically opposed their own? Would he be pleased with the direction his brand is going? Or was he a marginalized people-loving-anarchist who hated the kind of hypocrisy currently being pedaled as a means of control?

Listen here.

#jesus #anarchist #leftist #communism #anarchocommunism #healing #equality #spirituality #sacredactivism #christianity #christmas #waronchristmas #podcast #podcaster #spiritualpodcast #activismpodcast #podcastlife ##podcasthost #writer #writingcommunity #themeekshallinhereittheearth #lovethyneighbor #nonjudgment #detachment #unconditionallove #christconsciousness #activismtheology #hypocrisy #integrity #love #blog #blogger #spiritualblogger

Walk On Podcast Episode 70 : ThE wAr On ChRiStMaS

“Happy Holidays!”

You say it to your neighbor, full of holiday spirit, trying to spread a lil’ cheer. “MeRRrY ChRiStMaS!!” he sneers like Mr. Hyde. What the fuck was that about? you ask yourself as you continue about your day. And he grumbles like Yosemite Sam into the cold, shoulders up ‘round his ears, which do actually appear to be emitting steam.

I hate to break this to you, but you may have just unwittingly engaged in The War on Christmas.

“But!! But!! No arms were drawn, no harsh words exchanged, I didn’t even mean any harm!!” you contest. It doesn’t matter. Your certificate of induction into the PC mafia will be emailed to one of your free-trial burner email accounts in 24-48 hours. Welcome to the dark side.

White Conservative Christians, especially those with McAllister mansions, are not marginalized in the slightest. Maybe that makes them feel a little left out. Maybe nobody likes to think of themselves as the Ebenezer Scrooge archetype. Maybe the Fox News Propagandists understand that evoking xenophobia and fear of progress into the hearts of their followers is the fastest route to maintaining control. And maybe, just maybe, there’s just a hint of gaslighting taking place.

In abuse dynamics, one manner of gaslighting a victim is to re-frame the abuser/victim dynamic by reversing it. If someone who is being abused gets angry and yells, for example, because they’ve been pushed too far, the abuser will say “look at you, look at what a monster you are, I’m not even yelling! Maybe it’s you who’s abusing me.” It works because it puts the victim on the defense. This is also often the main tactic used during smear campaigns, which are used to punish and discredit the victim for daring to get away. “If an abuser can’t control you, they will control how others see you.” It’s rough stuff.

Conservative Christian wealthy white people hold systemic power. Colonization and the role Christianity played as a control mechanism in that whole thing aside, the white supremacist capitalist cishetero patriarchy favors those who check it’s overlapping boxes, so to speak. And yet, pastors get on stage Sunday after Sunday, preaching about the dying morals of the nuclear family, the threat of liberal hedonism on Christian values, and—between Thanksgiving and Christmas—The War On Christmas.

It’s all made up.

The same way that queer people having legal rights to marriage has literally no effect on straight marriage, some people not celebrating Christmas exclusively has no effect on Christians who do. Being inclusive is not damaging. It does no harm. In fact, studies have shown that simply being exposed to other cultures greatly reduces prejudice.

And by the way, the Christmas we know and (some people) love wasn’t even codified until Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and, a little later, soda giant and cocaine pusher Coke-a-Cola introduced a red-velvet-wearing-jelly-tummied-rosie-cheeked Santa as part of their holiday ad campaign. It’s literally a capitalist invention!! And what’s not comes from a cautionary tale about the evils of wealth-hoarding workaholic landlords who have to be emotionally tortured by ghosts to see the error of their ways. What’s left after that is pretty much pagan in origin. Oh, the irony.

As usual, white christian conservative propagandists work their critical-thought lacking followers into a state of hysteria over something completely and (almost) comically (if only it weren’t so dangerous) made up. Love 2 see it.

Listen here.

November’s Newsletter

sign up for my newsletter to receive next month’s early

Walk On Podcast Episode 68 : How to Get Through the Holidays

In (for lack of a more appropriate term) narcissistic family dynamics “keeping up appearances” is more important than whether or not anyone is actually happy or healthy or having a good time. The Holidays are peak pretending time. Guilt, shame, and control are used in excess, the pressure to spend money and energy nobody has on gifts, decorations, and elaborate meals is suffocating, and let’s not forget the expectation to be around our abusers and play family several times in a short period of time. It’s exhausting, it’s traumatizing, it leaves a mark.

When I went no contact with my family, I thought all the holiday yuckies would go away. I was wrong. Every year I am surprised by the heavy cloud that descends upon me right around the middle of November and doesn’t leave until January 2nd. I am nebulously triggered. It always takes me at least a week of going “what the hell is wrong with me?!” before I remember. I have tried everything. Spoiling myself with hotel visits, avoiding the internet and holiday movie marathons on TV, isolating, getting blackout drunk, popping xans like Santa pops sugar cookies, but I could’’t escape it.

It was way worse when I was still spending Holidays at home, though. Even as I healed and started learning how to lay boundaries, I would crumble as I watched them get trampled all over. I could feel my heartbreak every time I was shown how little my feelings mattered—how vastly more important it was to keep up the illusion. Even as I pulled away, spending Holidays with a partner’s family, having a much better time, I would still have to deal with the post-holiday guilt deluge.

So, being alone to feel my feelings was hard, it was heavy, it was actually kind of a living nightmare the likes of which I thought I would never escape, it was preferable to continuing to be traumatized.

We all have our triggers. Death and losing loved ones can make the holidays hard. Not having a family while everyone else is living it up with theirs can bring on deep waves of grief. A breakup. Simply not having money to buy everyone gifts, not being able to afford to travel home and see your family, or working in retail and having to work through Black Friday sales and be abused by the dregs of human behavior. The list in endless.

Even though we are supposed to be eating, drinking, and making merry, the Holidays, statistically are one of the most depressing times of the year.

So what can we do?

The answer I’ve found along my own journey is self-care, getting to know your boundaries, laying those boundaries, finding joy where you can, making your own traditions with people who really love you, treating yourself in whatever ways you are able, reaching out when you need help, and keeping in mind that this, too, shall pass.

If The Holidays are the most joyful time of year, why do they get people so down? Easy: capitalism and trauma. Here's my Holiday Survival Guide full of coping mechanisms to get through and maybe even enjoy the Holiday season.

#holidays #theholidays #howtogetthroughtheholidays #holidaysurvivalguide #narcissisticfamily #toxicfamily #toxicrelationships #capitalism #boundaries #cptsd #healing #sayingno #grief #loss #podcast #spiritualpodcast #guilt #maniputation #spirituality #personalgrowth #selflove #selfhelp #selfcare #radicalselfacceptance #selfcompassion #selfhelpblog #selfloveblog #spiritualityblog #advice #adviceblog