Healing from traumatic events comes in many forms. First you acknowledge that you need to heal, then you begin the process. The good news is that it's not all sorrow and pain and grief. While that is a huge part, what comes after is the joy of beginning again, experiencing life with new meaning, learning who you really are, what you love and what lights you up. This is what this video is all about.
2019 and 2020 were two of the hardest yet most transformative of my life. It helped me create the life I have today, a life I truly I love. 💛💜
#traumarecovery #mysereneearth #freedom #traumahealing #traumainformed #peacebeginswithme #justbreatheletitgo
How to be happy
Whose job is it to keep you happy?
Being happy is such a loaded question, because happiness comes and goes and that’s totally ok. It’s ok to not be happy all the time. In fact, it’s healthy for you. We need to experience a broad range of emotions or else you will be emotionally stunted. Believe me, I know. Growing up in the Children of God cult I wasn’t allowed to display any emotions except that of happiness, joy, and obedience. I had no idea how to be sad, or how to be angry. It took me years of deprogramming to actually figure out what that meant for me, and how to express it.
But being happy, that’s different. We sometimes put happiness on this pedestal of the ultimate emotion to feel all the time. And yes, it is important. But it’s also a slippery slope, because as humans we seek comfort, we seek happiness, and we often seek these things outside of ourselves around within others or outside circumstances in order for us to feel it This is where it gets dangers.
It’s no one’s job to keep you safe, happy, healthy, successful, loved, calm, nourished, or satisfied. Yes, as a child this was the job of your parents. But if you are still looking for this in others, you have a long ways to go. Mostly like you are dealing with a wounded inner child that has not yet healed from your past traumas and is still looking outward for approval, protection, and love.
In order to provide happiness for yourself and stop seeking it from others, you need to address your wounded inner child, address the trauma and the feelings that keep bringing you back to your inner child seeking outside happiness and approval.
Once you address that, then you must reclaim the lost parts of yourself from your childhood that you discarded along the way. It’s important to bring those pieces back to you, so that you stop projecting onto others, stop seeing everyone else as the problem and expecting others to be responsible for your happiness, and start looking within yourself for your happiness, protection, love and satisfaction.
Only then, will you truly be happy. Only then will you be able to give yourself the things that you were desperately seeking from everyone else. And only then can you move on with your life, unbothered and untethered to other people, other circumstances, and events that had power over you and influenced whether you were happy or not.
When you let that go, you’ll truly be free and you’ll truly be happy. I know because I did it. And you can too.
How to get comfortable being alone with yourself
Once you’re comfortable being alone and happy with yourself, life will change dramatically for you
In 2021 at the beginning of my 6 month road trip I felt pretty miserable traveling alone. I was also going through some intense personal stuff and many times I just wished I had someone with me that I could share these beautiful experiences with .
Then something shifted. The more alone out in nature I was, the more I realized what an incredible opportunity I had to go on this adventure alone. I didn't answer to anyone, plan, or work my schedule around someone else's. It was all about me, whatever I wanted to do (or not) at every second of the day.
So many people ask me how I did this alone. Was I afraid, did I get scared, did bad things happen, how did I prepare for bad things. How did I take my photos? (Many of my followers thought I had a secret photographer/bodyguard following me around for six months taking photos 🤣🤣).
Nope. This trip was all me, all solo, many times away from cell reception and humans, forcing me to be alone with my thoughts and in turn face some hard truths about myself. Yes, it was lonely at times, but I knew others would only serve to interrupt my solitude and the important things I knew I had to focus on for my own healing.
So yes. It was a blessing to be alone, both when I reveled in the solitude and when I loathed it. I was able to focus my time and energy only on myself, without any other distractions from the outside world unless I allowed it.
If you don’t feel comfortable being alone with yourself, now is the time to start. You don’t have to make a drastic move like I did and start traveling around alone. You can start off small. Take a walk alone, without your phone. Have a meal out alone, without your phone. Read a book alone. Then gradually build up from there.
When you’re comfortable being alone and enjoying your own company, it opens the door to creativity, expansion in your own life and confidence. Because you know you don’t need anyone else. You know yourself and you know you are enough. Those who come along in your life are just bonuses to what you already had before.
I know many people will never experience this, and I feel incredibly blessed I get to travel solo and live life on my terms, with all its ups and downs. I highly encourage you, in whatever state of life you are in, to try being alone. Start small, in the best you know how, and go from there.
Let me know in the comments below what are some of your favorites ways to enjoy your time alone! The possibilities are endless!
A message to myself, passed to you.
These were words to myself for my own healing, which have since helped countless others in their healing journey. I share them with you now.
You're not broken, you’re blocked. Throughout your journey you’ve run into obstacle after obstacle blocking your path, until they prevented you from going further.
This may seem like the end of the road, but it’s not, you just haven’t seen all your options. That’s because obstacles are detours in the right direction. When a door closes, there is always a window. Doors lead to the ground. Windows lead to the sky, and the sky has endless possibilities.
Right now you’re looking around you, trying to see what other doors and passageways are open. But you’re not looking up, at the windows. That’s your way out.
You carry pain, which you’ve accepted as a part of life. But pain is not just a part of life, it’s LIVING. You have lived. You’ve known grace, sorrow, loss, love, joy, pain, and so much more. Pain is a blessing, because it means you're alive. If you don’t feel pain, you aren’t living. You aren’t alive.
But pain is exhausting when you can't let it go. You struggle to carry it, dragging it with you in life. What you don’t know is how to transmute that pain into power, purpose, & pleasure. When you do that, you’ll be unstoppable. You’ll feel alive for the very first time.
You may not feel alive now from the weight you carry, but you can let that go. I know because I did. I embraced the pain & allowed it to transform me. It made me stronger, more capable, kind, loving, and caring for myself & those along my path. But most of all, I learned to honor myself, first and foremost.
Perhaps our paths will cross one day, or perhaps you were meant to read this now to help you feel supported, strong, loved, & empowered. Perhaps you were meant to see what being alive, thriving, and healed really is. My scars are always there, but the wound has healed.
Healing allows you to evolve into the person you want to be, someone YOU will be proud of. When that happens you will know, because what’s inside will finally match what everyone already sees on the outside: a healed, whole, complete person. One who’s alive, joyful, peaceful, calm, and free. Free to be you, in any way you please. Free from the constrains of societal pressures and worries of other people’s opinions.
Free to harness the power to heal yourself.
How I learned to listen to my body
This is a friendly PSA to all my ladies out there. I took this photo last week when I stepped into a gym for the 1st time in 2020. I've been traveling all year, first in Southeast Asia, then New Mexico and Texas. I haven’t done a single squat or crunch, and spent most of my time out hiking in nature with zero diet and workout regimens.
What I did do, was exactly what I wanted--traveling, being out in nature, eating food I loved, including a daily breakfast sandwich with sausage and cheese, or avocado toast with egg and salmon. I drank coffee when I wanted, and ate ice cream when I wanted.
Instead of blowing up and getting fat, my body just settled into its new life of zero restrictions, and she loved it.
I realized long ago that setting restrictions actually makes you crave things more, especially for those of us who've recovered from eating disorders. Now that everything is available to me, I'm kinda like, ehhh, no. I choose to eat healthy because that's what makes me feel good.
I'm back working out at the gym not because I "have" to, but because I genuinely enjoy it, especially my #sundaystretchday 😀
In my life I’ve been all over the weight scale. At 5’10 I’ve weighed 120 pounds & I’ve weighed 170. These days I have no idea how much I weigh, and I don’t care. I love my body, I treat it well. As long as I’m healthy that’s all that matters.
I still eat like crap sometimes, but I don’t punish myself for it. I go through the day of eating, then continue my life, remembering what makes me feel good, alive, happy, and what foods provide optimal performance.
Ladies, do what you love, not what feel you should do, while hating it the whole time. It’s scary at first living with no restrictions, eating whatever & giving up grueling workouts, but I promise you, after a time of balancing out your body will settle into its new life and thank you for it.
I’m 37 and I’m more confident, strong, and healthy than anytime in my 20s while modeling, or in my early 30s as a raw vegan. The secret? #norestrictions
Listen to your body. Take care of it like your life depends on it. When you stop punishing your body and start loving it, it will love you back 100x more.