GOOD NEWS!!! Change is here!!

Changing it up, no more talk only about trauma, trafficking, and sadness. I’m living life my way, in full integrity with myself, what I want to do, and my happiness. Get ready for change!

GOOD NEWS! CHANGE IS HERE!

The past four years I’ve done deep, dark, healing work on myself. I’ve come out of the shadows, told my story, faced scrutiny, vulnerability, and more.

But now it’s time to pivot my life and everything in it.

I’ll always be on life's journey, growing and getting to the next level. But on this level, it’s time to step out of the pain and into pleasure.

I will always share my story as a former cult child celebrity. I will always have things I need to heal, trauma I need to address and issues to work out. I will still support the fight against child trafficking.

BUT…there is so much more to life that that! On the other side of healing, is joy. And that’s how I feel now. I feel joyful, peaceful, calm, and FREE.

Beyond the healing & tears is a moment I knew it would click: I am healed. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. I am whole, happy, thriving and able to be who I am without apology--a little weird, a little crazy, a little naked, and definitely not afraid.

Beyond the healing journey is the healed. Beyond the pain is pleasure, & that time is now.

You know you’re healed when you’ve transitioned from shadows, darkness, and sadness, to joy, passion, and pleasure. You’re healed when what haunted you no longer has power over you. I’m healed because I don’t care to talk about my past again. It doesn’t control me.

Friends, consider this my resignation letter. I resign from talking about things that no longer bring me pleasure. I resign from trauma, trafficking, and despair. It has its place, yes. But that place is not in my life 24/7.

Most of all I resign from the self-imposed prison I’ve locked myself in. The key was in my hand all along, I just needed to give myself permission to leave. So I’m putting the key in the door, turning the handle, and letting myself out.

I don’t have to purify or cleanse my body from anything, because I like being dirty. Get. Ready.

I'm not here to fit in or make your life more comfortable

Living in authenticity with yourself means sticking your values and beliefs, no matter how outrageous, hard, or angry it may make others.

The below poem carries so much meaning for me. Especially during this time of finger pointing, us versus them mentality, the "if you're not this then you're this" accusations, shaming so many into silence for fear of repercussions, and censoring those who have not silenced themselves.

We all want to fit in and be part of a group, we all want to feel like we’re “doing good” and helping society, but at what cost of to our authentic self?, our beliefs and our integrity I guess that's for each of us to decide.

"We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.”
— James Hollis

Have I become my mother?

Healing the relationship with my mother in order to heal the relationship with myself

I had a dream recently that I became my mother. It jolted me awake so suddenly because I was so horrified by the notion. The fact the dream had such a big impact on me means on some level I believe it to be true.

Before I forgave my mother, my worst fear was becoming her. And the more I fought and judged her, the more I became her. The things I run away from and deny are always the things I need to deal with most. Forgiving my mother will always be in the forefront of my mind when I start seeing patterns repeat itself.

Can I become my mother? Sure, if I choose to. There are days I feel like I'm just like her. I certainly look like her.

But I’m not my mother. I’m not following the same path. I’ve broken the cycle of trauma and hurt and chose to go my own way. Most of all, I’ve chosen to forgive her. Because holding resentments against her no longer serve me. It allows me to cut the negative cord that’s connected me to her for so long, it allows her to show up differently in my life, without the negative stories attached.

The things you haven’t forgiven will continuously show up in your life, again, and again, and again, forcing you to look at them. You can either ask yourself the question “what needs to be forgiven in order for this to go away?” Or you can just keep pushing through, holding onto resentments that do not serve you.

Before I forgave my mother, I did EVERYTHING I could NOT to be her. But that gets exhausting. And you usually end up becoming exactly who you are trying not to be. I am an extension of my mother. Not only is she my mother, but she’s an extension of me, because we’re all connected.

The below poem has always helped me to acknowledge what parts of my mother I have, what parts to learn from, and what parts I can choose not to be.

“You do not have to be your mother unless she is who you want to be.
You do not have to be your mother's mother, or your mother's mother's mother, or even your grandmother's mother on your father's side.
You may inherit their chins or their hips or their eyes, but you are not destined to become the women who came before you. You are not destined to live their lives.
So if you inherit something, inherit their strength, their resilience. Because the only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

— Pam Finger

What are your core values? And are you living from them?

What happens when you stray from integrity, and how to get back to it.

I listened to Marie Forleo’s latest Marie TV with Martha Beck and wow, it was a good one.

This interview aligned exactly with things I’ve been working on myself, specifically regarding integrity and authenticity. 

Integrity happens to be one of my words for 2021. The more I talk about my life, experiences, and how it’s made me the person I am today, the more it’s crucial for me to live in my integrity, authenticity, & to follow my heart regardless of what’s happening around me, what others think or what the majority is doing. 

For someone that was groomed from childhood to be a people pleaser, forced to act a certain way because of my status in the cult & constantly told “everyone is watching me", each time I acted out or tried to be my own person, I was shamed and told I was bad & wrong. Needless to say, undoing all the brainwashing was hard for me.

Listening to this interview helped me connect things I’ve talked about here recently regarding fear, shame, and depression. Martha Beck says the cure for unhappiness staying within your integrity. That’s it. Separating from that not only affects you emotionally, but physically as well. "Once you leave your truth, your immune system function goes down, your heart rate goes up, adrenaline spikes, and stress hormones increase.

I started asking myself how closely am I adhering to my truth on the deepest level? If I’m staying true to my integrity, I’m happier. If I'm fearful or sad, most likely I’m not in line with my integrity and internal guidance system. 

That is SO SIMPLE. When we're living in integrity, we have peace, joy, love, & freedom. It's what we are & what we all yearn for. When we split from one or all 4 of those things, we stay rooted in fear and depression until we return to joy. 

Freedom and integrity are my two core values, my guidance systems. If I’m not getting those things, I’m not within my integrity. I’ve veered off course and strayed from my truth. 

If you’ve been feeling sad, off kilter or unbalanced, check in with yourself. Ask if you’re walking in the path of your integrity. It’s a hard question, because many of us THINK we’re living in our integrity, when really we’re just doing what we think we should be doing. That’s not our truth. It’s everyone else’s.

It may take awhile to figure this out. But think of two words that represent your deepest core values. Just two. Courage, integrity, faith, family, money, adventure, love, career, whatever. Once you’ve found those two, figure out if you’re living within those values. If not, then you’ve veered off course, and that’s probably what’s making you sad, angry, confrontational, unbalanced. That’s that’s fine. Now you know, and you can change it. 

You can change it by finding the pieces of yourself that are stuck in false beliefs. The things we think we should be doing, but really it’s what we think others think we should be doing. Recognize it, let it go, and change directions. Start living closer to your truth, your core values and your integrity. It’s a huge shift, but it’s worth it.

Everything that happens to us is happening for us. Every ache, pain, and depression is a gift, a sign post that is telling you to go a different way. Obstacles are always detours in the right direction, usually telling us that we’ve strayed from our values, and it’s time to get back to who we really are. If something isn’t working for you, don’t try harder, try a different way completely.

No matter how far we’ve strayed, we can always come back to wholeness, to yourself. The moment we decide to trust ourselves and follow our truth, that’s when immediate healing begins. It’s that simple.