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.

How to take your power back

Grieve your losses, close the chapters in your life that no longer serve you, and get ready to MOVE ON.

So many times we're afraid to take the next step. We talk ourselves out of it and keep doing the same things, stuck in the same cycle, learning the same lessons, over and over and over again.

But not this time. Today is the day to let go of the resistance of letting go. Start saying no, step into your power, and let the people who no longer serve you in life fall away. Stop playing small, stop agreeing just to agree and pretending you are interested when you're not. Stop the fake smiling. Be angry. Be direct, be unapologetic.

You need to stand your ground before you can proceed forward. This is your ultimate test. Leave behind what no longer serves you, and go on your own path.

But grieve it. Grieve the lost relationships that may never be again. In doing so, know that you're making progress on both sides. It's a gift both to you and the ones you left along the way. You can't get to the next level if you're holding each other back.

The thing is, you're already at the next level. The door is open. All you need to do is walk through and keep walking. You have all the tools you need, you just need to act.

Take your power back. Sing. Say no. Have boundaries and be selfish. Do all the things you're scared to do. Say all the things you're scared to say. The only one holding you back is you.

How does fear rule your life?

Identifying the areas where fear holds me back, and what I’m doing about it

What brand are you?

Are you living from your core values? Are you someone you would take your own advice from?

I had an interesting conversation with a friend awhile back that I just thought of.

In this conversation, he talked about being a brand, and how you want to market yourself to the world. If you were a brand, what brand would you be? And, would you buy that brand? Essentially, you pose the question to yourself as to whether the brand you currently portray is something you would trust, invest in and recommend to others?

This conversation pops up in my head frequently, and I often ask myself what brand I am portraying to others, and is this brand authentic to who I really am? What's more, would I take advice from this brand, and would I purchase it?

Branding and marketing is obviously a common strategy in every business, but taking it a step further into your personal life puts it on another level. When you see yourself as a brand, you start thinking about things differently. Are you consistent, are you trustworthy, are you someone you would take your own advice from? Are you someone you would recommend to others?

Brands evolve with time, but their core message stays the same. I often think of my own core message and what I want to portray to the world, even though it changes. Overall, it's the message that you can not only survive severe childhood trauma, but thrive. You don't have to rely on external factors for happiness, resolution, or peace, because you can give that to yourself. You can build a life you love the way you want to, regardless of what others say, what X group thinks or X group says.

Let me know the answer to these questions in the comments below:
1. What brand are you?

2. What’s your core message?

3. Are you someone you would take your own advice from?

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

The Road Less Traveled Poem

I always loved this poem by Robert Frost, as to me it seems that I’m constantly pushed on the road less traveled, even though I try to take the road so many others do.

I try to live up to other’s expectations, or behave how I think others think I should behave. Every time it leaves me unhappy, confused, and dissatisfied. Every time I return back to myself, and on my own path, is when I find my happiness.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

— Robert Frost