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.

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

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

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.

You create the world you live in

Feeling stressed, depressed, angry, anxious, and confused about the state of the world? Read this.

You do not have to subscribe to the fear mongering going on. You do not have to choose a side. You do not have to prove to anyone how woke you are. You do not have to worry about others shaming you when you don't engage. You do not have to believe everything you're hearing or seeing.

Take care of yourself first. Turn off the TV. Get off social media. Go take a bath. Stop getting angry about things you can't control. It's just. Not. Worth it.

STOP THE DOOMSCROLLING! You'll be ok!

Doomscrolling is literally a word now, created just for 2020. Look it up online, it’s true.

Doomscrolling... a 2020 development wreaking havoc on the nation. So much that we even created a word for it.

Doomscrolling is a manufactured tactic by the media to make us chronically anxious and afraid. According to @amen_clinics, information (especially negative) is like crack. Brain-imaging research in 2019 found that information triggers the dopamine-fueled reward system in the same way as food, money, or drugs. The authors of this study suggest this is why we are susceptible to clickbait.

Doomscrolling = clickbait on steroids.

The human brain is wired for negativity. American psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson famously said "The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones." When you know this (and media corporations do), it's easy to create scare-inducing headlines about spiking COVID cases, politics, looting, & rioting keep us glued + afraid. And when you're afraid, you're easily controlled.

Fear leads to unhealthy behaviour like alcoholism, depression, anxiety, relationship problems, & more. You've seen it on social media, or perhaps you were caught up in one of these situations, as I was.

The best remedy to stop your doomscrolling habits is to start focusing on what's going RIGHT in your life rather than going wrong. Limit daily your social media and news intake. Take a mental break, get outside, LIVE YOUR LIFE.

It's not worth it letting go of a decade+ friendship because you disagree on politics, health, etc, whatever the case may be. Reassess what's valuable in your life: human connection or the TV giving you because it's telling you to? And proceed from there.

Here are more ways to avoid doomscrolling and take care of your mental health, according to Amen Clinics where I got my Brain Health Coaching Certification from.

Set time limits for scrolling
Add good news to your daily scrolling. Start and end your day with positivity. Read inspiring stories found on the Good News Network.
Go on an intermittent information fast. Mentally unplug from news on a regular basis.
If you’re tempted to send a snarky say “STOP” and count to 10 before hitting reply
Block social media and news sites that are especially depressing
Make your bedroom a technology free zone

You'll be ok! 💚👍