Some of the first reactions I got to this to this photo was "whoa, dirt in your butt! In your hair!" "What if you get tics?" "That looks uncomfortable!"
News flash, I did get dirt in my butt and hair, and bit by dozens of tics. But I took those suckers out by their heads, and done. (Shoutout to growing up in Brazil where we lived with them on the daily)
Then I wondered, why do we have such an aversion to nature?Why do we immediately revert to the negative for different situations? Why do we shun nature, the very thing this earth was created for and what we were meant to live with, in favor of disinfected everything, bleached this, protected that. We are so far from nature that we created a whole other world of modern diseases and medicine for that world 💊💉
I recently fell into that trap, taking medicine for side effects of other medicines until I decided, no more. What I need for this time, my body can provide. Modern medicine has its place, yes, but it's not the end all be all, nor the only option. To me it's a last resort. I'm a faerie, and that shit does not feel good at all. What does feel good is letting that go, and using nature to heal.
Witches are dirty, nasty, playful, fun, unpredictable, and connected to the earth. They don't rely on modern medicine cause they know everything they need for healing nature has already provided for us. Faeries are literally nature. The bridge between the seen and unseen world. The sprites who only show themselves to those who they respect and recognize as their own kind.
I'm bringing nature back to humans in a way they haven't seen before. I'm helping others heal their trauma and connect to themselves using only what's provided in nature. I'm forging a new path that allows you to be who you are, with all dirtiness, discomfort and primal nature you were born with, but lost along the way. You don't have to be afraid of yourself, nature, or disease anymore. You can just be. Isn't that a relief.
Come be a Faerie Witch with me!
What it means to "let go"
Throughout my life I’ve seen a lot of words, quotes, coaches, etc, talk about the importance of "letting go". I even started talking about it before I fully grasped the concept.
But saying "letting go" can be triggering, particularly for trauma survivors. When you say “let go”, you're telling them to let go of everything they worked to get HOLD OF in their recovery.
Letting go is also hard if you've grown up with a strict religion and the idea of a scary god. Or if you've put your trust in others (like those in power) & it backfired. The term becomes meaningless or even harmful.
So what is letting go, really?
Letting go is trusting you are supported by something greater than yourself. That you will find the courage to act at the right time, but not attached to any specific outcome. It does not mean letting go of life. It simply means you trust you are protected and guided, enough to put one foot in front of the other. A day at a time. This is how we live in peace & flow, connected to ourselves and intuition.
But how do you safely let go? In my 39 years of life, I've never heard a clear explanation until I came across Linda Howe, who provides a simple method.
Linda says the safest way of letting go is to put your trust in something dependable first. This could be anything from the cycles of the moon, plants that grow, planets in orbit, the sunrise, your vital organs working. Something tangible & reliable.
It has nothing to do with spirituality, it just has to be meaningful to you. What is that? Waves crashing on a beach? Birds flying in the sky? Literally anything that is a constant in your life, and there are many. You can let go into something you trust.
When you find that constant, relax into the idea there is a power for good at work in your life, and you can trust it without a second thought. Learn to trust what you can see, before trusting what you can't see. This is the safest way for your nervous system to begin to relax. Then, you can start to let go. Eventually, you won't have to keep letting go, because you’ll always be in flow, and at peace.
Then, you can start all that other spiritual stuff. Try it, and see how it works for you.
How to turn your stressors into strengths
I have been struuuuggggggling lately.
Not happy about where I'm at in life, stressed about not finding a place to live and a bit lost as to whether I even want to settle down or keep traveling.
All that stress and worry has affected my health. I've developed multiple health issues that could turn more serious if not attended too soon.
One of the main things I've struggled with from my childhood trauma is extreme anxiety and chronic stress. This is from me constantly trying to predict where danger will come from next so I could protect myself.
When you're in a constant state of fight or flight this affects everything from digestion, ability to focus, immunity, mental health, sleep, social life and...breath.
I feel my body tensing and not breathing. I see myself not eating and resorting back to caffeine to keep me going, making it even worse as that wrecks my adrenals and wreaks havoc on my body and digestive system.
When I'm in a downward spiral like this, one of the things that helps to get me out this funk is gratitude. And there is always so much to be thankful for!
I'm thankful for my family that has houses I can stay in when I get back to Texas. I have an amazing vehicle that allows me to travel the country and gives me no issues whatsoever. I have a healthy body that moves, can get up in the morning and heals quickly from disease. I have friends and family who support me. I have income I can rely on. And, how exciting that I don't have a home! The world is open to me and I can do and go wherever I want.
Turning stressors around to something beautiful is so key when you are going through hard times. I mean, how cool I don’t have anywhere to live, the entire world is open to me and I can go wherever I want!
The next time you've got a stressful issue or in a trauma spiral like I am, use Byron Katie's 4 questions to turn it around.
Ask yourself:
Is it true
Can I absolutely be sure it’s true
Who I am with this thought
Who am I without this thought
Now change the thought around
This technique works and will help put you into a better mental space right away. Try it while taking some deep breaths, and let me know how it goes.
How Generational Trauma Works
"The way we were treated as small children is the way we treat ourselves the rest of our lives; with cruelty or with tenderness and protection. We often impose our most agonizing suffering upon ourselves and, later, on our children."
-- Alice Miller
Dr. Alice Miller said that parents who have not dealt with their trauma often end up traumatizing their children unintentionally. That's because they were traumatized by their own parents, then start repeating the pattern.
Trauma is generational. Unresolved trauma and repressed emotions are often projected onto others, with children becoming the main targets.
Parents unconsciously try to heal themselves through their children, doing to their kid what was or wasn't done to them. E.g. neglect/abuse, or forcing their child into an activity/sport/life that they were deprived of growing up.
Parents who have dealt with trauma know that children need unconditional love and acceptance. They learn to fully love and accept their children's emotions in whatever they do, not just when they are smiling and happy.
To get to that point, you must be attuned to your own emotions, thereby attuning to your children's. You must welcome their moods & feelings so the child knows it's ok to talk about emotions that come up.
In the cult I grew up in, many of my emotions were suppressed. This led to severe emotional illiteracy later in life as I did not recognize emotions like sadness, anger, or confusion. It took me years to undo the emotional abuse I suffered and be able to recognize and deal with my emotions healthily. Even now I still struggle with certain emotions like anger and rage. But I learned to support rather than suppress them.
Heal your trauma. When you attune with your emotions it gives you self awareness and the ability to mother not just your children, but yourself most of all.
Get comfortable with your emotional needs first, so you don't pass on the trauma of emotional neglect and disconnection to others.
It takes time, but is well worth it.
How to know when you've broken the trauma cycle
When “boring” means stable and “exciting” is actually abusive and toxic
I had an interesting experience recently that made me think a lot about how far I’ve come. I realized that there are some very clear signs on how to know when you’re healing from extreme trauma, and one of those is that you simply stop perceiving stability and peace with boring and normal.
Listen, I get it. Trauma is an incredibly difficult thing to overcome. It shapes the way we think, feel, and act, and causes us to feel stuck in a cycle of negative patterns that we can't seem to escape from. Also ,when you’re so deep in it, you have NO IDEA that you’re even in that cycle until you finally get to a point where enough is enough and you are ready to face some hard truths about yourself.
When you finally do accept you need help and healing, breaking free from trauma will start to bring a profound sense of freedom and clarity. It allows us to see the world in a new light and discover the safety and stability that we may have been missing. It also allows us to see that safety and stability as something natural and peaceful, something to be sought after…not something boring.
Breaking free from my trauma was a long and challenging journey…it still is, in a way. I honestly can’t even say I’m done with the journey or completely healed, but I do have a massive toolbox of modalities to help me when I am triggered, not to mention a completely different mindset to go with it. And that is what counts.
It took years of therapy, self-reflection, thousands of dollars and hard work to finally realize that the chaos and instability I was so accustomed to was actually…not natural at all. I grew so used to chaos in my life (that was a constant in my childhood), I didn't even realize it was STILL causing me harm in my adult life. Only when I started to break out of the trauma cycle I realized how much damage it caused me, and how avoidable all the chaos in my life was.
Most importantly, I realized that the chaos in my life was NOT normal. I was not doomed to deal with one dramatic situation after another, I was just so accustomed to this happening that I continued to welcome in chaotic people and situations, and actually REJECT calm, stable, non-dramatic individuals and environments.
Because what I perceived as boring was actually safety and stability and my default state of chaos was fear and drama, everything else felt dull and unexciting. When I began to unpack some seriously f’ed up patterns in my life that were repeating from my childhood, I knew I had to break the cycle.
So I accepted I needed help, and sought out anything I could to begin to heal and regulate my nervous system. This included therapy, plant medicine, energy work, movement, breathwork, journaling, being in nature, even new diets. It also included parting with people in my life who were also living in chaotic patters and severely draining my energy. Only after that did I start to see glimpses of the beauty in the calm and the serenity of safety.
Deconditioning decades worth of negative patterns is a gradual process. But I continued to work through my trauma, and incorporate simple habits to help regulate my emotions and find joy in little things. Things like appreciating the stability and predictability of my day-to-day life. Finding comfort in a simple routine, being at ease alone with myself, allowing myself to sit with my thoughts, to feel sad, feel discomfort, feel confusion. To feel all the emotions that are often suppressed when you are in a constant state of chaos, because your body remains in fight or flight.
Most of all, I worked on forming healthy relationships, both with myself and others. I sought out and connected with individuals who either healed from their past trauma, or individuals I knew who lived a calm, steady, peaceful life. A life I wanted to emulate. From there, I started to create a sense of safety in my own life that I hadn’t experienced before.
At times this change was not easy. Often I found myself back in the beginning of trauma cycle and could feel myself returning to the chaos that felt so familiar. But for me, there was no going back. I was not repeating those cycles. So I gave myself grace, and bowed out of the cycle before it took over.
Breaking trauma cycles is not easy. But it is possible. For everyone. You’ll know you broke it when what you thought was once boring is actually the key to the safety and stability we all need to thrive.
If you’re struggling with trauma cycles, don’t give up. Keep going. Continue your healing, use whatever modalities work for you. If you fall back into a cycle, don’t give up or judge yourself. Just acknowledge where you are, and move on. One day, you will see someone else’s life of chaos and think “wow, I used to be there. And I am never going back.” That’s when you’ll know you built a foundation for a fulfilling and happy life.
Most of all, you’ll realize you just found a sense of peace and happiness you once thought was impossible.
Why is it so hard to be happy?
Do you know why it’s hard to be happy? The answer may surprise you
"Do you know why it's so hard to be happy? Because we refuse to let go of the things that make us sad." -- Lupitha Herman
If you're seeing repeating negative patterns in your life, it's because you're hanging onto them. These patterns reinforce the negative beliefs and stories you have about yourself, making it easier to blame your issues on external circumstances, rather than taking responsibility & making changes in your life.
In the book Biology of Belief by Dr. Bruce Lipton, he says those who've suffered from trauma tend to hang onto fears and stressful memories as a protection mechanism. While not all stress is bad, when our bodies become chronically stimulated by a stress response like sadness, depression, or daily stress, it compromises our health and changes our brain chemistry, resulting in a constant state of fight or flight.
My body was hardwired for stress. I've suffered from chronic stress for years from my childhood growing up in the Children of God cult, constantly in fear from punishment & abuse. This led to severe health issues and chronic anxiety in my adult life.
These days I have to constantly check in with my body as to whether I'm back under my chronic stress pattern. and if so, slowly let go of whatever put me back in that state.
Becoming aware of stress forces me to become aware of what I allow to affect me in life. Usually the things that affect me are things I'm not willing to let go of, in order to continue making excuses for myself, for whatever reason and whatever capacity.
I've had to let go of a lot of stories in my life to find internal peace and happiness. Every time I do, I progress to first understanding what happiness is (hint: it’s not what I initially thought or felt), start feeling that happiness, which leads me to feeling freer, at peace, and most of all without the need to judge, criticize, or put others down to make me feel better.
The key is letting go of your old stories. The things you are hanging on to, that you are addicted to. The excuses, the buts, everything. You have them because they served you once, but not anymore. They may have protected you in the past, but now they're only holding you back.
Those repeating patterns, the chronic state of unhappiness, stress, and annoyance, that's all there because you're allowing it to be there. Once you let go of the things that are making you sad, you'll realize that the only person keeping you trapped in the same vicious cycle, was yourself.