Here it goes...

I'm not going to sugarcoat any part of my life. I'm here to be raw and unapologetically myself. I have spent far too long hiding who I truly am. Join me as I tell you of my story but also will guide you in healing your own trauma wounds and finding and discovering your true self.

Welcome to my blog about my own personal journey of discovering and healing from past traumatic experiences. For the longest time, I couldn't understand myself and how I functioned on a daily basis. Some days I would wake up feeling completely lost not knowing who I was, because I spent so much time beating myself up trying to be a perfectionist.

For many years I spent buried away in work, school, exercise, a healthy/obsessive lifestyle, always on the go, barely sleeping, anything basically to numb/distract myself from my own unhealed wounds within. Over the course of the past two decades I have spent trying to find my calling in life. Questioning who I was day in and day out.... What was I good at? What could I excel over others in? Where did I belong? Can I perfect my craft? Where could I use my talents? How can I help others? Where can I learn more? How can I make more money? Etc! The list of questions that I used to instill in my veins that radiated through my blood day in and day out really totaled out to me being lost in who I really am.

I've fucked up, made bad decisions, acted impulsively, lived in regret and didn't really think things through; we all do. But what I have recently discovered after reading and studying about trauma, especially in the book "The Body Keeps The Score," by Bessel van der Kolk, my responses and reactions to many moments of my life have been visceral and out of my control. I was an expert at putting myself back into situations in my mind from past events, where I was in full on defense mode ready to tackle anything in my way. Any negative thought that I welcomed into my mind would send me into a spiral. I would start sweating, my heart would race faster then it would after running a few miles, I lost my breath, I started to panic, I would shake and literally wanted to crawl out of my own skin. This was out of my control, it was a learned response from past experiences that I was familiar with and was in fight or flight mode ready to raise hell on the outside. When you are in this state, you are literally out of your own normal self and state of mind. No one can talk you out of this moment and it's really quite terrifying. The only time I would say to myself "Wow, okay how did we get there because that was frightening and I'm not quite sure what I could have done?" was when I finally calmed down and was in a normal physical visceral state. Call me crazy all you want, but we've all experienced it in some way or another. It's similar when you get into a car accident and your adrenaline kicks up to 150% and your heart is pounding and you just want to scream at the other driver who was driving like an asshole. You start freaking out, heart is pounding, hands shaking and you want to cuss them out....yeah same shit here when you get lost in your own mind thinking you are keeping yourself safe from the world. In reality, you think you are protecting yourself from others hurting you, what you are really doing is never letting anyone in because you're too fucking scared to just be yourself, raw in the flesh and completely vulnerable. You also constantly feel in a significant state of anxiety, which is fucking exhausting. You repeatedly put yourself on edge, on guard, at attention, and never fully present. I will get further into detail as this blog begins to grow, but since having my what some would call a "Spiritual awakening," my life has changed forever and for the better.

I have dug so far into my past that I have spent days, sometimes weeks at a time just crying and opening myself up. I've gotten in touch with emotions that I never realized I kept buried so deep. I've cried myself to sleep, I've cried while driving, I've cried during many yoga classes, I've cried at work, I've cried in public, you name it. I am vulnerable, defenseless and open to the world and I have never been here before and it's fucking beautiful. I am discovering more and more who I truly am and where I belong in this world. I have so much love in my heart that I have kept so guarded and locked up because I thought I was doing myself the favor of protecting that little girl inside, who was hurt so long ago and then again repeatedly as she grew older.

I am not my past. I am not who anyone thought I was. I am me. I am a good person with a huge heart and I'm sorry if anyone in my past resents me for anything I have ever done that I could never explain. The happy girl that made her presence majority of the time is back and here to stay today and every day going forward.

People have misunderstood me for so long and they weren't alone, because I couldn't understand me either. I've made a promise to myself that for the rest of my life, the past will not define me, I will always be true to myself and I will always be true to others and unapologetically I will always be me.

A message to anyone who is dealing with trauma healing or with someone who is healing from trauma. Please do not give up on them, it is very hard to explain, to accept and to go through. During this time, we need loved ones to be there for us, understand us as hard as that may be and to be there when we seek you out. This is not something you can just let go of, this is an uphill battle that takes daily work. Recognize the strength that you or your loved ones hold and know that everything will be okay, just give them time. We are all healing from something, no matter how big or small; everyone interprets traumatic experiences differently.

Be gentle. Be kind. Be Authentic. Always choose love.