2024: still digesting the amazement of adventures, and overwhelming gratitude plus clarifying the truth of the abuse, fully closing the doors on my old life and circles.

New Year’s reflection

All of my pictures, if I ever get around to posting a recap, will show you how amazing and adventurous and wild and unprecedented and full of gratitude and awesomeness and unbelievable blessings.

My highlights on a yoga retreat in Peru and everything from the top of the Rainbow Mountain & Machu Picchu down into beautiful gardens, encounters with llamas and lovely people to tarantulas wasps and screaming inside of a yoga studio in the heart of the Sacred Valley to purge the pains from 2023.

Next was onto Washington for Spring, where I went to float and integrate and recalibrate and had a very difficult time doing so but I got to plant a few seeds that I am now back to cultivating and living in again in the last month of 2024 and it feels like home.

And in the summer, I took a month long excursion through Europe. Partly with myself as I started out in Amsterdam, walking the Jordan Canal district, enjoying the museums and coffee breaks with my Airbnb host Jan. Then off to meet my mother in Berlin Germany, where my she ended up in the ER getting surgery for a broken ankle from a misstep at the train station and simultaneously my stepfather ended up in another ER with pneumonia. I ended up straddling between them pack-mulling things back-and-forth until it was time to catch the train and leave them in hospitals as I joined the rest of my siblings in Prague. Then we hopped on bicycles for miles and an awe-inspiring week through the back roads of Czech Republic and Austria, rounding our trip up in Salzburg and feeling the sound of music surrounded by castles and catacombs. Finally walking myself through Paris during the summer solstice in the fete de la music. All while running my business, taking my 1:1 clients at midnight bc of time changes plus still doing my meditation group and moons ceremonies over Zoom.

As if that excursion wasn’t enough if I also got to do an incredible winter river raft tour on the Colorado river with some amazing sober women. Truly, I can’t thank them enough for letting me live out my extreme adventuring dreams. I will say it took me a good week to recover From camping in 33° weather, but the beauty and the connection was well worth it and then some. Can’t wait for more.

As I moved back to Washington, I also got to pack for a final warming Sesh in Florida and my first cruise. My family decided to take a Christmas vacation in the Caribbean. The Bahamas were absolutely glorious, but so was the company on a ridiculously lavish cruise ship. Honestly, I don’t know what this fucking life is. Those are just snippets of the beautiful moments and the highlights.

And the highlights will be a big part of the truth, just like any good art piece we have both highlights and low lights depth and distance positive space and negative space.

And if y’all know me at all, you know there’s another part of the whole truth that people don’t really like to look at, or hear about, but I share it anyway ;-) it’s my jam and my path, to bring it.

If you don’t wanna hear the fuller bodied journey, enjoy the pictures. We as a society tend toward emaciated versions of things. I get it. They’re pretty and cute and no bumps and lumps so if that’s you I’ll bid your reading eyes a farewell and happy new year here!

It was epic and much brighter than the pummeling in 2023 and the 1000 papercuts that bled me dry in 2022.

But if you want a little story about how the fuller figured darker more honest grief digestion shadows clearing truth looks and feels as well as my continued recovery from the previous relationship abuse still echoing this year, plus the compounded traumas of telling the truth about and detailing many types of abuse online, thereby losing a lot more, keep reading.

PS I have not edited this so please forgive the type text errors and staccato cadence.

The year started out rough, but also joyous full of adventure, as I hopped on a plane to Peru while still grieving my guts out after getting bullied by a former friend and community on SM, learning let go of being believed and understood and doing the hardest thing, let them , and block them, and turn away from people who were wrongly judging me for speaking up about and sharing my experience strength and hope within abuse. Misperceiving me as trying to tear people down, as attacking others, or being stuck in victim mindset, rather than seeing how I was trying to raise awareness around harmful patterns and narratives in our society, our spiritual groups, and one on one relationships, friendships, and partnerships.

I understood the misperception because I used to have the same one. I kept things anonymous and depersonalized where it wasn’t pertinent to the story or issue at had. I humanized those harming me and took that care in my sharing but it seemed to go unnoticed and I was and still am made a pariah for it.

I sought to hold and have understanding for all sides while still telling the truth (yes, sometimes it’s not “my” or”a” truth it’s just The truth. All viewpoints may have validity but it doesn’t mean all views are true, often only one is actually correct, especially when it’s that person’s experience being shared and they’re the ones who were in it and studied in, not the crowd of conjecture).

Unfortunately, others did not want to reciprocate the same grace  curiosity and open-mindedness toward me or seek to understand and instead made unfair judgements spread unjust detrimental rumors about me. AND accused me of doing what they were doing.

Many of those rumors are still standing today. Many people hate me. I lost many friends, acquaintances, and clients. I knew I might and I had to tell the truth anyway and destroy the stigmas around emotions and speaking up about harms. And there’s nothing I can do now except continue to show up in integrity and hope that spirit and karma will take care of the rest. I do see some coming to understand now and that is encouraging. Still discouraging how many I lost and will never get back.

In addition to healing from the grief and trauma of being emotionally abused, psychologically torn apart, losing my home, not being rightfully compensated for it or the others harms/damages (though the rumor is that amends were made and I’m crazy), and a giant chunk of if not almost all of my community, my dreams, as well as being unable to operate and grow my business in the way that I was needing; I was attacked by the people who were supposed to have my back. Instead they were either in support of the people harming me or neutral, thinking that was the best stance, understandably so, I’ve been there too, but not realizing that neutrality in the face of harm supports the one who is doing the harm. The emotional mental and physical damages from that cptsd has been energetically, timely and financially costly and I’m still recouping from trauma and it’s recovering.

“One of the hardest things in the world is watching people you love support people who abused you.”

“To see a person who supposedly cares about you defend someone who has traumatized you is crazy-making. It's normalizing toxic behavior while telling the hurt person their pain isn't real. You're not crazy. You're trying to heal among crazy-makers.”

-Nate Postelthwait

The peace of mind and heart that I get is when I imagine someone watching the last several years of my life with him and my former friends who hurt me, as if it were on a projector screen, I see the truth. I know that if everybody could see what really happened, they would immediately apologize to me and have compassion toward me and turn toward him/them and ask him/them why they behaved that way and why they haven’t cleaned up their mess, and why they believe they have.

I’m also sure they would understand those people‘s misinterpretations and harms, but again that does not excuse the misinterpretation and harms or the need to clear it up and clean it up.

I often meditate on death to make sure my side of the street is clear. I imagine meeting God and asking the great spirit if there’s anything else I need to do. If I have harmed anyone that I haven’t apologized to or attempted amends with. If it’s OK, truly OK that I tell the world about the abuse that I experienced. Because I’m still not sure sometimes, I still I’m afraid That I’m hurting someone that hurt me. And that doubt and fear, my friends, is healthy to some degree and to another degree it’s what we call “narcissistic abuse syndrome” akin to Stockholm syndrome and or more commonly known as trauma bonding. That is word is largely misunderstood to many, something it means bonding over trauma, what it means is when someone has compassion for someone who is hurting them and sticks up for them and protects them rather than sticking up for themselves and protecting themselves first.

When I end that pattern, the great irony is that my friends still threw it in my face.

Unraveling from that story last year was a heavy burden, speaking up about it was even heavier, grieving it, reprogramming it, repairing myself, rewiring the stories back to the truth from years of gaslighting, took immense courage, capacity, consistency, and patience. Many many talks with mentors sponsors, family members, and friends, as well as my inner and outer spirit and guides.

Luckily, I’m very studied in these things, I guide it and practice it often, and it made it even harder in some ways because I couldn’t understand how I, a person who teaches these things, could have fallen prey to such manipulation and experience her mind and heartbreaking yet again from another abusive relationship.

I felt stupid, inept, insufficient and I thought, “haven’t I learned my lesson, how could I repeat this, how could I have missed this, I study this, teach this, how did I get here, am I sure it’s not me, maybe I am crazy, maybe everyone else is right,” The amount of self doubt and self gaslighting was huge. And even though I could see it, it still took work to unpack it and discern the truth.

The comforting thoughts were reminding myself:

1- this was a new and more sinister nuanced and subtle pattern and so of course I missed it. It was like the frog boiling to death in a pot of water. It is like 1000 paper cuts none of them fatal or big deals in none of themselves but when you put them all together, they kill.

2-that is the nature of manipulation and betrayal it is designed for you to miss it, for your vulnerability, trust and faith, your nonjudgmental mind and openness, your ease of forgiving and compassion, to be preyed on instead of prayed for.

To be taken advantage of.

That is what abusive people do.

It is not because there was something wrong with you, it was because there was something right with you. It’s not because you should have caught it, or attracted it, it was cleverly designed to be hidden from you, with spiritual sounding phrases and therapeutic understandings and philosophical concepts, and it worked.… At least for a time and then you caught it, remember, you caught it.

You’re not stupid you’re incredibly agile. Even in a nest of people telling you, you were crazy you figured out the truth, you stood up for yourself and that’s why he discarded you.

Remember?

3- and just because a doctor knows how a bone breaks, doesn’t mean the doctor is impervious to having the bone break.

And just because a doctor knows how a bone heals, doesn’t mean a doctor gets to skip the healing process.

So I’d go back in again and again practicing what I preach. Practicing what I had learned in the 10 years of addiction recovery. In 12 year relationship recovery before. In the seven year relationship recovery before that. In the 30 years of studying these realms.

And again I went back to a fear-based story saying “seems like I’m the common denominator in your romantic relationships” and while that might be partly true, only one of the four people I’ve been in long-term relationships with did not have a deeper personality disorder resulting in abuse, the truth was, it wasn’t me it was them. My patterns with them were different each time and they, their issues, remained and still remain the same as far as I can see and in what I know of their lives today.

The unfortunate truth is that our men are largely abusive in this society. And many of us have women believing it’s normal or we should tolerate it or love them deeper or worse that it’s something we are doing to attract it or perpetuate when actually (beyond patriarchy sexism and misogyny) it’s largely because we haven’t taught ppl how to deal with emotions. In fact, we have demonized emotions. In both genders. We say “calm down, don’t have pity parties, buck up, there’s no crying in baseball end” add infinitum.

If you show emotion, you are labeled as weak, crazy or irrational.

And sometimes emotions can be, that is true

Other times it is the crazy and irrational parts of us that are the most sane, balanced, and wise. It’s crazy to deny a very human and intuitive useful part of ourselves. In fact psychopathy and narcissism is largely due to this emotional disability.

It’s not going to make sense to some of you, and unless you study what I study know what I know, practice what I practice it, experienced, it probably never will. And I feel sorry for those who don’t know the magic of emotions, irrational, thinking, dreaming, magic, and living in the mystery and beyond the logic on stoicism and “alpha maleness” that is so misunderstood misrepresented and wrongfully glorified in our world.

A wise mind is a balanced and blend of illogical and logical, masculine and feminine, rational, irrational, creative, and linear, and I could go on that I won’t.

Every genius knows this wisdom.

Read Einstein and you might understand.

Until then, I get to let go and accept and embrace being misunderstood. Letting people see me as a crazy woman or that bitch and being able to say and see like Frida says

“They will call you “crazy” because you are, because you were born with the gift of seeing things differently and that scares them.

They're going to call you “intense” because you are, because you were born with the value well placed to allow yourself to feel it all fully and that intimidates them.

They're going to call you “selfish” because that's right, because you found out that you're the most important thing in your life and that doesn't suit them.

You're going to be called in many ways, with many judgments, for a long time, but stay firm on yourself and what you want, and

I promise you one day they're going to call you to say, “thank you for existing.”

FRIDA KAHLO

So in 2025 I say the only thing you can take from me, is notes;)

Because I am mine and no one can take it. And anything I was holding that isn’t mine, like their guilt and shame of their actions and me calling it out and then being embarrassed bc they should be;

I’ve given that and the rest back to karma and God and spirit and grace and source.

I’ve taken action where I could. I had the courage to respond to the call. I answered it. It is done.

I’ve resourced myself more times than most, and it’s OK for me to know what I know it doesn’t make me arrogant or self-righteous.

It makes me studied, devoted to a practice, confident in my experience, having a right sized, healthy, and balanced ego, and humble, clear with my connection to myself and to God.

Imagine if I told someone who was studied at real estate markets that they were close-minded for thinking they knew what they were talking about. But still, I’ve been called all the names in the book these past couple years for finally speaking up.

So you can call me what you like, think what you think,

I know what I know,

And if you ever want to know it too, I’m an open book always happy to have rational logical conversations as well as irrational illogical fantastical ones too. ;-) (or i can even guide you in 1:1 sessions and mediations and more;)

But I know which is which and the usefulness and ab-usefulness of all the logic and illogical things,

Do you?

The rest of 2024 was much easier after that first quarter.

I still cried every day until Midsummer. Somewhere in the middle of Europe, probably somewhere between the backroads of Austria’s immense Alps, lush farm lands, and the Salvador Dali museum in Paris,

the seemingly infinite well of tears and grief somehow started to ebb and dry up.

Amidst the adventuring I barely noticed it until I got home and found more rounds to purge, but a few and far between comparatively, and it was such a relief.

I know we teach that healing isn’t linear grief takes time, etc. etc. but I’ll tell you when you are actually in that. It’s a bitch and a half.

And people still give you grief over your grief, subtlety or loudly telling you to get over it, or that you’re doing it wrong by suggesting your sadness, fear, anger, telling of it and showing it is not ok etc etc

compounding the voices and

questioning of “will this ever stop, is there something wrong with me?, aren’t you over that, haven’t we been here before, Are we there yet” and so many more seeming like a broken record.

But thank God I know the record well when I was able to let it play and skip and have compassion for it because that is what broken records do.

And if Im telling the truth

Being rigorously honest

I WAS broken.

Broken isn’t bad.

The person who broke me and never amended it isn’t bad either but their shitty behavior carelessness and reckless was.

&

Broken meant I was brave enough to risk love. Some would shame me for that courage, and Maybe I was stupid enough to risk it with somebody that other people would’ve more quickly and clearly seen wasn’t capable.

COURAGE

is knowing it might hurt, and doing it anyway.

STUPIDITY

is the same.

AND THAT'S WHY LIFE IS HARD.

- Jeremy Goldberg

But I also believe if you were in my position, you would’ve believed what I believed because it looked real. It felt real sometimes it was. He showed promise and willingness. He made promises.

Other times it went against all of that and created so much confusion in volatility and chaos in my heart and mind. I thought it was crazy or anxiously attached but the truth was I was securely attached, I was just in an environment that was invoking that state of being because there were so many opposing beliefs and behaviors that eventually I, strong, knowledgeable, and level headed big-hearted as I was, broke trying to make sense of his cognitive dissonance. Trying to hold both of his opposite and rigid beliefs, black-and-white thinking. Trying to hold space for his truth and validate his views, find the middle way and the gray and make it make sense. Playing some kind of elastic girl. Doing what I coined, the emotional laundry” what other people call emotional labor, and mental gymnastics.

And in the end, the only sense I could make of it, was that it didn’t make sense,

because insanity …doesn’t make sense.

And that…

Finally…

Made sense.

To call a spade a spade. To label something crazy with out feeling arrogant. To see clearly what’s my responsibility and what’s not. Where I have power and where I don’t. And tell that truth, silently and outloud, until it distilled the impurities and healed.

That helped the broken record stop repeating. That closed the loops that were endlessly fraying and flailing in the wound and the wind, the ?’s floating like ghosts in hallways, begging to be put to rest, for some kind of certainty and clarity.

Some kind of closure.

Closure that I knew would never come from him or her or them, but I couldn’t even find it in myself for many many many months. It is agony to be searching in the depths in the dark for so long, to simultaneously lose hope and still keep the hope and the faith and know that more will be revealed.

But I did

And it was

And here I am.

Clarified.

Unified.

More powerful and whole and integrated than ever.

I wanted to write all of this last year. I am a quick thinker and mentally worked it all out way before my body did. I’m an ambitious healer too but I often underestimate how much I’ve been hurt. I’ve been taught to minimize it and mask it with smiles and higher mindedness and tough girl athleticism and placating positivity. And this time when I took those masks off, people did not like me very much, when I was raw and unfiltered and real, trying to normalize this process to relieve the shame we have placed on it in society which has caused a rise in “mental-health-issues” chronic illness and general diseases and I was tired of everyone shaming everyone and now me for knowing how to, showing how to, grieve well.

And I knew that too was a giant part of the work and healing not only for myself but collectively to let others get used to the truth rather than curated smoothed out stories, I just let ‘em roll. Imperfect but very consciously thought out and processed within myself and others.

I decided to cut my teeth and speak as if no one was watching or reading bc it seemed for a time no one was. At first it was very healing and freeing to just write and share. No one was commenting. Then it shifted.

It was very hard to hold compassion for myself as people stared down and scoffed and berated. To still know the truth and stay true to it. I had plenty of help too, from unexpected people and I really needed the validation to help combat the invalidation so if you were someone who was doing that for me, thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul.

That process is what we call love. No not the berating and bullying, but others’ ability to hold space and care and seek to understand and listen as well as my ability to walk myself home regardless of others misperceptions of my intentions words and actions, to know the reality, after so much harm done to it.

I knew i was already made of this live substance, but now I am forged by the fire of it. I am curated in the kiln of truth.

“step into the fires of self discovery it will not burn you. It will only burn what you are not“

Think Khaleesi

Think Kali Ma

I am driven by the love of truth and telling it.

Not because you will like it, or me,

not because you will hate it, or me,

not because of anything except because it is it.

I tell it regardless of the outcome and that gave me greater love, integrity and power than I’ve ever known.

To simultaneously let go of controlling how people see me and just walk in truth and be in love and let the pieces fall where they may.

Pieces fell

Unexpected pieces

People fell

I fell

Again and again

I always rise yes but

I stayed down sometimes again and again I learned to not “do” just “be”

Not needing to get back up and I was strong so quickly

But learning to rest and show I was strong in a new way

And it showed me

A new way

A softer kinder way.

But first it felt harsh.

It felt like chemotherapy.

Purposefully consciously digesting anger and learning to utilize fire, burning bridges, destroying stories and stigmas, and even burning in it publicly.

Thank you to those who see this process of truth and love with me.

To those who couldn’t or disagree for any reason, trust, I understand - and - I still get to be angry at any mistreatment you placed on me and my character bc of it.

I understand those reasons and seasons but I’ve integrated my fuck you this year so

In the cadence of my fave Ted Lasso scene:

Thank you to everyone who’s been there for me in the past, who spoke in my behalf, in rooms i wasn’t in,

And fuck you to everyone who wouldn’t be curious with me and instead shut me down, attacked, accused, neglected, gossiped, or abandoned me in a time of grave need.

Thank you to my voice and my commitment to telling the whole truth, to all those who hear and believe and especially to those that already knew it and saw it and trusted my character and my experience,

And fuck you to everyone who didn’t believe me and still doesn’t.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me, helped me heal my broken brain heart and home by validating my perception from years of spiritual gaslighting and toxic positivity, telling me compassionate truth if it was any misperception, for trusting me bc you understood what it takes to heal from years of being invalidated and questioned. Or bc you didn’t understand but could admit that. Thank you to those who couldn’t validate but at least held compassion and curiosity, and sought to understand rather than be quick to judge or hold contempt prior to investigation. Thank you to those who could communicate kindly yet honestly, even if it wasn’t something I wanted to hear, I was only ever asking for honesty so I could know who was safe, emotionally mature and available, and who was not. Thank you to those who hard and loving convos with me, either disconnected gracefully or told me where they stood so I could accommodate as much as possible. But especially thank you to those who understood that when someone is going through something like this, it’s just going to take extra compassion and patience with and for their grief and stories and healing. And they gave it, and they held me and my stories and my hurts, and I’ve healed. Thank you.

And fuck you to everyone who wouldn’t, couldn’t or chose not and especially if you told me you could but then hung me out to dry and confused me further and reactivated all my wounds bc of your cowardice, and especially if you blamed your inability to tell the truth on me Or to shame me (consciously or not) for things you knew nothing about or were prejudging and gossiping with little to no facts or projecting your experiences onto me while claiming I was projecting onto them. Further blame shifting and adding to the confusion bc you couldn’t handle or express your discomfort so you made it about me instead of simply telling me you didn’t want the relationship and/or were unwilling to support me in my pain and process bc you didn’t want to look like the bad guy, bc you KNEW that would be a shitty thing to do to a friend and didn’t want to face it so, ironically, you made it worse by not saying anything and stringing me along or ghosting or worse.

I understand. I really do. The views you hold are valid from where you stand and the consciousness you currently have AND they are still incorrect and a perversion of the truth that I experienced and am sharing.

The feelings you may have are valid, the lack of communication and neglect is not, again, understandable bc fear is a bitch, but it’s still not ok to do this to people especially while you’re claiming loving them or wanting to be friends. I don’t expect that everybody would be able to show up. I know we all have our stories in our paths in our purposes, and priorities etc.. I just wanted clarity.

And clarity of your experience doesn’t mean it’s automatically the truth. It may be a valid view point but again, sometimes there’s not 2 sides, sometimes there are, but sometimes, sometimes, it’s just black and white and there’s one thing that describes the actuality and another that describes a misperception - and understandable one perhaps, but still, a wrong interpretation. 

“Sometimes holding “both/and” is healthy and sometimes it’s a way to excuse cognitive dissonance. Learn to discern.

Sometimes it’s that you’re likely still confused like I was, and I get that, believe me, it took me years to unpack all this.

Confusion doesn’t excuse that lack of or mis communication or further abandonment placating lies to my face or behind my back or any other poor behavior towards anybody but especially somebody who has been traumatized and is suffering from so many types of abuse and simply trying to raise awareness about it so that less people get hurt by the person and the patterns who hurt them too.

Confusion should be a call to communicate, compromise and clarify but so many just don’t have the skills, the tolerance for healthy conflict, the ability to self regulate or coregulate, and unfortunately or society promotes toxic individualism and avoidant abuse masquerading as boundaries like it’s healthy. I’m here to say again, it’s not.

Most were uncomfortable with me sharing details about my emotionally and psychologically abusive ex and the nice guys patterns and spiritual phrases that were used to confuse me and contort my reality against me to the point that I was convinced he was really a well-meaning guy just doing his best but when his mask, that partial truth screen, came all the way off in in front of the therapist and the end and further throughout the breaking up I had a year of swallowing hard realizations about how sinister this stuff is and I saw a lot of people in similar relationship patterns too, in fact the whole underbelly of the world operates within this sickness to a large degree it is normalized like “that’s just how relationships are” and while that may be the norm for so many, it shouldn’t be - emotional abuse and neglect and people enabling it via “spirituality” should not be the norm and if we just keep quiet and peaceful and forgive it and tolerant instead or being courageous enough to take action, it will stay the norm and people will continue to fed through the carousel of therapy and healing rather than stopping the harm at its source whereever possible. So I’m helping bring subconscious stories (shadows) to light and unpack and heal these things it just so happens to be my line of work plus even if none of that was pertinent,

There’s nothing wrong with sounding the alarm in fact, it’s my responsibility to do so.

If more victims had the capacity they too would speak up, but because some aren’t physically safe to be that brave, and bc healing from this is in itself enough, in fact, often it takes an army to do just that, most of them stay silent because it’s all we can do to just heal and live some semblance of a normal life after. Taking on the mob is next level.

But I pray that shifts.

Because

I still think of my friend who died by suicide from these same spiritually abusive patterns that I suffered through these last years. I heard her voice often “be brave”. And so I was, in new and deepening ways. I thought I was brave before, and little did I know what it would take to integrate that in a public arena like social media. Honestly, I don’t recommend it, but I’m glad I did it.

I still think of another friend who left the community because of these spiritually abusive patterns and people protecting a person whom they knew was harmful to his last partner, whom she got in relationship with and no one told her, no one warned her, and when she found out, after much suffering and realization, she asked me “why, why didn’t they tell me?”

And I didn’t have an answer for her, not a good one anyway. I could see that the rationale was everyone wanting to believe that a person could reform, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that belief, until or unless it puts others at risk.

So I vowed to do it different.

I vowed to say something. Because my ex had done this before. Almost an exact replica of what he had done to his ex-wife.

So, not only for my healing and breaking up with the pattern so that I don’t repeat,

But to be a voice and a torch and a light for those who are not as well supported or not a safe to do so or experiencing similar patterns and behaviors with their partners or even with this person specifically.

A piece of validation for them too. And many have come forward to concur. And to thank me for saying something and speaking up about this. And that is all that I could hope for, is to help one person not die from the toxic abusive cycles, running rampant in spiritual spaces that are supposed to be safe places and end up causing more harm. Intentionally or not it happens, and that doesn’t mean we just move on, it means we turn around, face it, and admit it needs to stop.  Then pray about what actions if any we can take to put an end to it.

I pray that we all start to see the sick and toxic ways we protect abusive people by having compassion for them rather than holding them accountable. By telling people that they’re gossiping – or in my case accused of being abusive – if they talk about it rather than thank them for telling the truth and helping alert those who may be in danger.

Sometimes understanding someone’s behavior is just another way we all avoid feeling the pains from it. And pain is the touchstone for change. So I pray we all learn to feel and deal and heal - yes understand and do not excuse or escape the truth of it all, mind, body, emotion, spiritual healing.

And I pray that we all start to see the difference between someone speaking up about abuse and someone who’s actually being abusive.

I pray we all ask how we are contributing, actively or passively, to violence and seek to stop the cycles in ourselves, our relationships, our homes, our work places, our communities, our systems, and our world.

Talking about people’s harmful behavior and abuse

Is not abuse

The harmful behavior and abuse

Is the abuse.

Talking about a problem is not the problem

The problem is the problem.

We need to learn how to have hard convos.

Healthy conflict over conflict avoidance masquerading as peace or spiritual mindedness.

Do some of us needlessly complain, and gossip? Do some of us tell lies and spread rumors that aren’t true? Absolutely and that’s not what I was doing here though it is what people have done to me.

I understand the confusion. When someone shows up in one way that doesn’t align with another person‘s view and experience of them, it is natural to question who is telling the truth. I am not mad about that. I am disappointed that people didn’t question, they just formed an opinion against me.

So many think the reason I spoke was some sort of vendetta. So many think the reason I spoke was to harm. So many  think the reason I spoke was to build my ego and they can’t see how it tore it right the fuck down. How much humility and courage it takes for me to say I perceived this person wrong, and I gave all of you the same impression, and now I need to set the record straight.

How I knew it would make me look like the bad guy, and I got to practice being OK with that. I got to practice not being liked. It was a difficult and good practice. It did not build my ego. It sucked it dry. And I am now rebuilding it again as the patterns and phases and learnings of life ask us to die and be reborn over and over. And so I do.

I could understand outsiders misunderstanding me, but it was the close friends accusing me of being abusive by speaking about abuse. By telling the truth.

Unfortunately, this was an old story for me that went all the way back to my childhood. When my ex stepbrother molested me and my sisters, we tried to speak, we were told to be quiet and apologize.

When I saw that story, that trauma, I vowed to break that chain. And as many times as people told me to shut up in various ways, well meaning or not, gently or harshly, directly or indirectly;

I kept speaking.

Being quiet and kind and keeping the peace in the face of abuse is something carried heavily in religious families. I could see my ancestors, quiet and demure, playing peacekeeper. For them it was survival. It made a lot of sense. For me, it’s just an old story, it’s no longer true, I won’t die an actual death, just an ego death; and that I could do; I’ve done it many times; and I no longer have to play by those old “peace is spiritual” false rules so

When I prayed for direction, I heard “rock the boat, stir the pot, be that bitch, and know they’ll think you’re crazy, and know that you’re not, not really in the way that it might seem, in some ways it will seem so bc they will be shocked, but it’s because it’s new for them too and the world needs to understand and undo this so, lead the way. You have the capacity within you and support system underneath you and all around you not everybody does”.

And so I did.

I spoke about it happening in my romantic relationship.

In my friendships.

In my ex sponsorship.

And in my spiritual communities, yoga, AA, and religion.

People in the Yoga community told me I was being negative and spreading my pain and hatred, and that it wasn’t helpful, and I understood that narrative, and they were wrong, and they still can’t see how pointing at a problem is more helpful than pretending it’s not there.

As the Zen proverb reminds I can only point at the moon I cannot tell you what to see. If you choose to see only my finger that is up to you.

As James Baldwin reminds “not all problems that are faced can be changed, but no problems can be changed until they’re faced“.

As AA and the Lord’s prayer reminds “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”

I see courage and wisdom gets skipped often in this program. Many rely heavily on acceptance which turns into acquiescence of deeper issues that are calling for our attention and work to evolve them.

A couple of big pillars in AA told me that I can’t talk about the abuse in AA because it will turn people away from the program.

I told them I understood where they were coming from because I used to come from the same place, and I asked them why they we’re trying to shut my voice down instead of holding compassion for me and or asking me what kind of abuse I experienced and making sure that they weren’t perpetuating it as well.

I never got an answer.

Another person I looked up to told me that I can’t talk about people’s characters online, it’s not “impeccable of my word”. I told him that telling the truth is being impeccable and how would he know better the character of whom I speak, than I, a person who lived with this person and studies psychology philosophy and human behavior.

I would offer the same question to him “why aren’t you asking me how I was harmed and how I formulated my assessment rather than telling me it isn’t true and that I can’t say it” “why aren’t you asking how you can be helpful and support me and hold HIM accountable” “why are you telling me I’m projecting WHILE projecting onto me?“

But that is their work and I am not their therapist. I can only pose the question. Do you get to decide whether or not they want to do the work to answer it.

Why are we so focused on shutting people’s voices down who are raising awareness about very important issues rather than shutting down the harms and problems those voices are pointing at?

I know my answers. I used to live in the spaces of “law of attraction” and “what you focus on amplifies” and then you learn sometimes it’s the exact opposite and the universe is much more complex that a single “law” - there are many laws - I won’t unpack that for you here - But I’ll leave the question for you to ponder, hold and pray about.

Why are you shutting people down from speaking up about harms?

If you have any questions for me, please, just ask. Trust me, I have thought about nearly every facet and angle, all of the minute minuscule microscopic details as well as the giant cosmic picture of it all, I study it for fun! I can’t not sometimes bc my mind is ever curious and bc that deeper understanding a main focus in life, I will likely have an answer for you.  (in the language of Astrology we call this a Virgo Stellium in the ninth house Leo Moon and Jupiter in the 8th;).

If I don’t, I will readily admit it. I might even lean into an inquiry discussion about it with you Because I love learning new things, don’t you?

That said, dear universe, please give me a fucking reprieve from the learning ;-) at least from the learning by experience. I will likely go back to school and finish my psychology degree this year, so let’s make a deal, if I sign up for the learning in a classroom, will you please let me coast on the learning in my real life? ;-)

Thank you in advance

2024 Mikelle

And PS thank you to everyone who actually read this with an open mind seeking to understand and hopefully finding some of what they’re seeking.

Sending love and wholeness into 2025!