Apparently, I share my sober birthday with world massacres now so that’s fun.
10 seven 2014
I have 10 years sober today. Today I feel whole. Integrated with deep and strong truths from practicing rigorous honesty and healing a broken mind, heart, home and community last year. The last few months I finally had some reprieve from the cutting away. My 9th year sober was chaos. I was in Puerto Vallarta, going through one of the deepest grief portals and storms in my life, (and if you knew the travesties from pre-sober years that might hit a lil different).
I was still trying to continue enjoying myself to the degree that was available, while massacres were occurring overseas, I was coming down with Covid and then a literal hurricane hit . Needless to say it took me a little over a month to reflect and digest that ninth year sober and in comparison to the 45 minute blog I wrote last year (link https://mikellepoulson.wixsite.com/mikellepoulson/post/9-years-sober-a-reflection-on-the-abuse-in-aa-and-spiritual-circles if you wanna dive into it;)
this year I have a slightly more succinct statement because I’ve spent the 10th year simply sober refining everything in last year’s blog. (And traveling all over the world of course, to help me remember how to play inside of grief ;)
It’s still a good long read but I hope you do if you are practicing what you preach “seeking to understand and having courage to change” and care about helping people get and stay sober and not want to commit suicide after years of sobriety due to inadvertently or ignorantly Spiritual Abusing and shaming their grief and anger and depression via spiritual self-help tropes that do more harm than good and more AND protecting others who dish it out instead of holding them accountable.
But this year I want to amplify the thanks to so many who helped me heal because THAT has been immense too and I haven’t been able to begin to express the miracles yet.
First off, I want to thank my sponsor for literally walking through every tear and storm with me for the last few years, but especially these last 2.
Her understanding of what it means to seek to understand, to be of service, to be helpful to be loving and a friend, not a therapist or coach, saved me over and over.
She just listened. Validated and let me speak the facts, then check my view of the truth bc I was so scared I was viewing it wrong from years of being subtly gaslit (google narcissistic abuse disorder which is a bitch to heal).
As many times as I needed to check my read, my knowing, or not knowing, she would, Again and again and again, and I can’t thank her enough, especially when no one else seemed to want to could or would. Most people just wanted to tell me how to heal and get over it and be grateful and see the person who harmed me as a “good guy just doing his best” when it wasn’t the full truth and certainly not what I needed, especially since that was the SAME thing that harmed me these past years. Those phrases GOT me in and kept me in a state of cognitive dissonance in the face of emotionally abusive relationships with not only my exes but a few other “friends” and “mentors” and she could hear that, and she understood it and healed me, Just by hearing me.
She helped me start to reweave the truth i already knew I just needed someone who’d heard the facts and my inventory every week for the last 4 years to say “you didn’t do anything wrong, can you hear me, we’ve searched and been fearless and thorough, you did everything right, you have no inventory here, do you understand how amazing that is?” I couldn’t hear her at first, I was still checking and checking and checking to see how I must be missing something.
But all there was left to be responsible for was to use my voice about what had happened and how and why and what to do about it and how we alllll can misperceive it and how easy it is to skew the truth of abuse via spirituality and to have courage to change these abusive patterns in our society as I was finding the courage to change them within myself.
To practice a step 7 every moment of every day and say “spirit, direct what I’ve been given into usefulness” and hear over and over again - speak. It stirred up allll my rejection fears and many of them came true and it wasn’t easy but it was worth it.
I lost a lot of AA - the toxic parts of it anyway - and I’m clear that
Without AA i wouldn’t have her - she wouldn’t be sober and I wouldn’t have found her - I’m endlessly grateful for that miracle.
AND
That drinking and using was never on my mind as an option to escape this pain and I’m so grateful for my spiritual and therapeutic practices that have helped me maintain that sanity even within utter brokenness.
Beyond spiritual practices there are human ones.
Conversations.
And I want to thank the hundreds of coffee dates I’ve had with people from all corners of my life - who could hear me and help me reweave the broken chords - you know who you are - you helped me heal so much - thank you.
Namely my family, nieces nephews, bros, sisters, dad and ESPECIALLY My mom.
Every morning for over a year. I woke up with wheels in my broken brain and heart spinning from the trauma and the tears and pain from my life being abruptly but sinisterly ripped away. My mouth couldn’t stop some mornings and she just listened. She related to me. She didn’t tell me I needed to get over it (usually;) or have compassion for somebody who hurt me. She told me she understood why I was angry and it was OK. There we hundreds of hard convos and sticking spots that I can’t possibly point to but she know and I know the immense work that was and utter act of love to support me through that. To have ruptures and repair with me - finally - the grace I’d been searching for in my partners and friends, I was able to reach and deepen in practice with my Mom and that is an invaluable gift.
AND let’s be clear - It was not because of the trauma that I was able to do that - we will not be thanking abusive people for any of this love - please y’all let’s reprogram the way we pedestalize hurtful people with our gratitude, “if that painful thing wouldn’t have happened you wouldn’t have healed that with your mom” please stop saying this type of thing - it continues to contribute to the perpetrators “getting away with murder” and abuse and us “calling it god and love” because “it made us stronger and softer and more compassionate” i get what we are trying to do here and - quit it -
It’s not the breaks that make you stronger, it’s the healing, the breaks impede you - call it what it is. Do we grow? Yes, IF we are willing and SOME are not and it’s THOSE people who cause harm and if they’d do their work we won’t be over here “getting stronger” while they skate by and keep hurting people and “spiritual people” keep complicit in it by being “grateful for resilience” instead of putting a stop to it in the first place.
(Case in point, the heartbreak broke many relationships w my friends bc they didn’t want to lean into that difficult space with me)
So it wasn’t the heartbreak that made me and my relationship stronger with my mom, it was because of my perseverance through the trauma and commitment to love and courage to finally be fully emotionally vulnerable raw and messy with her AND
her reciprocity instead of retraction in that. I cannot thank her enough though I hope I have.
Back in 2014 if didn’t have treatments centers like the Phoenix and Talk Therapists and EMDR and so much more, I might not have repaired myself or any relationships to the degree that I had so that when my world unexpectedly unraveled I had a soft space to land. There was more work to mend our deeper emotional communication but we did. I am immensely grateful for ALLLL of that.
There are a few other people I’ve had healing convos with and done deeper work with too that shall remain unnamed bc they’ve requested anonymity and I am happy to honor it but I am in deep gratitude to and for them.
AND unfortunately the rest of my so called safe spaces ended up adding more harm.
So now that I’ve shared to softer stuff, here’s the hard and important edges and harms about spiritual communities, wellness industries, and the toxicity in our healing cult - ures
I told my sponsor I had to detox from the rooms, she understood.
I told her I was detoxing from “gratitude practices” and she understood bc it turns our gratitude works like beer goggles and no wonder all of us love it so much.
Gratitude was my first “GOD” Gratitude Over Depreciation. It kept me present and out of the pessimism my mindbody had been steeped in for much of my life. It worked miracles, it amplified, good, and god AND it kept me floating on a “pink cloud” even in 2020 during covid when I started noticing that me ex was being emotionally abusive (but not quite sure yet bc I was still hoping I was misperceiving his harmful attitude and words and ways toward me) I used a “gratitude jar” to find ways to “stay positive” and it “worked” as in, it got me through a difficult year, but it also perpetuated his cycle of him harming me bc I was REALLY good at finding ways to be “grateful for the challenge of his passive aggressive condescension and still stay in my lane and smiling and on track and compassionate toward him”. I teach emotional alchemy, trauma healing, nervous system regulations and turns out, i got so good at it, it became like a drug detaching me from the truth of his unnecessary and at first subtle inconsistent but ever present harms that were slowly chipping away at my energy and much like a paper cut, very easy to bypass, until it’s a thousand of them. And until you can no longer tell if it’s a little cut or a whole slice bc you’ve gotten so used to the pain and PLUS, I know how to transmute it! What a gift,… for him,… anyway.
I found out about Toxic Positivity, Spiritual Bypassing, Gratitude Shaming, Victim Blaming, and started studying the FAWN and PEACEMAKER trauma responses deeper and much to my dismay, I had to admit I was guilty of ALL of those things not only toward myself but also was promoting it via my yoga classes and to some of my own sponsees in AA.
I had some hard pills to swallow in 2020, but that’s when everything started turning around and thankfully right as I was beginning to guide others 1:1. I still have some amends to inquire about to my earlier sponsees and 1:1 clients to make sure I didn’t victim shame them but I’m guessing my old patterns of telling ppl to meditate on their breath and “just think about it differently” were still somewhat misapplied and - fyi- not that those things are bad y’all, it’s just that CONTEXT matters and so many of us tell people who have suffered abuse to bypass it and it has to stop, FULL STOP. And so I did.
I took the “gratitude beer goggles” all the way off. Stepped off the pink cloud and starting doing deeper harder work.
Facing the truths of abuse instead of my old patterns to placate it.
Unfortunately I found I was in many relationships with people who liked the over-functioning peacekeeping shock absorber me and since then I’ve shed my entire inner rings of people who don’t, can’t, won’t understand.
After much deep grief and mourning
After 18 months of continuous daily tears and purges that have only recently and finally dried up
I can finally say
And mean
I’m grateful that they are all gone.
Still sad some days
But gladness is finally eclipsing the sadness.
Finally.
Be aware
When you break up with the pattern
A lot starts to fall away
And
You can’t rush your healing.
Even as a healer who KNOWS how to heal
Still
The process
The necessary pain
Tears and fury
Depression
The Anger and Rage
The metamorphic goo
Must happen.
Just bc a Doctor understands how a bone heals
Doesn’t mean their bones won’t break
Especially by another person or persons they trusted to hold them
And
The knowledge of how to heal
It certainly doesn’t speed it up
In fact
If youre not careful and mindful
You’ll prolong it because you want to “mind it” into healing
And
That
Just
Not
How
IT
Works.
How it works?
Honesty
Open Mindedness
Willingness
To feel and heal and keep doing it day in and day out until you’re out of the chrysalis.
There’s no other way out but In
And
Even though a lot of you seem to know that
You threw your knowledge at me like stones as I attempted to humanize the healing process last year.
And it’s not ok
Many people last year, including my close circles, sober communities and friends friends… Former friends… tried to tell me that I shouldn’t feel what I was feeling AND I CERTAINLY SHOULDN’T BE SPEAKING OPENLY ABOUT IT BC FORSHAME IF WE ARE HONEST ABOUT EMOTIONS AND ABUSIVE PATTERNS IN OURSELVES AND OTHERS OR SHARE TRAUMA ONLINE to normalize what healing really looks like and entails.
To be clear they never said “shame on you” they implied it by saying things like “you’re only saying that because you’re in your ego” “it’s only heavy because you keep picking it up” “he did his best” “heal and move on with grace” “just think positive” “that’s just how relationship and guys are” and “be grateful”, etc. etc.
And even though in certain occasions those MIGHT be helpful phrases - maybe - but usually when people say these things to you instead of seeking to understand or standing up for you and protecting you, it adds harm and trauma it invalidates your experience and it creates more depression and supports the ones who are abusive - not the ones harmed from it (that’s what we call a victim and yes, sometimes ppl truly are victims and we need your support, not your compassionate speeches sticking up for and condoning the behavior those who’ve harmed us - for ANY reason, “god” “spirituality” “religion” “therapeutic speak” or otherwise ).
SO
Dear AA community if you want people to live, not only get sober, and stay sober, please seek to understand this and hear me.
There is both love and abuse that happens in our spiritual communities, yes, our world in general is imbued with this, but it’s important for me as an amends to my dead friends, those people who have died by suicide after getting sober because they were not heard, were victim shamed, (google it ) spiritually bypassed (google it ) and were forced into forgiveness and compassion for people who were harming them by spiritual programs, including religion, AA and yoga communities. I understand some of you are intending to help, but your intentions do not clear away the harms you are and have been causing. I started to get curious about the “what else can we do about people with years of sobriety committing suicide” question and I pray that yo too get curious about how YOU might be contributing to others deaths by repeating toxic spiritual, self-help, mindset ideologies, or pop-therapy tropes when other more attuned things are needed.
As I spoke up about it last year, I had people telling me in various ways, shapes and forms to be quiet and to change my words about AA it’s “not all people” and because it might keep some people from getting sober in the rooms of AA. I was saddened but not surprised because that is the exact , shame and spiritual bypass that I’m talking about the exact pattern that leads people to things like suicide because they’re not heard when they’re being hurt. In a program that preaches “seek to understand” very few people asked me what my experience was they told me to be quiet about it.
We have to stop
I realize that AA has and does help so many people and I’m very grateful for that.
Telling me that if I don’t change my words, some people might die because they might not go to AA for help,
INSTEAD I encourage you, no I IMPLORE you, to ask me how I was harmed, and how my friends who took their lives were harmed, and make sure you are not doing it, and hold people accountable Who are hurting others in this program and spiritual communities via #spiritualbypassing or #spiritualabuse and more thru spiritual principles, like quote, forgiveness and getting rid of anger which is infact dishonest to a large degree and this program, sobriety is LARGELY about rigorous honesty - though i have found out the hard way that some are indeed constitutionally incapable, and still sober or claim it.
If you don’t understand how those things are hurting people or rather if you disagree that they are, I hope you can ask me questions instead of attack me or tell me that they’re not and I’m wrong which is what we call invalidation, projection, and if repetitive can become #spiritualgaslighting and psychological abuse AND THAT IS OFTEN WHY PEOPLE TURN TO SUICIDE.
Please educate yourself on the differences between actual victims of harm who are in grief and mourning and how veryyyy important it can be to not only allow but honor their anger and help them be heard and speak up in an act our courage to change toxic spiritual patterns
VERSUS
A person who is stuck in victimhood or victim mindset who can not seem to see the truth of how they are contributing to their and others harm and suffering and repeating old abusive patterns - which - to no surprise - is infact most people in AA - we hopefully are very familiar with that toxicity and the beauty of the program in AA is actually designed to help people in this karmic sickness break out which is a gift and amazing and please don’t stop sharing that message because many newcomers do infact need it
BUT. ALSO
Make space for those who are NOT stuck in that box, they are truly not needing to hear that part of the program or possibly any of it and there are deeper more expansive inclusive truths becoming evident.
“We admit we know only a little” - at least I hope we DO and will instead of shoving shame-filled dogma down people’s throats.
It is not only ok to talk about that abuse, those who harm via spiritual principles, and point at perpetrators in that environment and ALL environments BUT it NECESSARY and OUR COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY to hold ourselves accountable for telling the truth about harmful people, behaviors and patterns. If we are quiet, we are often complicit in the suicide epidemic and abusive behaviors that continue to persist in these rooms.
Yes, i had a part in my friend’s deaths, because we are all connected and responsible when someone in our community dies, we all have a part.
I hope you can seek to understand yours and understand that me speaking up is me owning mine DESPITE how much hate I’ve had thrown at me because of it.
I want people to live.
If that means destroying my reputation in AA as a pillar of sobriety
Destroying my reputation as the peacemaking yogi
Losing clients, community, friends bc I’d rather destroy toxic patterns in society
So be it
10 years and still 100 percent sober - meaning, ibuprofen is the “hardest drug” these days.
After 20 years of dealing with trauma, stuck in my own actual victimhood and cycles, drugging to cover up my chronic physical back pain, emotional trauma, abuse in relationships, and being so far off path and purpose I couldn’t fathom what it would take to get back on, I made the only choice left to a dying drug addicted alcoholic who’d lost everything including her home, teeth, ass, entire egoic identity including self-will aka power of choice against destroying myself with the same drugs and patterns that were at one time helping me cope and simultaneously killing me;
Surrender.
And if you want to read some excerpts from over that decade here’s a podcast that covers more of my drug and recovery journey and how I formed my own practice for bringing emotions back online and integrating trauma and wholeness after a lifetime of chronic physical pain and CPTSD. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2x387CK7MXMTCwW693chyI?si=p58hfvwtTtmMEnh4rTKtTA
It’s the same process I used to heal myself from this round of trauma and what I bring others in 1:1 sessions.
If you want to know how to recover from drugs and alcohol I can be a friend and resource.
I can connect you with other people who’ve recovered while
Making hopefully helping you steer clear of the toxic or spiritual bypassing patterns and groups that i was in.
Reach out with questions
As hard as it is and as much unsavory truth as I’ve offered here, i hope you can still see there is so much hope.
I’ve been in countless states of hopeless mindbody and recovered each time.
Part of that is my will
Part of it is “god’s” aka spirit
It is here now
And i hope you find it
Just say “im willing” and maybe, the magic will start its.
It was my prayer in 2014,
It was given to me in 1997 and i still use it today to envoke the healing.
I hope you use it.
AND
IF you’ve been in this “healing space” for a while and are looking to deepen or feel there are pieces missing reach out.
you are not alone.
You are likely not crazy.
You just need more nuance and discernment.
And it IS available.
Don’t give up.
But do surrender to something new coming through.
Sending it
REALLY fully wholly with emotions and all
If you want to know how to think critically AND spiritually
If you want the grounded ness, resilience, confidence and centeredness to tell the truth of who you are and call spades spades
If you want to understand your truest nature, your godself, which includes things like anger and rage and speaking out against abuse
I can and will lovingly guide you in
Home to your heart
You center
Your capital S self
Truth and Love.
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