Cheers to 12 years

10/7 marks 12 years #sober.

Like, the soberest kinda sober.

Like I only take ibuprofen if I’m experiencing level 10 pains-typa-sober

Raw reality 24-7 typa-sober

In my early days of recovering from a seemingly hopeless state of mindbody - broken and rebroken thousands of times from decades of escaping trauma, oppression, abuse and chronic pain (physical mental emotional and spiritual) I struggled to do simple things like take a shower, feed myself (especially considering the teeth I’d lost) or sleep (literally for my first 72 days sober I was wide awake as my system was trying desperately and ineffectively to recalibrate from 33 years of insomnia). I couldn’t think straight, literally everything spiraled into everything else, thoughts spewed and spilled out from my leaky-mind, some were like a beautiful prismatic rainbow from the sunshine hitting an ornamental window-crystal. Other times it was the thought and word vomit from decades of suppressing truth.

Functioning with a brain broken by trauma and compounded by drug abuse while trying to heal from it is not for the faint of heart and soul.

It takes courage, perseverance, consistency, self-compassion, humility, right action, amends to self and others in a devoted practice of spiritual-attitudes and human- works that felt unthinkable let alone attainable in the beginnings.

All a slow building toward capacity for life’s muchness and realities; both joyful and horrific.

But

One step at a time

Sometimes one mini baby step

The “What-about-bob” scene sounded often in my mind as a mantra.

And all of the gazillion baby-steps worked (thx Bob and Dr Marvin;)

And today

I truly feel heavily meditated and high on life in all its kaleidoscopic upside-downs and insides-out all on its own… really no reason for me to enhance the infinite expansiveness and infinitesimal contractions creating the awesome, awe-ful and awful trip of reality.

Neither the come-ups nor or the come-downs for that matter and god-knows those down-swings are wild af… my last few years was like a never-ending portal of gooific-transmorphic-anger and grief filled-ick coupled with WTF expansive joy & incomprehensible adventuring AND I was fully present alive and awake (more than I wanted to be;) for all of it. Whew 😅

I wrote EXTENSIVELY about it in my 9/10/11 year-sober-reflections feel free to tap the album and read more or the links in my blog here

But despite all the grave fuckery that from emotional and psychological abuse, not just from a person who strung me along for years claiming he loved me (I could’ve recovered from that fairly smoothly on its own) but from the compounded lack of support, neglect, “neutrality” discarding, dismissiveness, false accusations, misunderstandings, projections from others toward me and exacerbated harm from former friends and community as I choice to tell the truth about his harmful behavioral patterns and misconduct, theft and more.

Despite the fully sober accumulation of yet more #cptsd in surviving abuse from a “nice guy in the community”, I did not escape any of it - good/bad/ugly/beautiful

or numb it

or enhance it

or shift it,

I did not want to force it into a new shape with substances or mindsets or gratitude or or or

I wanted to apply my practices, that I guide and have been using myself for years to heal,

And

Really

Let

Raw reality

Truth

And actually Love aka being WITH it,

Heal

All

(though I’ll admit I didn’t love every part, in fact I vehemently hated some of it but today I know that hating things is just another part of our live and muchness to allow and integrate and when used properly it’s a bringer of truth and protection spell all on its own😉 I know it’s an unpopular opinion especially in spiritual circles but many times those shamed parts of us aka shadows have guided me home to wholeness and for that, I’m forever grateful.)

*********

Why no drugs? Or buffers or enhancers?

In my experience, anything taken with the intent to alter my reality, for better or worse, is like playing Russian roulette… I might be ok 99 times but that 100th might kill me so… no thank you.

This is the best way to describe “powerless over drugs and alcohol” bc it’s not that I have zero power, it’s that I have less-power and why tf would I want that?

There was a time I truly did.

Power was terrifying.

Because with great power comes great responsibility.

And, ew, who wants that amiright!? 😆

But then ohhhh how we complain about being powerless when we were literally shoveling it away faster than spirit could resource us with it, funny not funny eh?

When it comes to using/abusing drugs/alcohol, it’s like we set traps and then cry when we land in them 😝

There were plenty of reasons I used, trauma up the wazzoooo, abusive partners, injuries creating chronic pain, chronic anxiety, insomnia, depression and more

And even though I deserved better care and treatment with all of that

I still

Needed to take responsibility for the ways I exacerbated the destroying of my life

Giving all my power away

But

In 2014 the only response-ability left for me to take was to surrender

There was no choice, no access to my Will, only as they say “God’s will”

So, I took the action of non-action

I Surrendered the fight of doing it on my own

Surrendered to others caring for me despite my deep distrust in ever human on the planet after all the harm and betrayals

Surrendered to a spirit and source to do with me what it will

And

Apparently ITS will was saving me

And

After many difficult years baby-stepping my way back to my true nature and wholeness

Spirit kept asking me to bring what I learned and practiced devotedly to others.

Curating me with an incredibly healing practice that I call ALCHEMY.

It’s Energy Mastery via shadow work, astropsychology, parts work, deep meditative self-inquiry, somatic sensing, and so much more.

It was developed in my first few years of recovery but amplified by the yoga philosophy trainings, mindfulness studies, ce psychology course, and it happened to dovetail nicely with some of AA resources and so much more.

In fact, I’ve been studying and practicing these things for decades and after choosing to learn from the best teacher, experience, hell itself, and recover from near death, it bloomed like a lotus after years of being with the mud.

But remember…

My life started life like you,

Innocent.

Then like many of us,

I was deeply traumatized.

Though outwardly you might not know bc I was an over-achieving scholar, athlete, dancer, artist, and creative.

A girl with morals, perfect grades, perfect credit, and a deep desire to understand and be understood.

That, and many other destructive patterns, trying to cope with the horrors in my childhood, adulthood, partnerships and body/mind; lead me down a path to hell from which I only made it out by the skin of my teeth; the ones that hadn’t fallen out that is;)

When I started to “come-to” from severe drug-psychosis and cptsd, being in treatment, multiple therapies and AA simultaneously, full abstinence to get my broken brain and body to rewire and heal itself wholly; I started to feel the fogs lift, mind settle, nerves regulate etc; I said “it’s like the seeds were there all along, just dormant, waiting for the sunlight of my awareness, waiting for me to REmember them and myself.

So I did.

In 2020 people were asking me to guide them 1:1… I met more fear, power, response-ability and I almost said “I couldn’t” but I caught that.

I asked my fear what it wanted me to know,

It said it was afraid I’d hurt ppl, I wasn’t qualified, I didn’t know what I was doing.

I found my fear held some truth but the other truth was I could study deeper outside of traditional degrees, I did not have to pay colleges for something gifted to me but I did want to make sure I had the education, so I started studying in multiple ways with mentors and online college courses and today I still takes classes to continue my education and knowledge but more importantly I practice. I don’t offer what I haven’t researched and integrated myself. And that’s felt, my practitioners sense the difference between theory and practice as I guide, I’m not regurgitating info, there’s no formula, I mean yes, I have my constructs and basic outlines for borders but the way is different for each person bc it’s about attunement, coherence, communication and coregulation. It’s a collaboration.

It’s was scary to just start but if I’d learned anything through my recovery journey it was to be ok with making mistakes… as long as I clean them up.

It’s a practice of courage

Vulnerability

Faith

And so many qualities I admired in my mentors so I dove in.

7 years later I’m still guiding

Still practicing what I preach

12 years

Still sober

And

47 years of traveling this earth in and out of hellfires and heavens

Today I feel impervious

In the best way possible

Purified by fires most would’ve been demolished by

I was polished by

&

Even though it hasn’t been pretty

I’m far from perfect

One thing that’s been perfect

Is how the imperfections keep things off-center just enough to keep me guessing and learning and covering an entire ocean of experience that I get to learn new and more complex, deeper nuanced dances of life within, without and all around

expressing in this fractal of my life

And lately I get to sit down

Stop dancing

And learn

And

Just

Revel

I’ve traveled the undergrounds and underworlds for the majority of my life and especially the past few years as I healed from an emotionally and psychologically manipulative ex and the way the community responded unwittingly enabling his harms - even to this day - only 1 person in my old circle has approached him to ask him why he won’t admit and amend his harms toward me even though he preaches accountability, feminism and raises $ for the UDVC

Only one person has had the courage to say anything to him.

Everyone else has been consciously and unconsciously complicit and enabling his continued negligence, avoidance, & mistreatment toward me by either:

-a neutral bystander

-a person who high-fives him at the gym

-Or hugs him at meetings (without challenging his false claims and dishonest accusations of me nor the harms of his behavior within the relationship let alone the money i invested in our home that he kept (aka stealing from me while claiming he paid me properly- just more lies)

Or

More overt enabling like:

-a person who claims I had a part in his manipulations and betrayals (victim shaming)

-a person who believes it wasn’t that bad/we just weren’t a fit (dismissing the truth)

-Or the more active overt types who’ve verbally slandered me in private and/or public, actively supported him, befriended him and discarded me as a friend, and more…

And today

In spite of all that will likely never be mended in this lifetime,

Not only can I navigate the deepest darkest corners of those treacherous and grave underrealms which many don’t survive in,

I travel the upper realms and whole world,

too

literally

While running a healing business.

Because I persevere in my spiritual and human maintenance and integration practices

Despite being mistreated, manipulated, stolen from, betrayed, abused and so much more

Not just in my addiction years but fully sober too

Turns out you can recover from hopeless states of mindbody

But

Some who look recovered are only that; good looking

And you find out they talk a good talk but when it comes to integration and “practicing these principles in all our affairs”

They suck a big fat one

And

Pull you into their chaos before you know what’s happening

You’ve been thrown back into the survival you tried so desperately to get out of

Yet

Because you know the way out

You find it again

And if it ever happens again

I trust I’ll keep finding it

And myself

Over and over

And this is recovery

Regardless of sober or not

We all need these gifts and practices

So if you’re in the turmoil

Surrender to that truth

And

Reach out for the right support

If you’re wary of some in recovery, stay wary, but lean in a do the work.

If you’re wanting to heal it’s not enough

You

Must

Be

Willing

Consistently.

In the beginning it felt like barely surviving

Today

I am beyond

Thriving

And you can too

#wedorecover