My 1st year sober I didn’t post anything (that I can find or remember) but I do remember trying to be open and brave about my struggles and the fact I’d be relegated to treatment which at the time felt like a weakness and a failure bc I “couldn’t do it on my own and had to accept help” which later I learned was so much strength in that surrender, humility and acceptance of my problems.
So much power in admitting powerlessness.
I was still queasy at the thought of sharing that, knowing so many people held the stigma I’d just mentioned above and worked through/healed that first year of recovery and I was worried how they might judge me like I used to or worse, praise me, bc that felt silly at the time too. Plus I don’t think I was truly committed to being a sober person, I was happy to be doing 1 day at a time, having an experience and exploring, but letting “a step one” move from a place of theory in the mind, to truth in the heart and body, took about 18 mos.
When it landed, I was able to open up a lot more about this dis-ease, not just in the rooms where I was always mostly safe to talk about these struggles and previously shameful truths, but now had enough courage and capacity to bring it to my family and world online in hopes of destroying the stigmas around mental, emotional, spiritual health and how we drug to heal/escape and cope and how the sad truth is that instead of being helped when we turn to those things, we are shamed - almost to death - by our own innerstandings and misunderstanding which others seem to widely hold also around abuse in all forms and the trauma it stems from and how to heal it.
Around 18 mos I had enough experiences to really just close the door on the qualifying myself as “an addict or alcoholic” - I was tired of the convo in my mind. The label was a good and helpful enough fit, it was a connecting point with others like me and now I could look at what else do I wanna do with my life now that I’m going to be sober and I don’t have to wonder about whether or not I can or should be managing my chronic physical pains, anxiety disorders, insomnia, emotional hurts galore and other traumas with drugs (prescribed or not).
I closed a lot of doors and opportunities there, and I saved myself a lot of tragedies I’m sure, and it was scary to reallllllllly let go all the way of any kind of drugs being a solution in my life.
Now it was just me, spirit, heart, soul, emotions, my manic mind, breath, aching body, seemingly directionless and minimally purposeful life compared to the story in my head about being a doctor or artist or both.
Instead I’d have to, I’d get to, I chose to, sit with the cold hard truth and facts that at now 37 I was serving in a restaurant instead. Not “living up to my potential”, recovering still from so much decimation, and I didn’t like it, and
it’s was ok for me to not like it and still be right fucking there.
Patience is a virtue. Waiting tables, realizing I was good at waiting, but not patience.
Waiting has an expectation attached to it.
Patience is a practice of trust.
Trusting a process and a timing beyond your understanding.
Trusting a rhythm, a flow, a healing and revealing.
Slow like a spring thaw. But I’d had an ice age that preceded it.
“Nature never hurries, yet everything is accomplished”
Lao Tzu on repeat.
My 3rd year, I’d really settled into the patience and unfolding of things. A new relationship. New friendships blooming, and some dying. I dove into the middle of AA after much caution (that part of me still wishes I’d kept and the other part of me knows again, everything right on time and right on purpose, and i honor both parts in truth).
I got jolted by spirit in the middle of 2017 with a “hey good job at patience, but now you’re being complacent, so if you are satisfied at this level of expansion I’ll keep you here, if you still want to grow and become the things your soul knows you need to become, you can, but here’s some really scary stuff, fears to face and unpack, you gotta dig deep and choose hard, plus some extra chronic pain on the side just to make sure you’re getting the message that it’s time to change,,, the patience portal is complete for now,,, time for courageous action and change”.
Most of the details of that “jolt” are not suited for this platform so I’ll leave them for more sacred 1:1 convos and spaces. But I can say at least about the pain in my shoulder from a repetitive motion injury from too much work, working-out, softball, yoga and little to no rest days was the smaller part of the big pains and it lit a fire of change under my ass and the beginning of another path of embodying the healer was begun.
2018, My 4th year was empowering, as I walked on, step by step, the path unfolded, but not before, so it was very much a practice of faith still, & that all this was leading somewhere… right?! Everything seemed pretty perfect, I mean there were still struggles but the imperfection was part of the perfection right?! The “box of darkness was a gift” as Mary Oliver says, right?
God I hoped so. It was a yes,.. and a big ol “not quite tho”. (More revealed below;)
2019, my 5th year:
Lead me into a place of leadership. I found myself leading yoga classes, wrought with anxiety still btw, but doing it anyway. The yoga turned into moon ceremonies. The ceremonies branched into other healing classes. The tree of life was growing. (At least the branches were, but we’ll get to the roots, in a few years, hang tight;)
I was becoming comfortable guiding in classrooms what I’d been learning and practicing and researching since a kid in the 90’s sitting in the enlightenment, self help, metaphysics, psychology, mythology and astrology sections of Barnes and Noble.
Drugs and drinking are not even on my radar at this point. A meaningful life of purpose and service and growth and love is all I cared about. The healing and growth that happens when you’re on purpose is unmatched.
2020,,, we all know 2020,,, but for me it was really strange bc I finally had the courage to step fully and solely into a self-run healing business which was again terrifying and freeing, but just as I did, the world came to a halt. Wrenches thrown into spokes and we were all catapulted out of the momentum and rerouted.
So I did.
I sat in prayer and meditation and cried, not bc my business was just getting started, that wasn’t much of an issue, I had so much trust you could float and ship (a sort of magical fairy dust level of trust;); I cried bc everyone was hurting and I just wanted to help, so I asked “how can I help us?” and I heard “just this, bring them this”.
In AA they call this step 12 - service and surrender and carrying a message - in yoga it’s more akin to the final of 8 limbs, Ishvara Prahnidaha, but it’s all trying to elicit the same vibe - service through surrender and prayer to be useful to all - allah - all of us;)
It’s really magical when you’re practicing it with aligned a pure intentions.
I started a meditation group online bc it was the only thing available.
I was terrified of zoom, I got to face embrace and integrate even more fear.
It helped others, it helped me - it still does both for both bc somehow I’ve kept it going through 4-1/2 years of wtf is life since it started, we maintained the spiritual practice every weekday for 15min AND it in turn, maintained us through multiple crises.
People were also reaching out for my more personalized help, they wanted to know how I was “remaining calm in crises” managing anxiety and healing trauma. I’d been honing my practices. Writing about them. Bringing them to groups. People had asked about 1:1s, i didn’t feel “good enough” - and then, after more debates, prayer, meditation, conversations with mentors etc - I got over myself and just started.
There were parts of that imposter syndrome, ego, etc that were true, I did need to study more and take ethics classes and become more trauma informed and educated; so I did. I studied AND taught. Teaching taught me more than studying. It’s the practice and embodiment of the ideas that begets wisdom. But we need the studies too. So i did both in tandem, and still do.
End of 2020-2021 - My 6th year sober:
Here comes the root work.
Now it’s not just trust, surrender, “don’t questions things too much”.
Now it’s let’s unlearn all of that, unpack this and get deeper and yes grow and clean and trim those roots. It’s not just about “stay sober” anymore, it’s about let’s really live and thrive and help others feel their full feelings and heal, not just “find peace and stay calm” but actually show/embody and utilize all energies like anger for motivation and boundaries and more.
Discernment over spiritual, philosophical, and psychological blanket statements was becoming chiseled in my psyche, and here’s how.
The foundation I was building with my partner started to get really wobbly. Or maybe it always was unstable but because I’d been healing so much I was starting to realllllly notice it. I was noticing my pattern of over functioning and shock absorbing and peacemaking which are all great things that a ton of us need to cultivate, I did for a time, and then when I saw I was over doing it, trying too hard, and started stopping - things in the shadowy roots came to light.
The end of 2020 I started seeing, discerning and speaking to what i could. I was also consistently confused by his dissonance and not sure if it was just “the world ending” or if there were actual issues in my home.
I had been good at staying in my own lane and taking care of myself and letting him do his thing and keeping independent but I started to really feel unwanted and just tolerated and in the way.
I kept a gratitude jar to write about allllll the “opportunities to be grateful even though my partner was being what seemed like a jerk to me and the world is in crisis” *insert dog in fire meme “this is fine”;) And later woke up to the ways it TRULY wasn’t and how we use gratitude toxically and I have a whole year of ways encapsulated now - i can write a book about it with just those lil slips - to showcase how we spiritually bypass ppl harming us with “staying positive” when we actually need to be a bit “negative” as in honest and truthful to name harms when they’re happening instead of “rising above them”.
I also kept looking to myself to see if it was my old wounds causing me to feel that way, “triggers are our teachers” and maybe i was misperceiving things, maybe I still had some false fears and insanity to work through, so like good lil student and responsible AA-er, I looked deeper at myself.
I never thought the trigger was simply teaching me that the person I was with was toxic - it was so simple and surface and right in front of me I almost missed it. It seemed basic, petty and irresponsible to “blame someone” for my feelings. But I learned, sometimes people really are being mean, and it doesn’t much matter that “they had a hard day, they’re tired, their trauma is triggered, they just need space” etc - at some point it’s just “no, I love you, but you have to stop treating me that way, and you need to start apologizing for being an inconsistent volatile grump and blame me for it - I have trauma too - and I still treat you kindly - you can do the same.”
What I actually and finally got the courage and balance to say was “look if this is ‘just how you are’, I will accept that, and it will hurt but if that’s true, I’ve gotta change my relationship to you”. Expecting to have him say, “ok, yeah, I hear you, I’ll work on it” or “ ok yeah, this is how I am and I’m not going to change” instead He said “is that a threat?!” And me taken aback, took a deep breath and said “no?” Confused at his reaction tried restating as he stormed off “this is me communicating to you where I’m at and asking you to meet me”.
I was stonewalled again all day.
I was contemplating where to go now bc it seemed he couldn’t meet me, hear me, understand, care, cooperate etc and I needed to be honest with myself about that. I don’t know if we ever picked that convo back up, i was good at helping him sweep things under the rug - at first - but it always came back up - whether I brought it up or not (and if I DID then I also got blamed for being a nag when I simply wanted to finished convos he’d shut down in or stormed out on).
One thing I’m clear about after decades of running from and drugging away my issues pains and traumas is that problems you don’t actually heal resurface regardless, as Frida says “I tried to drown my feelings with alcohol, but they learned how to swim”- and because he wouldn’t face them WITH me; this time I was really done. I was ready to make some calls and pack.
BUT
He came home one night after another stonewalling sesh and lovingly sat next to me, placed his hand on my thigh and said “I want you to know I got a therapist today” - i cried tears of relief and hope and felt so loved and heard. He didn’t have to say “sorry”, at the time I was so starved for his accountability, the one sentence was enough.
(Looking back, this is what they call breadcrumbs, so today I have a different analysis. I see the subtle manipulation in “telling someone” you want to change and are willing to work on it, while simultaneously not changing it, limping along, checking the boxes, and/or only occasionally working on it so it looks like progress and intent to do better but when the actual work was needed and requested, his full and consistent willingness and desire was not there so it was just another way to placate me and shut me up and dishonestly string me along until the bomb was big enough to drop. It’s very much like being with an addict who says they want to get sober, they CAN maintain a few days or weeks or even months, but ultimately, they relapse bc willingness and full surrender to a devotional process to healing and changing have to come first. Devastating discoveries.)
More root problems with MY patterns were that I also saw I was using my work to distract from the pains and dismissals from my partner. I was “helping others and being of service” so much, it was distracting me from deeper issues within my home. I also saw I was avoiding those hard convos by ironically being so good at “staying calm in crises” and self soothing, since it was my expertise and a big part of what I teach, and it became like a new drug that I could use to escape the truth; my partner was being emotionally abusive to me, and I was “managing” that for both of us and thereby not facing my abandonment fears. When I saw that truth, I checked it with my new sponsor, (new, since around this year I’d also found similar emotional abusive negligence and lack of accountability patterns in my first sponsor and had the courage to switch; tgat a whole saga in itself).
Because I saw my weak point and wanted to integrate them, I started to study communication, formulate and practice compassionate boundary language, and once again have the courage to change (are we exhausted yet? I certainly was;) and I’d developed a number of physical symptoms again trying to alert me, but building a business in helping others, while helping myself, while helping my relationship, while… you know the story, right? Healing is hard, non linear, and wrought with challenges.)
2021-2022, my 7th year:
Drugs and drinking are still not on the radar bc inventory and self awareness will keep you sober by hopefully continuing to be more clear and aligned.
Plus I’d worked even deeper than “the steps”and more diligently and healed the remainders of those fears of being abandoned by speaking up for my very basic needs in relationship. I knew if i “kept talking and didn’t shut up” and go along with it and continue making excuses for his inability to connect or process his own emotions or make space for the connection he said he wanted with me but was slowly starting to show actions that reflected otherwise - aka - psychological abuse via cognitive dissonance and him trying to convince me I was too sensitive or something else was wrong with me for noticing those incongruencies. I started affirming “I’m done doing his emotional laundry, if I am being asked to choose not abandoning me heart even though I might end up being abandoned and/or stuck here not being treated well, I choose my heart”.
Before I started into this relationship it was my prayer and promise to not abandon myself again. I thought I’d done such a great job staying on path - after all I was still sober, my choice, building my business despite his criticism of it, I thought I was embodying my best Georgia O’keefe with him “I’ve already decided for myself, so compliments and criticism roll down the same drain” and I was - but I realized I shouldn’t have to be so impervious to my partner. I should consistently feel nurtured and loved and supported, not just an occasional nod, and certainly not just tolerated and looked down on so I’d have to be so stoic in his presence. I wanted to be cared for, (not taken care of just regularly and really cared about) and that wasn’t too much to ask for from a person who claimed to love me and showed he cared about other ppl like his sponsees - I just wanted to be on the level - not THE priority but a top 2 or 3. When I realized I wasn’t, even in his own words saying “you come after my sobriety, my sponsees, my work, my band, ” even motorcycles got more care than me.
I tried to be understanding bc “whatever you put before your sobriety you lose” and I didn’t want him to abandon himself or give up what he loved either but I just thought “once he’s done with those things, he never has time or space or energy for us - so why am I here?”
I saw that was the emotional abandonment, we were both doing to me, and, I started breaking the cycle.
2023 - the middle of my 8th year sober:
after so much hope of recovery in my relationship, I was again bereft and decimated - you can read the 9th year reflection about that trauma, the fall out from friends and community as I chose to speak up about the abuse, the then lack of understanding in that choice to speak and further shame thrown on me by my “friends” and “fellows” retracting, attacking, or “trying help by giving me advice and holding me accountable” with little to no facts or authority or permission to do so thereby compounding the trauma with more of the same. It’s a 50 minute read. It’s an entire essay and I re-read it to make sure I stand firm in it and I’ll just say - I said what i said. I meant it. I was fully conscious and aware as called all that out. And it is necessary and I hope we can all seek to understand and promote the healing of people who survive these abusive cycles and hold those who INSTIGATE and perpetuate the harms accountable.
You could say: - I - am responsible for that additional trauma and fall out from friends and community after speaking bc I shouldn’t have or didn’t need to speak up about the abuse in my relationships and spiritual communities - you would then be part of the problem too. That same narrative is how we make excuses for abusive behaviors.
I didn’t have to speak, that’s true AND I chose to knowing I’d get push back, it’d destroy my reputation as the “classic” peacemaker and reroute it to the “peacemaker via advocacy for victims” which is much harder, heavier and more honest and I get why I didn’t go there that deeply until 9 years sober and STILL THEIR reaction and choice to be harmful to me as I spoke about things they didn’t like, or understand, or disagreed with - is THEIR responsibility. Mine is to speak, to make sure it’s the truth, to not lie, or shame, and I didn’t, but there IS shame to be felt and dealt and reckoned with when you are harming others and I’m sure shame was felt by many. But again, that’s no reason to shut down or minimize truth. The only response-ability others had to me is to communicate a boundary, or seek to understand - not tell me what to do our how to have or express or heal my experiences. To simply trust my awareness, perception and dedication to truth.
So here we are in 2024 - still settling - back in my home town that I’d run from in 1994, 30 years later, finally resting and recovering to the depths I’ve needed since running away bc I’d been oppressed by my own over achieving, perfectionism, and Mormonism, but as I sought my way out of that, I jumped into the arms of a psychopathic person with ASPD started using drugs and alcohol to cope.
A mini recap of a back story for you:
As a 4.0 student, LDS good girl, state championed dancer, athlete, scholar, artist, and perfectionist - It started harmlessly with Robitussin, I didn’t want to break the “word of wisdom” #iykyk and exalted to alcoholic binges one month and the next month was dropping acid,… few months later I’m selling it. Watching the magic and mystery and answers in fractals and listening to Alan Watts as every cell in my body woke up to the innate god within and you’d think is a good thing… and it is… until it isn’t… until you’re in an abusive relationship and your trauma is exacerbated and there’s no one to help you direct your energy.
Luckily I had books and writing. Philosophers like Yogananda and Iyanla and the moon and nature and photography and my journals to wake and walk me out of that insanity accumulating like a horrible storm. Additionally I buried myself deeper into school and got my Associates at 19 and Workaholic-ed my way through that torture chamber and sobered up a bit - enough to leave him in 2000. I didn’t “heal that trauma” but I did start really living and loving myself for the first time feeling free and awake and reading “the power of now” and understanding reiki and chakras and studying astrology and energy. Learning the guitar, making music, writing and so much more. Then a new guy came in. He had lots of hook ups for the parties and drugs. I loved being social and it felt like freedom and heaven and it was to some degree. To another the dependency was growing, on him and the drugs. Then I injured my back. Doctors were prescribing insane amounts of opiates and more, I hoped on the train with the thought I’d just take a few and sell the rest cuz the street value of just one of my scripts was 9k at the time. Even within all of that, I still managed to work 2 jobs, start a side-photography-business, buy my first home and build my merchant account business with my brother’s company to 100k of clientele and money and “function” but the drug problem was becoming bigger than I knew. Mine was growing steadily but I had no idea how deep my fiancés’ was until I walked in on him shooting up. In 2007 I was devastated, scared, betrayed, but finally knew where all the money he couldn’t account for was going and why he couldn’t contribute to our home. I wanted him to talk with me about it, for us to heal and make changes. He said he would, for 7 years more he said it. Promised it over and over. I believed him over and over bc the alternative meant leaving him and I couldn’t. Unfortunately (or fortunately;) he never came through. I didn’t want to abandon him so “if you can’t beat them, join them” and i did. Jumped ALLL the way into the drug pit with my “soul mate and twin flame” ready to slay the dragon, but I ended up chasing it too and did not come back out of the chase until I was beaten into a state of reasonableness and after 20 years of destruction and coping from trauma after trauma, it finally seemed like treatment was not so bad. I actually just didn’t care - I said “my entire life is over, I’ve destroyed everything including my ego, my teeth are rotting out, I can barely breathe, do with me what you will, save me, kill me, kick me to the streets, idc, you choose” - and “IT” did. “IT” saved me. You can call it GOD, willingness, surrender, spirit, prayer, my family, my angels, it doesn’t really matter, truly, it’s an immaterial force - and IT works. So I hope you “find it now”. There is power in Now, like Eckhart told me in 2000 when I read his book - and again it’s more literal than we think. God is Now, aka presence, May you find it, now is all we have.
Now. 10 years now. And if you wanna keep reading the rabbit hole of reflections, the overview of year 10, and peer into my psyche a bit more, please proceed;)
10-7-2024
Apparently, I share my sober birthday with world massacres now so that’s fun.
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
Your center
Your capital S self
Truth and Love.
If you want to read any of the prior 10 year posts where I’ve reflected at length since the fourth year:
I’m gathering them but here are a few
4
5
6
7 -
8 - a reflection on light and shadows of spirituality and learning to walk in both.
9
CHEERS to this fucking journey and Jesus Christ let’s all take a rest yeah? Wheeeew.
Comentarios