Healing Was My “Drug” of Choice

Oooooffff this one was a tough hitting awareness to come to. A realization that shook me. Grief and sadness released for that part of me, that sad little girl, clinging to hope in every way. Now mind you, all the things I have done in negative ways to survive and positive ways to survive were just that. Pure survival. My nervous system and spirit knew that the pain was too deep to feel yet and protected me in the only way it knew how. I surely missed some signs along the way, but as usual my body is my greatest teacher. All illness and physical symptoms are teaching me, showing me, shouting at me. Saying, stop. Slow down. You still aren’t listening. And now hearing…finally.

We all develop coping behaviors. Ways we numb. I have surely hit some negative ones in my life. And while we all at times sit in judgment of ourselves and others, I see trauma underneath it all. There is some type of trauma underneath it all. I heard Dr. Gabor Maté say on a podcast that Keith Richards said of his drug use “I would do anything to escape the pain for a couple of hours”. I felt that. Deep. While I developed a strong fear of those types of substances at a young age, I got this on a different level. I'm not comparing this to a substance abuse addiction as substances hook chemically as well, but speaking of addictive behaviors. We are all dealing with our shadows. Sure, in the past I have felt that feeling of having too many drinks and escaping or spending way too much at the mall and other forms of that type of coping. Those are the more well known ways of numbing ourselves. Now mind you, I am also not saying that having some drinks or shopping, etc is all about coping because we deserve our true desires in life. BUT for some, these behaviors can create toxicity in their lives. We all know when we are avoiding it. Stuffing emotions down. Perhaps eating foods to soothe. Insert whatever "drug" of choice. It's incredibly important that we all understand it's almost never a simple choice of just stopping a behavior that's not in our highest good and that we look at ourselves and others with compassion.

We have all been there and there is absolutely no guilt, judgment, or shame here and I am deeply working on forgiving myself in a lot of areas. Because the truth is, we are all just doing our best to do this thing called life. I have just been doing the best I can at this thing called life. And your nervous system/patterns are way stronger than you likely know. We are taught and absorb many things from a small age, in the womb, and even generationally. So when we go to change, it screams…”nope this isn’t safe, change is scary, you are safe right here”. And we remain stuck and for some, it remains that way. And that is their journey in this lifetime. And that's ok.

For me, a huge part of what I did to numb was any and all the healing tools, supplements (oh the supplements), modalities, practitioners, tests, books, courses, coaches, and on and on and on and on it went. To be very clear I truly know that all of these things have led me to my passions, my soul mission that continues to evolve and an incredible amount of amazing connections and experiences. Beauty and joy I didn’t know existed. Deep gratitude for life and a love felt deeply in my heart. However, I also look back at this and see myself clawing the side of the mountain, bulldozing anyone and anything that got in my way, doing whatever it took to find resources to pay for these things, struggling, instead of living. Not allowing any grace, flow, or ease into this process. And nearly losing everything, including myself.

The irony is I was trying SO hard to have a good life that I nearly missed most of mine. And even though I know, I know deep down it was what I had to do to survive, that it was too soon to let the pain in, that I might not have made it without these things...to be honest I’m working through that grief, shame, and guilt in this next phase of forgiveness.

As I approach nearly one year of this particular leg of the journey, I am thankful for that oh so well known virus in the world these days. For that post viral wham this year. For bringing me to my knees for so long. For making it impossible to do anything other than stop. For stripping me of all my usual defenses. For nearly taking everything. For bringing me back to me.

These days I am choosing joy. I choose my truth. I absolutely love life, I love learning and growing. I am a passionate student, a lifetime learner and I will always be devoted to this path, to true well-being and to bringing others into that. To guide and teach. But now I choose to do so in love. With full dedication to grace, flow, and ease.

Now I choose to live. To participate in life. To find the simple joys in every day. In loving myself, being a wife, sister, aunt, friend, daughter, cousin. To participate in soul filled communities. To surround myself with beauty and books and music and laughter. And to spread this in my every day life.