February is turning out to be a deeply healing month. I have been processing a ton these last weeks and when two newly sober people reached out to me for help today I knew I had to write about what’s been coming through recently.
Post breakup/moving aside, this time of year always has some emotional tugs as it’s when I was hitting bottom in my addiction years ago. My sober anniversary is around the corner and like clockwork, each year grief surfaces that needs to be felt.
Hitting bottom was the lowest point in my entire life. It was dark, scary, and ugly. I’m not writing that in an I’m more fucked up than the next person kind of way, believe me that is not something I want to run around shouting to the world. I’m sharing that it was terrifying and ugly because I know there are other women out there with similar experiences who need to hear this, just like I needed to hear it when I stopped drinking and using.
What I have come to understand about the grieving process as it connects to my recovery anniversary is that I am grieving the visceral hollowness I felt towards the end of my using. That vast, real sense of being empty, unworthy, and unlovable permeated my entire existence and landed me in very dangerous situations. Each year around this anniversary waves of emotions surface that need to flow through and out of me.
And the beauty is that with every passing year the waves become smaller and smaller.
Today the waves don’t take me down into a spiral of shame but rather brush up against my heart and remind me of those tender places inside.
They remind me of that young woman who was so scared to be herself that she tried her best to disappear.
They remind me of a time in my life where I was desperate to be held and told that I would be okay.
And they remind me that my spirit is resilient and that the unworthiness I felt has never been who I am.
I know for sure that shame wants you to be judged. We keep small by not talking about what is really going on and hiding our experiences from each other. In order to move through shame we have to speak up and tell our truth, especially when we’re terrified. Shame wants us to stay small.
The bottom of my addiction was being raped at gunpoint. The man lived across the street from my college dorm. The details are not important. What matters, is that traumatic experience that was the lowest point of my life and summed up the essence of my addiction. It was the ultimate manifestation of the unworthiness I felt my entire life.
When I managed to escape down the hall of his building, clothing in hand, I was the most scared I have ever been. I stopped going to class all together. I lived in my bed with the blinds drawn, getting high alone, hoping I wouldn’t wake up each morning.
Two weeks later I went to rehab and began the next chapter of my life.
I held onto this very painful experience for many years in my sobriety. I compared myself to other women in 12 Step meetings and felt like my pain wasn’t as great as theirs so I should just get over myself. I also believed that I deserved it. I thought being raped was my fault because I was the one that had been up using for days on end, I was asking for it.
I’ve been in therapy off and on on since getting sober and it wasn’t until last year in couples therapy that the therapist told me I needed to address this trauma in my body immediately. I told her I already addressed it through other talk therapy sessions, meditation, and loads of 4th steps, but she said that energetically I was still hanging on to it and I needed to process the trauma through my body.
After hearing her words I sat there on the couch sobbing because I knew she was right. How could I miss this? I’ve processed loads of trauma through my body, why was the rape the elephant in the room? I’ve been an energy practitioner for over a decade and worked with so many clients to heal their trauma, how did I still have this work to do?
Enter shame. I didn’t want to be judged. I didn’t want people to think I am less of a teacher because I still had this ball of trauma lodged in my body that needed to come out. I was afraid of being seen as less human somehow because I still have work to do.
Shame is all about the ego. It wants us to stay isolated because that is where it thrives. It feeds off our suffering. The moment we shine a light into shame is the moment it starts to disintegrate. Shame cannot exist in the face of openhearted vulnerability.
And I am here.
Getting super vulnerable with you because it’s how we heal.
By sharing something I’ve held so tight for nearly fifteen years I am freeing myself of old energies and making room for a greater capacity to love and be of service.
Because that is all I ever wanted when I was using.
To be loved.
To be whole.
To be real.
Over the last six months I have cleared the majority of the trauma energy in body through my breathwork and writing practices. Today I am coming home to the truth that being raped was not my fault, that I didn’t deserve it, and that it’s okay that it has taken me this long to heal the shame I’ve carried of being reckless and unworthy in my youth.
Almost every woman I know who struggled with addiction has a similar story. Most rapes go unreported and mine was one of them. What I know for sure today is that I have to go to the depths of my darkness and share it with you. This is how I bring in the light and if what I share makes one woman feel less fucked up and alone than it’s worth it. Creating that connection is what matters most to me.
Healing shame has to be part of the trauma conversation. We have to expose what we’re most afraid of with people and communities that can hold space for our healing to unfold. When a woman lifts herself up out of the darkness and commits to her healing and growth, she lifts up future generations of women and heals her lineage.
Below is a poem I wrote last year after a huge breathwork clearing. It’s very intense and close to my heart. Thank you for seeing me and for being part of this community. I am grateful everyday I have a place to speak openly and continue to do this amazing work I get to do.
Stone Cold Sober
I finally felt the shame.
Stone cold sober.
Breathing.
Feeling.
Pulses of energy shooting down my spine,
collecting like bullets in the soles of my feet –
those are the Chakras that connect me to our Mother
and they have been closed for so many years.
I finally felt the shame.
Stone cold sober.
Breathing.
Emotions pulled my stomach to my spine,
this dark energy with all its fingers digging in every which way.
Like a steel web,
starting in my stomach
extending out towards every area of my body,
out into my energy field.
I kept hearing her say,
What are you protecting?
What are you protecting?
She was right.
The armor was thick like molasses as we say in the South.
So thick that a decade of twisty, bendy yoga poses couldn’t break through it,
though there were many times that summer in Berlin I cried on my yoga mat,
class after class,
hips opening wide,
and everyone told me I was glowing,
vibrant,
joyful,
beautiful,
alive.
And I was.
I was also halfway around the world hanging out with a woman I wanted desperately to fall in love with me.
In many ways I was learning to take care of myself for the first time.
In other ways I was avoiding,
hiding,
continuing to repress the shame.
I’ve watched Brené Brown’s TED talks probably more than anyone.
I’ve even read all of her books.
I can talk about shame,
but it wasn’t until this morning that I actually let myself experience it in my body,
fully,
completely,
grossly,
crying,
heaving,
releasing.
This is who I am.
I never told anyone the full story.
The rape,
or was it rape?
It was rape.
The self-hatred that has lived inside of me ever since that night.
I blamed myself.
This was my big secret.
This was THE story I’ve been clinging to for over fourteen years and it’s time to feel it.
All of it.
I finally felt the shame.
Stone cold sober.
Breathing.
Feeling.
The energy gripping me from the inside out,
someone is living in there,
punching me until I collapse,
sucking my life force,
it’s that rabid ghost.
Trying to keep myself busy on the outside……
There is no amount of busy that will keep me from having to feel the wretchedness of this dark energy living inside.
Just like there was no amount of cocaine that made him fucking me with a gun to my back okay.
No matter how high I was no person deserved that.
I finally felt the shame.
Stone cold sober.
Breathing.
Crying.
Screaming like a starving wild animal in the night.
Letting the energy move.
Allowing the feelings to flow through,
up,
and out of me.
I finally felt the shame.
Stone cold sober.
And I am still here.
/////
If you are wanting to heal trauma and gain clarity through breath healing please reach out. I would be honored to support you.
All my love.
xo
Photos by Lani Trock
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