Onions

I promise that I have been meaning to write sooner than now, but life has been insanely chaotic. I guess I preface most of my entries with a similar statement, but yeah. Such is life. I guess I should start off with some pretty great news that I passed my theoretical exam for my post-bachelor's program with flying colors. With the exams both out of the way, I was able to fully focus on getting my portfolio finished and submitted. The goal was to turn it is before heading to London with my oldest, and I am thrilled (and relieved) to say that I got the job done! I worked for what felt like eternity so you can imagine how sweet that moment was when I uploaded that big ass file late the other night...and now we wait. Haha. It's a pass/fail grade, and I am pretty confident that I will be just fine. The assignments are really for your own self-reflection and growth as a coach/counsellor, and I luckily didn't have any issues with that. I mean, I typed out 90 freaking pages because I am a writer and a walking self-reflector...errr whatever. You get my point. Anyhow, finishing all of my coursework has allowed for a huge "burden" to be lifted from my shoulders so now I can take things easy for a couple of months until my second year of study commences this fall. I am really looking forward to diving deeper into topics that I am so passionate about because, let's face it, I am a nerd who loves to learn. I am a proud nerd. Zero fucks given. 

So in the midst of all of this, life has been...insane. Is that the correct word? I don't even know. I guess perhaps "intense" would fit much better. The kids started their summer break a couple of weeks ago, and you can imagine that it's been quite a challenge to keep them occupied while trying to finish up my schoolwork, run a business, try to maintain a clean household, and attempt to preserve some brain cells in the process. We've somehow managed, and we're still alive to prove it. It hasn't been easy, but sometimes that's life. Now that the school stuff is out of the way, I can more fully focus on the kids for the remaining weeks of summer. I am so looking forward to doing all sort of fun things with them. I am going with the oldest to London tomorrow! I will be honest with you...I am excited but also a bit nervous. Going on trips always makes me feel a little anxious, especially when it's somewhere I have never been before. I also feel like I need to be on top of my game because my son is with me, and I don't want him to get stressed out if I am stressed. I know we are going to have an amazing trip, and I am so looking forward to the one-on-one time with him. It's going to be so good. I may have mentioned it in my last post, but I'm also looking to take the kiddos to Germany to do the amusement park thing as well as doing day trips here in NL and possibly Belgium too. On top of that, I have been looking to book myself a nice getaway for my birthday weekend next month. I am so looking forward to having that alone time to regroup, rest, write and just be with myself. These are the moments that bring forth so much deep inner healing in my life so I welcome them with open arms and also with much gratitude for the opportunity to do such things. 

In the midst of the everyday life stuff, a lot has been happening with me beneath the surface as well. The energies these past several weeks have been off the hook, and I have been feeling it at my core. There has been so much purging and going inward and facing myself in ways that I had thought I had dealt with, but apparently needed to be attended to again at a much deeper level. I have been confronted with myself so often, and it's just been so so good. I embrace every single moment of my healing journey, no matter how much it stings. I made a promise to myself years ago when I began my inner healing journey that I would give it my all. I am grateful that I have been able to keep that promise to myself, despite how incredibly painful this adventure has been at times. I did something a couple of weeks ago that, for me, felt quite brave. I did my very first EMDR session with my coach, and it was powerful and life changining for me. Instead of working with eye movement, she did knee tapping. This was equally effective, and I didn't become nauseous or anything. I was grateful for that, too, as I had to bike home after my appointment. Haha. I won't get into too many details of what occurred during the session, but I will say that it was intense and freeing. I was exhausted for a couple of days afterwards as I needed time to process and allow my being to reintegrate. One of the deepest roots of my childhood trauma had been plcuked out that day. I will never forget what happened, but I can gladly say that the sting isn't there anymore. This is huge for me, too, because this is something I had blamed myself for the majority of my life, and it had absolutely nothing to do with me. I'll leave it at that. 

Trauma is a "funny" thing, ya know. I feel like that very word has become such a taboo in some ways in our society. It was this way for me for many years until I decided to stand up and face my shit because it wasn't going to get situated by anyone else. That's not to say that it hasn't come with a crap ton of triggers because yeah...hi. Triggers are trauma's middle name. Anyway, going back to my portfolio, I had to complete an assignment regarding what are called drivers and stoppers. These concepts are part of the methodology called Transactional Analysis. It's pretty interesting actually, so if you wanna look it up, by all means. Okay, so I had to identify for myself which drivers and stoppers I most identify with, and how they apply to my life. I had to go more in depth regarding the stoppers so I did that, and damn...I noticed a trend. These beliefs I have had for most of my life of, "don't belong, don't exist, don't grow up", etc. really got to me once I started to explore the moments in my childhood when I started to embrace these beliefs as truth. I really could point most of them back to one family member who was very influential in regards to my self-worth. I actually had a conversation with my mom about this a couple of days ago during our video call, and she was shocked and in tears because she had no idea that this had happened. Not that I wanted my mother to cry, but it was kind of comforting to know she empathized with me in regards to what I went through as a child. It was such a huge "aha" moment for me. Like wow. This person had so much authority over my life and was also one of the major components in regards to the trauma I've endured throughout my life. Of course, we shared many great and beautiful moments as well, but wow. It brought me healing to type that stuff out and sit with it for a bit. I have genuinely forgiven this person with my whole heart and truly recognize that so much of what was projected onto me was their own unhealed trauma. Generational wounds are a real bitch, and I am a huge advocate of nipping that shit right in the bum as much as you can so your kids and kids' kids don't have to bear that pain just like we and our ancestors have. There's enough crap that our kids have to deal with in this crazy world, and they don't need us and our wounds heaped onto that pile. Anyway...

Yesterday, something powerful happened. I don't remember what I was even doing, but I was in the kitchen when I had this epiphany. If you don't know this about me, I will tell you. I am someone who loves to love others. I love to give love and do everything in my power to help others to fully experience love, joy, acceptance and just realness. However, try to love me back, and I put up my walls. My ego gets in the way big time and tries to lay out these defensive traps, if you will, so I cannot be reached. Why am I like this? Why or how can I not receive love? Well, luckily there was a notepad and a pen nearby because these words blurted out of my mouth and onto the paper: "I have never been someone's first choice, and that is why I put up every wall so that I don't keep experiencing that pain, that rejection, that abandoment, that disappointment. I also have never been anyone's first choice because I had never made myself first choice...until now."  Wow. I had to sit down for a minute and chew on this one. It's not even that complicated to comprehend yet I needed to process it all because it hit me so hard. I knew this all with my head for many years, but this was the first time that it stabbed me in my heart. So here I am, being my first choice, loving myself so that I can effectively love others out of that self-love. I am done repelling love and being afraid of letting others in. I am finished with being afraid of being vulnerable with others despite the fact that I thrive on being authentic. How authentic have I truly been all of this time when I have been so afraid of being myself out of fear that I wouldn't tick off all of the boxes of this person's or that person's checklist? Well, shit. That's just rude, soul. Thank you for pointing this out to me. Haha. No, really. I am grateful for these moments because it's in the mess where the miracles happen. I love it. I live it. I am it. I am a walking miracle. No, really. I should not be here, but I am. There are many who disagree or even scoff at who I am, how I am, and how I live my life. Oh well. I am going to keep being real. I am going to continue becoming more and more authentic and showing my true self and stop this hiding away out of shame, guilt or fear of being cast down or hated. Nah, that's over. I am truly and genuinely coming into the essence of who I truly am, and I am loving every minute of it, even when it stings...especially when it stings. And I will continue to heal in regards to the walls that keep everyone out in order to try to avoid letting the "danger" in again and again. I am on that journey. It's scary AF. It's confrontational, and it makes my little inner Jessica want to run and hide under the table in the big room like I used to do as a kid at my grandparents' house when certain family members would come in. I am also trying not to take myself all too seriously in the process because, let's face it, my Virgo sun ass can be kinda extra and stiff at times. I need to loosen up and just be fun and playful, and this is an area of my life that I am also healing and learning to express myself in. I am done raising other adults. I have done it since I came out of the womb, and I am just done. Y'all are on your own from now on. There. I said what I said. 

One last thing...today was emotional for me. Maybe it partially had to do with the millions of things I needd to accomplish, the remnants of the past two full moons still lingering, or whatever else. I happened to check TikTok earlier today and came across a video of one of my favorite content creators who shared a video regarding a young man abusing his girlfriend by pushing her to the ground for not opening a hotel room door quickly enough for his liking. The video got over 1.5 million likes and thousands of comments laughing, etc, as though it was business as usual. I literally became sick to my stomach. This dude had the fucking audacity to abuse his girlfriend on camera, and we've got thousands of people laughing at her?! I'll be frank. It triggered me. A lot. I reported the video and the account, and the video was luckily removed. But damn, it brought up some big deal stuff from my childhood. I just couldn't seem to get that night out of my head when I was 8 years old and witnessed my pregnant mother being punched to the ground right before my eyes. If there was a time that I never felt so shocked and helpless in my life, it was that night. I remember almost every detail of that night, and I probably always will. I have forgiven the parties involved, but I realized that the sting was still there. I take domestic violence very seriously so when I see it being done on social media, I can only imagine what is happening behind closed doors. I needed time to process this today because this was one of those memories that I thought I had dealt with. But yeah, it's like that whole onion thing again. We deal with something just to have some more layers peeled back for us to deal with the root of the pain at a much deeper level. Ouch. So I did this reiki meditation with one of my favorite reiki practioners on YouTube that had to do with higher love heart activation. I don't think I got more than 5 minutes into this guided meditation before I was balling my eyes out. In those moments, it all came out. I knew I have having an intense moment of healing, and it was messy, beautiful and everything in between. The one part got me, too. She has you do these breathing techniques while visualizing receiving love from others and also giving love to others. This got me real good. This was the very thing that I had been wrestling with for so long. I have been infamous for running from real, unconditional love. But not today. Today was different. Through the tears and the sniffles, I was genuinely able to receive love for one of the first times in my life. Wow. 

So I am continuing on my way. On my way to more healing, more joy, more of being authentically me...with zero fucks given. Yep. I've got no regrets. I will continue to enjoy the present moment as I look forward to the road ahead with excitement, fear and trembling and a whole lotta grace. One moment at a time.