THE QUESTION

I’m out of the doorway and I’m at a loss about what’s to come next. What if those beliefs were right? What if the fear was necessary?

When we leave toxic people and places, we’re left with the aftermath of the turmoil and trauma they caused. The self-limiting beliefs we’ve come conditioned to hold as truth can leave us plagued with anxiety surrounding “what if…” as the reality of our departure hits us and our bodies anticipate the dangers we have been told to expect. What grand lies we have been force fed to keep us docile and controlled. This is why what we say to ourselves and acknowledge in our bodies is of utmost importance. We have the power to set ourselves free.

So, here’s a different list of “what if’s”:

What if I believed that I was magnificent?

What if I believed I was ready to choose the life I deserve?

What if wholeheartedly believed that safety, pleasure, joy and abundance are my birthright?

When I was small, maybe until the age of 8 or 9, I thought I possessed magic abilities. I would stand above the sink, casting spells over cups of water, willing them to turn into iced tea. Most times, the spells were beverage related but often, the spells that I remember at least, are the ones that I hoped would allow me to escape. When things were bad, which they often were during those years, I’d escape my mother’s roaring tongue by hiding. Sometimes, the only safe space was under my bed because it was too small and narrow for her to reach me. There was a metal piece shaped like a question mark, a symbolism I come to hold dear, that I would twist round and round as I clenched my eyes shut, wishing for a portal to open. When silence fell, I’d lay there questioning this reality I’d come accustomed to and why hiding had become a necessary part of it. Those questions led to statements as I cast blame onto myself and those statements led to stories that I then repeated during somber nights and those stories became beliefs.

When we stop hiding and come into the light, we’re not only blinded by all of the potential good possibilities, but the scary ones as well and often, these can be the same thing. As I’ve healed over the years, finding safety in experiencing joy and excitement were terrifying. Expecting and accepting them took even longer to adjust to. While I keep fear at a distance, I would still hear its voice echoing after me, casting shadows along the cobblestones of my life, hiding in the cracks of misfortune or perceived failure, desperate to cling to me as I braved a new world where serenity was my desired reality. Fear and trauma are insidious. They show up as other friends and lovers, as addictions disguised as wellness and it takes diligence and rigorous honesty to break free from them. You might ask yourself, “how do I become partners with peace rather than chaos when my mind is conditioned to perceive one as the other?”

We ask for help, accept divine guidance when offered, and dismantle their truths while forming new ones.

When exiting the doorway that held fear, I was left with these beliefs and stories of who I was. The worst story that I was told and believed was that I wasn’t kind. That isn’t true. I wasn’t unkind or apathetic. I was afraid and wounded. I was living in fear and it’s taken over a decade of receiving guidance from healers, therapists, and coaches as I broke apart and rebuilt myself, escaping and finding home again, to redefine myself. Which in actuality, meant to discover who I was all along. With the absence of these stories, I’ve learned that I am profoundly empathetic and a healer myself. I have learned to be kind to myself as I’ve surrendered to the aching process of releasing these narratives because not only is my soul and this body my home, it’s a diary of my past and needs gentility and grace in order to heal properly. With this reminder, I get to live in the boundless beauty of who I’ve always been and I am limitless in who I get to become. I can write a 1,000 stories for myself, making magic out of the past, present and future and in all, I get to be joyous, smart, creative, zealous, clever, patient, humble and the list goes on.

As we heal, it becomes easier to discern what has been assigned to us and what is us. Who you are is a constant state of becoming and living becomes radical as we heal for not only ourselves, but our lineage.

We get to rewrite the story. What is yours going to be?