How Do You Forgive Yourself?

I’ve been sitting with these thoughts for nearly a week, revisiting the page after walking away to think about the severity of my sharing. Until last eve when Michaela Coel received her Emmy with a speech, for writers specifically and dedicated it to sexual assault survivors. That spoke to me.

“I just wrote a little something for writers, really. Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that is uncomfortable. I dare you… see what comes to you in the silence.”

So I got quiet and heard my intuition loudly. “What are you afraid of? You’ve already shared so unabashedly.”  And with that I’ll continue sharing…

My final four years in New York City, I lived in Soho on Hudson + Spring, and spent my mornings running the West Side Highway, moving out of my head and into my body, out of resistance and into more ease, looking up at the Freedom Tower, and finding freedom internally. I often posted a photo and self quoted, “Forgiveness is the Freedom We Give Ourselves—“ a reminder to find softness for our unworthy, insecurities, forgiveness for our self-crippling beliefs. I didn’t understand the enormity of my words, until recently.

Last week marked a milestone for me, one year since my first plant medicine journey, one year since first remembering being raped at 17, but hardly the first time I was assaulted. My anniversary of “awakening” landed in tandem with Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday of atonement, and with it, untethered emotion. It stung me momentarily — less the meaning, and more the provoked feelings accompanying. I woke up Thursday, scrolling, countless friends posting:  A Prayer for Yom Kippur — To those I have wronged, I ask forgiveness. To those I may have helped, I wish I had done more. To those I neglected to help, I ask for understanding. To those who helped me, I thank you with all my heart.

On Yom Kippur we atone our sins from the previous year and ask for forgiveness, by fasting, although I don’t fast, personally. I spent enough years starving myself of feeling, controlling what I was eating, because my life felt so out of control unknowingly. So I repented instead by reflecting and questioning — Can I forgive me?

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I’ve said I will always be healing, not a victim, but a survivor, although grief never dies entirely. After a year of darkness and a lifetime of dissociation, for the first time in my life JOY is what I'm experiencing. But freedom isn’t linear. As Yom Kippur came and went last week, I shut down momentarily, recognizing that repentance and forgiveness starts with me. But I was angry that my life was never fully mine, instead taken from me repeatedly, and because I didn’t consciously remember why pre-plant medicine therapy, with no one else to blame, I blamed myself my whole life, until recently. You can’t forgive if you don’t know what you’re forgiving. Years prior, in tandem with my West Side Highway introspection, I further questioned, “Are You Willing to Look Within to See What You’re Hiding From?” My subconscious always knew there were gremlins hiding. 

After my first ceremony, September 12, 2020, 8 hours in purgatory, I left Brooklyn at 3am in disbelief that I’d been raped and left for dead at 17, the first of a series of traumas I would later experience remembering. The next morning, horrified, I walked to my never opened due to Covid Box + Flow flagship studio, eyes swollen, met by an outstretched hand on Spring Street. The facilitator from the previous evening was eating breakfast next door at Jacks Wife Freda. The universe served me the comfort I needed, and I fell into his arms pleading,  “Could it be untrue?” hoping to negate my memory, not wanting to face the severity, and the most common inquiry after uprooting trauma. But even in doubt, my heart was smarter, and thru my pain, I knew there was a greater power, that I needed to lean in, to trust me. 

Reflecting on a year of gratitude and grief, for the first time in a lifetime I’m learning what feeling “whole” means, and unlearning the embodied conditioning of a multi-time rape survivor. My fight or flight response allowed me to continue living. As early as age 5, I learned how to escape my body and take refuge in my mind to protect myself, because you can’t get hurt if you numb everything. I became a machine. This past year has been a deep practice in learning instead how to feel into my body, feeling everything. I spent my life running so grief couldn’t catch up to me, but I couldn’t out run it. Grief cuts you. It erupts you. It becomes you. It became me. Until I surrendered to the medicine and its teachings —understanding that I’m not my wounding, but it is a part of me, and because of it, I’m stronger — nothing can shake me. 

“The bravest thing I ever did was continue my life when I wanted to die.” — Tarana Burke, #METOO

Plant medicine revealed my answers, why for a lifetime, I was fighting me. And after a year of learning why,   for the first time in my life, I feel alive. I can thrive. A sentiment less tied to remembering and more to the space between, the quiet times, listening, deep breathing, creating space to integrate and fill the holes each trauma left in me. In a recent energy healing, I said to my guide Christina, “I feel like Swiss cheese. Can we fill the holes that were taken from me?”  Trusting myself and acknowledging my feelings is the gift that keeps on giving. But until I faced the grief, I couldn’t grow, and I can’t continue growing, unless I forgive, me — first. 

This past year has shown me both the darkest hell and deepest healing, and I recollect myself knowing I am here for a reason, and hope to help others heal their own unworthy feelings. After denial, grief, and acceptance, forgiveness starts showing. And on Yom Kippur, on my couch in Austin, Texas,  I leaned in —  
I cried for my inner child that detached from her soul as a result of the violence, and for all those who’ve suffered and are suffering.
Olivia - I forgive you for not knowing otherwise,  for becoming your pain, your shame, your self blame, and blaming your family for not protecting you, unknowingly. Olivia, I forgive you for hating you, for wasting time and energy accepting less than you, because you never, I never felt worthy.  I forgive you for not feeling fully, because it felt safer to overthink everything. Olivia, I forgive you for hiding your hurt behind achieving, hardening behind your ego because you didn’t trust your broken heart. 

After the grief swept over me, I cried tears I felt deeply, and after 35 years, I forgave me.

The deep sorrow passed as I surrendered and as my tears dried, Freedom became me. A new feeling,  JOY, overcame me. With grace, I thanked me for finding strength to move through the pain they gave me, pain that for years choked me, provoked me, unknowingly, to shut out the world, and not live vulnerably.  It was Never my pain — it was each perpetrators’ who passed on their broken to break me, taking advantage of a child, a young woman, without the language to ask for help or knowing to help herself.So I became a woman who was silenced. 

The release was coupled by deep gratitude for my knowing, my growing, my strength, no matter how grueling it felt at times. After the forgiveness, I was flooded with self love, acknowledging my newfound ability to trust me, taking care of my body and creating the space that I need. I talk to myself often, “Hello body” I say, aloud, lovingly, “How are we feeling?” When I moved to Austin end of January, I wanted to buy plants for decorating — fake ones though, most definitely, because I didn’t trust myself to take care of something living, until last week. On a whim, I visited The Great Outdoors, and scouted the plant that scouted me: wild and untamed knowingly. Olivia is her name, obviously. And not random that my investment in a living thing is in tandem with trusting myself to take care of me. With my intuition guiding, I dove into plant parenting, simultaneously reparenting, me. Plant Olivia is doing well, healthy, Happy, getting the nutrients, sunlight, and love that she needs. 

And with that love, there is still one question hovering, a cloud that hasn’t yet cleared, regardless of all my uncovering. That which initially prompted my Yom Kippur tears, the fear underlying my suffering. It is often said that the final step in healing is forgiving those who've hurt you. I’m not yet ready for that reality but can’t help but wonder if they seek my forgiving. Do any of them regret raping me, taking pieces of me without my permission, defaming me? As much the act as the trauma, the scars they left on me, causing me to harden and close my heart, existing, not living, empty? Do they feel empty? If they saw me, would they say sorry?Over the past year, I’ve awoken from nightmares, contemplating letters I’d send confronting them, anonymously … That desire is now all but flickering because I trust the power of Karma and know that hurt people live in the worst purgatory. More importantly, I forgive me and as such I am no longer ridden by their suffering. Maybe one day I will forgive entirely. The more I release, the more love I create for others, for life, and for me. But today, after a year of learning me, I have strength and grace, vulnerability and ease, to live fully, because I am finally free. These are the thoughts that come to me in silence. Thank you Michaela Coel for inspiring. Are you willing to look within to see what you’re hiding from? I did. 
xx Olivia 

#flowthruthefight 
#everythingyouneedisinside