2021: Letting Go of A Lifetime Of Trauma
I’m Not Lost: I’m Learning
“I’m just happy to be here,” was my sentiment waking up this week, January 3, Two Thousand Twenty - Two. Funny, no? or rather beautiful. Resolutions and plans are tiring, but for the first time in my entire life, I’m not tired. So much can change in a year. I think everything I’ve known has changed, especially in comparison to how I felt same time last year.
Last New Years Eve, I began 2021 with a ceremonial medicine therapy — psychedelics in a group setting, setting intentions with clarity. What I opted into as a clearing, albeit healing, revealed some of my most painful subconscious memories. It was my third assisted journey to date, but the most violent of late. For nearly six hours, surrounded by strangers, I sat in the violence, sweating, my body convulsing and shaking, releasing itself of the stuck energy in my ovaries as I remembered a rape from my early teenage years. When the ceremony ended, the group celebrated over homemade cacao truffles studded with dry fruits and nuts and sparkling water (we were already high AF), dancing to dim lighting. I sat in shock, watching. My intention was to heal, and as I let go of control, the horrific memories poured out of me, but I didn’t plan (how could I have planned) that would be my experiencing. A kind stranger listened as I shared mildly, out of confusion and need for comfort because I was too afraid to leave the ceremony, alone. I wondered, Was it just me? Was I the only one holding onto such suffering? At 3AM, I finally got the courage to leave, Ubering home, alone in the New York City cold, with new traumatic memory, and what would eventually become, my new beginning.
I hopped on a plane to Austin three days later, where I had only visited briefly years prior, and rented an AirBNB for ten days to see if I might want to make a home in this new place. Excited, but isolated as I hadn’t yet shared my recent memories with anybody but the stranger on New Years Eve - not friends, family, or even in therapy. I booked my charming Austin bungalow before I arrived, and all was fine until night time. I was used to NYC doorman security. And although I was in a safe neighborhood, I was in new surroundings. I spent most of my life with pretty severe PTSD, unknowing, realizing quickly that visiting a new city immediately, was frightening. For ten days, each night before bed, I slid my suitcase to the doorways, only falling asleep for an hour or two gripping my cell phone, tightly. I called my parents before bed, my vigilance confusing to them, as I had always been so independent. Childlike, literally, regressing into fear that someone might come and get me out of bed. The New Years Eve ceremony revealed details from my memory of a nighttime assault by a former friends’ stepfather. In the ceremony I felt like my body was getting a period, which in reality wasn’t normal for years, because of the trauma. “The Body Keeps the Score,” explains more, but days later, in Austin, I got a period. Psychedelics provide that deep of a release—from both mind, and body, but newly uprooted memories, take time to integrate. I wasn’t ready to sleep in a house alone, in a new city, and yet at the same time, the experience changed my life. On my tenth day visiting Austin, I looked at two apartments, flew back to New York City, with box + flow closed, I broke apartment lease, packed up my belongings, created an Instagram account, “Empty Olivia’s Closet,” ridding myself of nearly $4000 of excess things, and moved to Texas in less than three weeks, into the first apartment I spotted.
2021 brought incredible change for me. Did I feel lost? Absolutely. But I wasn’t lost. I was learning. And I wasn’t alone because I had me. After 11 years I left New York City, but that was mild compared to the deep work I committed to in healing my psyche. This past year left me gutted and empty, alone to face my darkest fears, as they were revealed to me. I’ve never cried so much, or even just sat with myself, in quiet for hours, days and weeks, but I’m still here, and thru the darkness, I’m finding my light — void of fear, that plagued me for years, leaning in with ease, finding flow thru my fight. It took, it takes, time. And as I integrated my findings, I learned about me. The darkness became the most beautiful healing — which changed not only how I saw myself but everything around me. This journey continues to shape me. And as I’ve created space outside of myself to just be, the space, the home within me, has grown expansively. I’m listening - to everything. How I feel when I wake and when I go to sleep, which has shaped how I relate to everything around me. I’m building boundaries. I’m no longer here to appease or people please or “do,” to prove myself, over perform just to be seen. I’m here to be, me and love all of me, by integrating all of the broken, dark parts, from my memories so that I can stop running from me. And the more love I have for me, the more love I find, feel, see in everything.
Fast forward to last week, December 30, 2021: I took another trip, albeit accidentally. My body is sensitive, so when I nibbled a marijuana chocolate before bed, in hopes of deep sleep, I had zero expectation of the intensity to which I was entering: Full of lucid dreams and memories and I woke up the next morning in shambles. (There is reason I don’t trip, purposely, unsupervised. For me, these are tools to dig into the psyche). Whoops! Suffice it to say I woke up on New Years Eve curled in a ball — reliving memories, sweating out trauma still left in me, but this time, able to coach myself through my findings. When I finally got the energy to run eight miles not to lose but to find me, I called the guy I’m dating and without need for explanation just asked him to come hold me. And as I cried, reflecting on the hardest year of my life, he was there by my side, not asking questions - just letting me grieve, supported by both of our energies, holding each other simultaneously. This year, my lesson was clear —no matter how dark my grief, Olivia, “You’re not lost. You’re learning.” And when it gets daunting, ask for help - from all the tools + guides you’ve acquired in your tool belt, And keep going.
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So what’s next? No one knows. But I do know that regardless of where I am, that I am my home. When the New York Post called last week inquiring about people who left New York City, I was quoted— “WE are so much more than what we do . . . Being out of New York City allows you to be so much more present, because you are afforded the opportunity to slow down and to connect with yourself and other people,” said Young,“ My friendships are stronger, my relationships are more connected . . . They aren’t transactional or conditional — they’re just honest.”
Texas provided me a Canvas - blank, with more space and more grace to learn to listen. Here, I’ve ignited my willingness to see in to me, intimately, as I put in the hard work to learn to love me. Sure, I love Texas’ quirky energy, cowboy masculinity, and soft southern femininity, but I’ve long learned that home isn’t where you are but who you are. I’m getting cozy settling into me. Less destination, more journey. Maybe a pitstop or perhaps I land for a while. I know that marriage and children is on my horizon, more intimacy diaries coming soon. As long as I radiate love for me, the universe will keep reflecting that love outside of me. My goal is just to be more me — void of shield or ego or need to prove worthy. In my most recent Ayahuasca journey, her haunting, difficult, but beautiful message was simply, “start playing” —- We are at our best when we exude our childlike energy - unabashed, alive, free of conditioning. In 2022, I hope to do more as children do, surrendering, without my brain getting in the way: less thinking more feeling.
A few lessons from my journey to date, that have helped me:
Slow down.
To Listen + Feel your feelings. (between your thoughts and judgments).
To Learn your body: how to move it, feed it, touch it, rest it, and reset it.
To Ask + Receive. To Notice your habits, your patterns and your triggers.
To name your triggers. And stop Reacting.
To Acknowledge your ego, inner critic, + anxiety. It is there to teach you something. Listen.Balance Your Ego + Your Heart: by becoming both your Harshest Critic + Biggest Fan.
Self Definition is Your Definition: You are not your resume. Find people who see you for you. Which is only possible if YOU see you, without the titles (job, relationship) + material things. Those who recognize you for what you’re doing or what you’ve done are those that only value themselves by what they’re doing or have done.
Less “do” more “be.” Less is actually more, but a few practices that help me:
I move everyday.
I meditate, (in a heated sauna blanket).
I pray.
I fuel myself, slower and more mindfully.
I play.
I cry, greeting my emotion as it greets me,
I laugh, sometimes wildly.
I began 2022 on New Years Day with 108 vinyasas, or sun salutations, after a marathon of miles and boxing. I often have excessive energy, and part of me still needs to move physically to feel embodied. Thats ok. I now have the grace to thank myself for my abilities. On my way out of the house, my apple watch shut down, no doubt a sign to continue choosing pace over race and stop tracking. Aubrey Marcus said, “If you want to lead, go first.” I do so with hesitation knowing, that I was meant to walk thru the dark alone, thru my hellish story, to arrive where I am, because something greater knew that I could overcome it. We are not our stories or histories. We are beautiful, joyous beings, born onto this earth with freedom, and sadly often shackled by trauma. It is our right to choose a new beginning. Everyday. Lets continue moving ourselves out of our way, and maybe even play, using our energy for us, to fuel not fight us, forward. No longer gluttons for punishment, we are safe, to be free, by choosing ourselves, repeatedly.
So, If it doesn’t feel good —
Stop doing it
Stop eating it
Stop dating it
Stop fucking it
Stop rushing it
We’re not lost, we’re learning.
Happy New Year.
Xo Love Always, Olivia