The time has come for a huge piece of my identity to fall away and wash off by body on a cellular level once and for all.  I believe it is the entire makeup of my identity if I am being brutally honest which I am going to try and be for the majority of this segment.
The darkness, what is it? The light, what is it? Are they not two in the same? One cannot exist without the other right?
Yes, all of these are true and the darkness is the ability to see the light and I am learning not to consciously seek the darkness day in and day out.  I am learning once again to seek the light.  And honestly, I am not sure what that will look like to me at this point in time but I am open to the changes.
As many of you know my journey with spirituality began when I was 18 and started meditating to help my insomnia and self harm, what I did not know was the journey I would begin two years later.

Growing up, my family had its challenges, alcohol addictions and drug abuse, the first time I saw a line of cocaine in real life, I was 12.  The first time I saw someone absolutely wasted I believe I was 8.  Fighting in the house wasn’t really “normal” until my parents decided it was time for the official divorce – they kept trying to make it work but it never did…Once the fighting started, I was usually home without my other siblings, or that is what I remember, and I would leave, I would run.  I would run so fast out of the house and go to the creek just beside us and hide for hours until I would return home once I knew it was safe, it was usually dark by then.  For two years my parents lived under the same roof while separated and renovating the house getting ready to sell it; within those two years neither of them were home a lot.  My Mom working a lot of overtime in retail and my Dad spending a lot of time with his new girlfriend and away from the chaos, guilt and shame.  My Dad lived in the basement bedroom that had its own attached bathroom and I don’t really remember having family dinners anymore once that happened.  This was the beginning, or that is what I thought until a few years ago…

You see, my parents tried and tried to stay together for their 4 kids many times.  My father and mother each have their own life paths and this was apart of it.  They tried, I am honouring that in this process that they really did try to make it work for them and us and that they obviously didn’t expect their lives to turn out this way…. So, when I was 3 or 5, I think closer to 3, I remember my Dad leaving one stormy night with the intention of not returning.  I held onto his leg and begged him to stay, bawling and crying, my Mom had to pry my little fingers off of his pants.  I was a Daddy’s girl, he was my Papa Bear and I his little princess.  I would do anything to feel that love again, and this is the journey I am beginning.  This is the process I have begun, to remember the love of a father, to remember the love of a daughter, to remember the innocence.

There are so many memories that I have chosen to hold onto that reflect the pain and discomfort and no matter how much work I have done or how many stories I have told I am still heavy with pain in my mind and my body.  I am riddled with fear of never amounting to anything because I have become comfortable in every way.  I have been working with a Reiki Master and her insights have been extremely helpful and when she mentioned that I am in the dark, my pores, my insides, they’re black but all around me is light.  The light is trying so hard to come in but you are just comfortable being the victim… To be the victim of life is not something I never really felt as I was able to support myself, I even made dinner for the family for a long time when I was 12 – 14 years old.  But here I am, choosing to remember the painful parts of my past, the abuse at home, the abuse at school, the sexual shaming, the abusive relationships, the sexual trauma, the illusions of security with certain people and places, I have chosen to block out the good memories that exist.

Misery loves company is one of the truest statements I have ever been able to witness.  Your story reflects your ability to spread love or misery…Right now, reflecting at my partner, I am spreading misery not love or freedom, I am spreading a darkness falsely claiming to be light.
How did this obsession with the darkness continue for so long and even continue once I stepped into being a full time healer?  Well, I have been reflecting on that and my partner always says, “don’t be so proud of the pain you have endured”. I was wearing it like a metal, look what I have been through, look how I survived… For you see, our pain does hold a certain power to it and when we come out of it part of us can attach to it.  If you have gone through pain after pain after pain and chosen not to see the light in the middle, you become addicted to the pain.  You forget what joy feels like, what play or innocence feels like.  You get lost in the pain and look for ways to stay there because that is what you have grown in, that is where you planted your seed.
So YES, I am a survivor, a warrior, a lover and a fighter but I am so much more than those things and this is the journey I am on now.  To find who I am without the need to fight every day, to find who I am without the desire to feel like shit and feel shame.  To find freedom in the human form and liberate myself from my own story once again.  This is another unbecoming and it is right time with this Solar eclipse, new moon, summer solstice in Cancer.  Right now leaders are being born, skin is being shed, a new earth is being developed and it has the ability to drastically shift your life if you are willing to see your own bullshit.

The Reiki Master I have been working with asked me to remember the good memories of my childhood.  It has taken me a few weeks to remember them but now they are all coming back and I am remembering TRUE gratitude. Growing up we were safe, fed, went to school and each of my siblings and myself played a sport at an extremely competitive level.  This alone is more than some children will ever have.  We were loved by my parents, we had soup and bagel night on Wednesdays when everyone had a sport to play, we had Sunday brunch with crepes my Dad would make.  We had a pool and a backyard that the entire neighbourhood was welcome to use and we lived beside a family with 5 kids who were all the same age as us.  My grandparents lived down the street, also had a pool, and our Christmas dinners were on average 25 people and anyone was welcome to join who had no where to go.  My Dad’s parents live up North in Muskoka on Skeleton lake so I grew up (until the age 12/13) spending time there in the winter on snow mobiles and having bonfires on the frozen lake.  In the summer we would go tubing, fishing, swimming, have fires and roast mallows.  We would brings friends up and my Grampie would show us his beautiful photography on a slide projector.  My favourite was the photos he took while they were in Africa for the great migration, that was where my love for photography was birthed, just like everything else that lights my soul up, I have stopped that too.  I am writing this out so that I can remember even deeper the beauty that was my life, that was mixed with the batter of years to come.  I remember watching the Patriot with my family and I was sitting on the couch with my Dad, I would have been 10 or 11 and he started to cry when the church was burnt down.  I remember his sensitive heart and I am seeing how hardened it has become from years and years of neglect from his children and his own separation from his family.

I see the pain in my sister and the escape of my brother, I feel the pain in the family and it is time to stop carrying it for them.  We all have a life now that is very blessed and full of love, what is left within me is a choice to carry.  A choice to sit with the pains of the past or a choice to believe in the love that was there.  I had a partner for all of high school and it was my safe haven, yes I relied on him way too much and believed he would be my one and only so when he cheated on me I was devastated, my friends knew.  This was another betrayal I have held onto under the illusion that I had let it go. In reality, we were kids, we were 20 and we were learning, we didn’t know.  He supported me and was always there for me when I needed someone to hold me and support me and lean on and his family took me in as their own.  I lived with a girlfriend in elementary school when my parents told us they were separating, and I lived with my Aunt.  I have had so many families that it is bringing me to tears as I know some will never have one.  I am remembering a time of love, a time of hope and belief in the human race and I am choosing not to stand by in the dark and hold onto the pains of the past but to remember the memories that showed my heart it was loved and the opportunities I have had that others will never know.

The hardest pill to swallow is that I have created a reality that allows me to stay small, stay still, stay safe and play the victim.  I have chosen to be bitter and to judge and to not see the light in humanity.  You may see me differently if you have worked with me in circle or with reiki or in whatever other capacity, even as an employer, but inside, I have always been dark.  I have always remained in the shadows.  Even now, I do not know who I am without the darkness and it is not something I am proud of.

I guess the point of writing this was mostly for myself, maybe you got to this point, maybe you found some resonance or simply heard my voice, but I want to remind you that pain is an addiction and it is one of the hardest ones to heal.

This is my recovery.