11 Simple Reminders for Mental Health Boundaries

An increase of physical boundaries can mean a decrease in emotional boundaries, even if unintentional. In these strange times when we need to create more space between bodies, it’s important to remember to create a little more space for your own mental health needs and boundaries as well. Here are a few simple reminders for holding boundaries and honoring your mental health during all of this: 

1. Speak gently and with compassion. A lot of people have particularly raw nerves right now from stress and trauma responses, which means everyone may be more reactive than usual. Remember that you don’t know where someone else is coming from, and try to speak (or type) gently to them. 
   
   

2. If you find that you simply can’t speak gently with someone, but they are triggering your fighting response, it may be time to eliminate the conversation altogether and walk away. Proving a point isn’t worth the extra stress. 
   
   

3. On that note, don’t feel bad if you need to step away from interactions altogether. Cutting out social media to some extent is always a good idea, and more and more sensitive people are limiting their exposure because of this. You may be taking on more information and energy than you realize. 
   
   

4. If you need to talk to someone about your struggles or the problems you’re facing, always ask the other person if they have the time and emotional space to listen to you, before launching into things. It’s incredibly important to reach out when you need support, and also remember that with shot nervous systems, it can be easy to trigger someone else. If the other person says they don’t have the space at the moment, respect it. If you have friends or family that don’t use this practice, start using it anyways. By you asking if they have space for you, you’re showing them through example how you would like to be treated as well. 
   
   

5. People won’t always return the favor though in terms of respecting space. In this case, try to limit unplanned conversations. Let calls go to voicemail. Don’t respond to DMs, or let them know you’ll get back to them when you can. You should get to choose when you take on someone else’s energies. 
   
   

6. If you’re on medication for mental health or chronic health reasons and need to either up your dosage, add a medication, or even start one for the first time, there is no shame in this whatsoever. No one else gets to have an opinion on how you take care of yourself. Everything that helps you is a tool, and you’re allowed to adjust how you use those tools whenever you need or want to. 
   
   

7. What is focus? Do you have it still? I for sure do not have it. It’s okay if you’re not feeling as focused or motivated lately. Have extra compassion for yourself. Whenever possible, limit your information intake to small digestible bits and don’t force yourself to try to take in more. 
   
   

8. Get back to basics when taking care of your body. Food, sleep, breath, and movement. For those of us with high trauma loads, we are often really great at using our mental tools when anxiety rises up, but with limited physical and social activities, our bodies can easily be triggered and begin to collect that anxiety and cause trouble, even launching your body into panic attack responses without a clear emotional trigger. Focusing back on the body is essential. 
   
   

9. Gaining or losing weight is not a moral issue. Let’s not obsess over it please, especially not during such insanity. 
   
   

10. Since your usual physical activities may not be available, or you’re simply struggling to find motivation for activity and the novelty of living room dance parties have passed, try some somatic movement practices. Move your body slowly and hold it in positions that feel good. What I like to do is use my faux fur rug to kneel and lay on, in front of the fireplace (so soothing for me), and think about trapped emotions rising to the surface. I imagine them leaving my body with various movements. I like to move my body in S shapes to get my energy flowing. I usually begin and end in child’s pose because it’s so comforting. Just do what feels easy and natural. No worries if you’ve never done it. Even holding one arm above your head and taking one deep breath feels weirdly good. 
    
    

11. NATURE. Get back to basics with nature. Sunshine. Candles. Baths. Be barefoot in the grass. Breathing deeply next to a tree. Any easy thing to focus on for just a few moments that connects you to the elements of nature makes a difference. The elements can help pull out excess energies caused by mental overstimulation, and make you feel more connected to your body. 

Sending you love, compassion, and gentle light as you move through these waves. 

I have Bipolar Disorder. And I'm also a spiritual leader.

“There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.”

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I am a woman of fire. I live by passion and the spark is what keeps me going. That fire is what has led me to the wonderful things in my life. It’s led to my path as a spiritual teacher and author. 

But sometimes I burn too hot. And sometimes my fire goes out. Because I also have bipolar disorder. 

The times when I am most creative and most public would be considered my normal to hypomanic phases. These are the times when I am tending my fire with care. I am feeding it and watching it closely so it doesn’t burn out or burn out of control. It keeps me inspired and driven, and in a matter of weeks, I can accomplish the same amount of work that a normal person may take a year to complete. It’s really quite impressive, even to myself. This is what I consider my ideal baseline, because I personally believe the best gifts from bipolar are from this state. But there’s a balance to it, because when I fall into a depressive episode or shoot into a manic episode, I may do nothing “productive” for months. Hypomania is when I appear most inspiring to your eyes because it is when I feel most inspired to share my thoughts while staying grounded.  It’s where I can reach the gods with the tips of my fingers while keeping my toes in the sand. I go to great lengths to achieve or maintain a normal state tinged by hypomania like this - supplements, a careful diet, plenty of movement and sleep, meditation, creative expression. But being as sensitive to the world as I am, sometimes there’s nothing I can do, and the hypomania builds into mania or falls away into depression. 

In mania, my fire burns too hot and too high. 
I am a lightbulb with far too much wattage running through me. I take on wave after wave of information. I wake up in the middle of the night and my feet are on fire. I have to walk on cold tile to cool myself enough to sleep. The messages are coming quicker and quicker and I can no longer accommodate them. There isn’t the time nor the focus to use them creatively anymore. They simply turn into too many voices in my head, all screaming at once, and it all becomes irritability and anxiety. The same energy that gave me brilliant insight into the world, into others, into myself, now threatens to destroy me and take away my safety. That speed of energy coursing through my brain turns into impulsiveness. I want to be reckless, I want to do reckless things, I want to push myself over the edge because self-destruction is imminent anyways. (And boy does it sound fun.) One of the primary ways my spirit tries to deal with mania is the hypersexuality it causes. I fully understand that hypersexuality can be dangerous, and I’ve seen myself get into bad situations or throw around my energy around carelessly, but my spiritual practice has also taught me that sexuality is one of the clearest and most direct ways our body tries to make peace with our psychology. I cannot tell you how much I have learned about myself, about others, about relationships and sex, about trauma, and about God, all because my fire burns hottest in between my legs. (And I’m working on figuring out how to tell you about those things too.) But it is a fine line to walk, and I know this. Because being this close to the fire also makes me feel the chaotic desire to be ravaged entirely by it. I can feel the “other side” so subtly hidden by our world and I want to go there. I want to become the brilliant dying star and explode into the universe. And that desire to be ravaged by spirit threatens to consume me on a regular basis.  

In depression, my fire goes out. 
People with bipolar disorder know that fire isn’t hell. Fire is life. Too much life, too much fire, can certainly mean destruction. Can certainly mean death. But hell is what comes after the fire too…hell is cold. Hell is the lack of fire. My hands and feet go cold. All of the passions that I live by, though I remember their names and their functions better than my own name, seem meaningless. All of the fuel that I require to participate in this weird experience/experiment known as human existence is just…gone. It’s not that I don’t understand what is happening - I do. I understand that I’m now in a depressive episode. I understand that this too shall pass and that eventually I’ll feel the fire again and contribute to the world. But none of that knowledge matters when you’re living, no, surviving, in this space. No amount of mindset work or preventative tools can shake this sense that everything is heavy and there is no purpose to any of it. In these phases, I want my creativity but don’t see the point. I know that I help other people with my work, but I don’t care. Because here I am in the cold and the dark all by myself and my helping those other people did not help me prevent this, nor can it pull me out of it before it’s had its way with me. Those people who said their lives were changed by me cannot change this episode. I would welcome any emotion, even rage, because rage is powerful fire and can launch me into purpose, but even anger alludes me here. There is no fire and there is too much earth and water. The gravity pushes me into the dirt where I will stay. I cry for days, weeks. I light so many candles and stare at the flames, longing to come alive again, and I watch those go out too. They don’t burn long enough or strong enough to bring me back to life. It is here that I have learned the randomness and apathy of the universe, and the smokescreens of society fade away from disinterest as I return to the bare bones of survival. Eat something. Sleep. Drink water. Keep sheltered. Everything always comes back to survival here. There is nothing else. 

Mixed episodes are the most dangerous, because it combines the meaninglessness of a depressive episode with the motivation and self-destruction of mania. With the other episodes, I mostly still have my faculties and my ability to grasp, or at least question, the reality of things. But in mixed episodes, those faculties are hijacked and this is where there is an increased risk for suicide. (60% of those with bipolar disorder attempt to commit suicide and 19% of those succeed, which is a tragically high number.) Mixed episodes are much rarer, but these are the ones where I need intervention from loved ones (or oftentimes, from my ancestors or spirit guides) to keep me grounded until it passes. 

Every time I survive an episode, whether it’s a manic one or a depressive one or a mixed one, I feel changed. I feel stronger. I feel wiser. I feel more seasoned as a warrior. Almost as if each episode is a spiritual battle that promises to kill me, and if I beat the odds, if I look into the belly of the beast and survive, if I can live in the darkness or chase the fire and fuck the devil, I level up in my own abilities and insight. Finally, I can participate in the world again in the ways that I want. Finally, I can come back to some consistency and stability, and offer up my gifts and my creativity to humanity. But how long will that last? I never know. 

And every time I return, my magnetism increases just a little bit and people respond to me or my work more powerfully because of these initiations. I often create my best work after a very difficult episode. The thing I have always heard from people is that my work makes them feel seen. Here’s the hard truth: the only reason I make people feel like that is because of all the places my mental illness, my sensitivity, and my spirituality have taken me. I have helped others not because I appear healthy and stable and am “controlling” my mental illness - I have helped others because I am constantly on a train ride from heaven to hell and back again. I wouldn’t have those tools to give you if I hadn’t been in the position where I needed to create them to survive. (My book I Don’t Want To Be An Empath Anymore, is filled with tools that I originally created to help myself deal with my deeply empathic nature and my many emotions.) I’ve been thrust into so many energies, so many experiences, so much pain, so much pleasure, that now I can relate to many different people in many different situations. I can pull on the thread of a single emotion and unravel an entire universal energetic pattern in the collective. I can travel to the underworld to retrieve a piece of someone’s soul and succeed only because I know the terrain so well. It’s a second home to me now. My abilities, my creativity, isn’t due to me “overcoming” anything. It’s due to my consistently chaotic existence of ecstasy and madness and tears.

Many times, my episodes start or end at the same time of cosmic events like full moons and eclipses. Some spiritual people would say that that means I’m simply extra sensitive to cosmic energy and it’s not mental illness. Some would say I’m especially mentally ill for even thinking it’s connected to the stars. But the truth is that it’s both - I’m connected to the stars AND I have a mental illness. I don’t feel the need to cast one truth aside to make the other one more digestible for anyone. 

The spiritual community is quick to tell me that mental illness isn’t real, which invalidates my daily lived experience and suffering, while the psychiatric community is quick to tell me my mystical experiences are just psychosis, which invalidates my sacred connection to my life and to God. Well, they’re both wrong. My mental illness is real. And so are my mystical experiences and the art I create from them. In fact, they’re inextricably linked and they inform one another. But there seems to be no space for me to be everything I am, no space for me to hold the tension between these contraries. They want me to choose. I’m either crazy or I’m a shaman, I can’t be both. And then someone else breaks me down even further and tells me that my creativity comes directly from my illness and that it’s my destiny to suffer. And then someone else says that the illness is a lie and everything created from it is harmful and not real creativity. The whole scene is just one big clusterfuck, really. But I choose to hold my ground because they’re all wrong. And they’re all right. Everything is true, and nothing is real. (And everything is real, and nothing is true.)

Because of these polarized versions of what someone with a mental illness looks like or does or acts like or simply is, daily life can become strange. Most of my life it’s been like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. But honestly, my survival skills have always been strong and I play at being a round peg really well. I can use all of my tools and my skills to be a high functioning, even successful, person, both professionally and personally. Sometimes I’ll tell someone I have bipolar disorder, and their response is, “Wow, I had no idea.” As if “Wow, I had no idea.” Is a compliment. They don’t realize it but they’re basically complimenting me on my ability to hide myself and act normal enough to blend in so my psychological extra-ness doesn’t show. They don’t see the hours I’m in bed, in tears and unable to move, or the days my mind is on fire and I’m pacing the room trying to keep it from exploding into recklessness. They see me showing up with work responsibilities and being there for friends and being independent. For the most part, I can maintain a non-mentally ill facade. Short-term memory issues can be a common problem with bipolar disorder though and I do struggle with that at times. I make so much space for my emotions and moods to process in the healthiest way possible that I don’t often have a lot of extra room in my head for logistics, but most of the important people know that I’m a person who needs reminders for that kind of thing. (But once you remind me, I can remember the exact emotion I was feeling in its entirety when you first told me, and even what surrounding things were on my mind.) But for the most part, I get caught in this image of the pulled-together neurotypical person they see me as, and I cling to it. I strive for it. It’s easier to not be bipolar to them. Easier for them and easier for me. But…it’s only easier until it’s suddenly not. And then I realize I have no support to get me through the tough waves, the deep waves. 

On the other side though, I also know what it is to be seen as the crazy girl with bipolar. I’ve had my emotions dismissed because of my mental illness. I’ve had my anger not taken seriously because sometimes it’s easier for others to incorrectly attribute my behavior to my mental illness rather than take accountability for their actions reflected by my razor-sharp emotional perception and ability to see psychological patterns in others. If you see me as mentally ill, you get a pass on doing some of your own work when I reflect things back to you. I’ve even had someone break up with me because I was “too mentally ill.” As if mental illness cancels out my basic human need to be loved and respected. Honestly though, my biggest fear with being seen on this end of the spectrum is that because I’m also spiritual and a witch, it would be incredibly easy for someone to dismiss my work and my writing as passing madness. I am always slightly terrified that mental illness stigma could bastardize the work that I have paid for dearly with my time and energy and sometimes sanity. 

For a mentally ill person, there aren’t many other ways to be seen besides these two extremes. And it’s not even anyone’s fault. Our society is woefully ill-equipped to see, accept and integrate mentally ill folks into it. “Treatment” methods have always been to pluck the afflicted from mass population and “treat” them in isolation. Not because it’s better for the afflicted and their recovery (it’s not) but because it’s easier for the mass population to remove them from their way of life. (I dare you to google the history of psychiatry and mental illness management…) And because of this, there’s still this modern cultural programming that mental illness does not fit into society and the productivity of society, and whatever doesn’t fit must be plucked and isolated and eliminated. So of course people don’t know how to see and validate those with mental illness. And of course those who suffer from mental illness are still scared to talk about it openly. We don’t want to have to watch your face as you look at us and decide whether we’re normal-passing enough for you to be comfortable with us, or a high risk for insanity so you won’t take us seriously or respect us.

Being spiritual only makes the dynamic more complex, especially in this new-age, life-coaching, positive hustle period. Being normal-passing and working (especially if you own your own businesses) can idealize this idea that a mentally ill person has “overcome” or “healed” their illness, since being able to produce content reliably in capitalist society is what often determines success. But 1.) this only serves to promote the stigma that a mental illness is something you have control over and can snap out of or fix. And 2.) these are standards of success created by the patriarchy and not necessarily the true standards for each individual, so demanding that a sensitive person with mental illness be reliably productive in society is actually repressing that person and forcing them to pretend they’re the round peg when they’re really the square peg. Repressing is not overcoming or healing. And let me be clear here - I don’t think these standards for success and productivity are healthy for anyone in general. But imagine applying these to sensitive or mentally ill people who can’t consistently stay grounded into reality. 

These misaligned pillars of success and isolation create an untenable way of life for those who struggle with mental illness. When I was first diagnosed at 15, no one knew how to handle me. It was way above the comprehension of my friends, and open communication about that kind of thing didn’t exist within my family. No one ever asked me about it or talked about it. It was ignored. And honestly, now that I’m an adult and I can see the bigger picture, I don’t blame my family for not being a support system to me. At the time, not even my psychiatrists or psychologists were advocating education and communication in family systems or communities. Everything was kept hush hush, and I developed this subconscious belief that I was a burden on everyone because of my mental illness. And ironically, most of my independence and strength, and even my limited success so far in life, came from this wounded belief. So I have my gratitude for it. I have seen how strong I can be. I’ve played the capitalist game. I’ve watched myself rise from the ashes time and time again. I’ve constantly undressed myself and redressed myself to figure out how to make this whole thing work. But now, after 17 years of this, I am fucking exhausted. And for the most part, I’m alone. I know that I have a lot of people who love me and respect me, but because of that engrained isolation belief, I don’t let people in all the way, and I also pull away from people when they try to let me in all the way. Because I don’t want to be a burden. Because I have been trained to believe that mental illness, that psychological other-ness, deserves separation and isolation. Even when I fiercely advocate to my clients and readers that support is key, that same advocation tends to bounce off the mirror and miss me. 

Even having this realization has started to open me up to deeper friendships and deeper intimate relationships with others. Talking about my mental illness with the people I care about is already paying off in spades. I currently have a handful of friends who support me and a romantic partner who thrives on holding these contraries with me and loving me more for it. I realize now that the less I talk about it, the more that people try to categorize and label me (for better or worse) for the specific parts of me and not the whole. Which is fair, because I haven’t stepped up to correct them. Some people who have seen my stable creative bursts think they understand me and praise me for it. Some people who have seen my dramatic expressions of negative feelings think they understand me and judge me for it. Bipolar people often feel sliced up by others, fractured, and only loved when certain conditions are met. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that people with bipolar disorder are masters at holding and understanding binaries and contraries in creative ways (it might not surprise you to learn that my spiritual foundation is based on Taoism), and this is something that should be honored and integrated into communities for the betterment of society. There’s a magic to mental illness. Society has often recognized and idealized that magic in the artistry of the isolated and suffering manic depressive, but most of the time this happens posthumously, once people have had the space to selfishly reflect on it, separated from the true source of it. But the true magic will happen when we bring them into the community rather than separate them and only consider accepting their gifts after they die, often from suicide. 

Do I have the answers on how to do this? I don’t. I’m over here figuring it all out as I go. I have just as much wounding and conditioning to wade through as anyone else. But now that I know what I know, and I’ve seen what I’ve seen, advocacy for community support and acceptance feels incredibly important. I want to figure out ways to shift the conversation and the way people think about bipolar disorder and mental illness in general. I don’t want to continue playing on either side of the line, never being able to be fully “out” with either my mental illness or my spirituality. I want to figure out how to extend self-care into community care, and how to bridge the gap between spirituality and mental illness, without pushing away or degrading either side. I don’t want to have to hide and isolate this intricate dance I do with my fire on a daily basis. I want the world to recognize my fire as brilliant, as tragic, as beautiful, as unpredictable, as everything. 

I have bipolar disorder. And I’m also a spiritual leader. 

Intuitive Breadcrumbs and a Bouquet of Dicks

In March of this year, I arrived in DC excited to check out the dating scene. I revamped my Tinder profile, uploading this illustration/painting of a bouquet of dicks surrounded by flowers onto my pics. I thought it was funny and also adorable. I guess I’m the kind of person who thinks a bouquet of dicks is adorable. Well, it got me kicked off Tinder almost immediately. So I had to use other apps and methods to meet people even though Tinder was my fave. 

Fast forward - in September, I left DC (the city really wasn’t for me) to explore my next move. I had decided to try out housesitting in various places for awhile until I knew where I wanted to settle down for at least a couple of years. I’ve been moving around a lot in the last handful of years and I’ve been feeling the call to root down and stabilize. 

(Keep following me here, it all connects, I promise.) 

My very first housesitting gig was two weeks in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which is just north of the Illinois border. I was driving through the area on my way back to Minnesota so it worked out perfectly. My first week there, I was searching through old e-mails, looking for something, and found some from an abusive ex, which was very triggering for me. It made me feel really lonely, so I decided I wanted to meet someone new while I was in town, since obviously I didn’t know anyone there already. 

I used a random app, one I never really used and didn’t even like, since I was still kicked off Tinder. And it was a very small town - very small dating pool. But I matched with this man who was an hour away. We met soon after. Turns out, we were immediately compatible and we fell for eachother hard. Even once I left my housesitting gig, we talked every day. He flew out here to see me. I won’t get into details too much here but suffice it to say it’s a relationship that’s equally healthy AND thrilling. And it showed up completely out of nowhere when I wasn’t looking for it. And now, I’m planning to move to the Chicago area to be with him and to get my own place to ground into, and to stabilize for a few years while I focus on creative projects. This move has been years in the making and honestly, I really just needed an anchor of love and support to help me get there.

If I wasn’t kicked off Tinder for a bouquet of dicks, if I didn’t move away from DC when I did because of my dislike of the city, if I didn’t decide to try out housesitting for what ended up being that one single gig in Wisconsin (somewhere I never would have stopped otherwise), if I hadn’t have been triggered by some old e-mails, if he didn’t set his dating parameters on the app as far as he did, none of this would have happened and I wouldn’t be on the current adventure I’m on. 

It’s easy for us to recognize the intuitive breadcrumbs to follow when those synchronicities are happy and magical. When we draw an oracle card and it fits perfectly with something someone said or something you saw. When you get a welcome surprise or you find money on the street. All of that is easy to follow. Easy to credit destiny. But when bad things happen, we tend to lose intuitive perspective and feel like because it’s bad, it means we’re on the wrong path. 

Alignment isn’t about always finding the happy breadcrumbs to lead the way. Alignment requires moves on both sides of Light and Dark, and those happenings that we consider bad are also breadcrumbs that are showing us the way. There’s just as much magic in our triggers and our disappointments, even if it’s harder to see through the intense emotions of them. 

And sometimes alignment means that our intuition gives us a plan to follow, only because putting that plan into action brings the real plan into view. And it’s easy to call yourself wrong or say that you made a mistake in your decisions, but it’s all breadcrumbs. Every step, every decision, every change.

Most people think that gratitude is the practice of positive thinking, but I don’t think that’s true. Gratitude is the practice of grace. Not necessarily forcing yourself to see the positive in each situation, but to appreciate the wisdom and information that situation gave you. To accept that the human experience is a full spectrum where you get to feel everything and constantly make different choices at every turn, following those intuitive breadcrumbs. It doesn’t mean you have to love every bad thing that happens to you, but it means that you can open your arms to grace and accept that those things directed you on your path.

Even if that path started with a bouquet of dicks. 

Mental Health Intentions for 2020

As 2019 comes to a close I’d like to draw your attention to the topic of mental health. I know there has been an overwhelming amount of people who have been touched by suicide in these last couple of months. (Or you know someone who has.) Mental health goals are just as important as physical or career or love goals. Professionals like therapists and healers can help you frame these goals if you are struggling. There is no shame in seeking help for mental health, whether you’re in crisis or just need a check-in. It’s too important to not have it as a priority. 

Here are some journal prompts to help you with your 2020 Mental Health Intentions:

1. How would you describe your mental health lately? 

2. Do you know your red flags for mental health decline? And on the flip side, do you know your green flags for improvement? 

3. Do you have tools for both self care AND community care? (They are very different.)

4. What is your support system like? Do you have plans in place with them for mental health intervention? 

5. Are you seeking professional help when needed? Do you know where to seek it? 

Keep talking. Keep bringing awareness to mental health. Make space in your life to have your own mental health as a priority, and help your loved ones do the same.

Be Gentle With Yourself

It’s been intense out there. There have been big losses and big wins this week, but in both cases, they have been hard fought. You’ve paid with your energy, with your fight, with your fire, with your boundaries. You’ve pushed yourself further than usual, for all the right reasons, but it still depleted you. You might be feeling a bit raw. So it’s time to be gentle with yourself as we move into the solstice this weekend. Let yourself recover a bit from all the work as you welcome the light again.

How can you be gentle with yourself? 

Ask yourself “How can I feel softer? How can I make my experience of the world feel softer right now?” 

Literally seek out soft things in your physical environment. Snuggles in fuzzy blankets. A warm bath. Clothes that are comfortable. Warm, soft winter foods, hot teas, and cool water. 

Allow yourself to stray from your routine if your routine feels too harsh. Make those accommodations for yourself without guilt, and allow yourself to accept more help from others. Receiving is key.  

Adjust your social media and entertainment intake. If all the extra information feels sharp and anxious, pull back. If you usually avoid it but it makes you feel comforted or connected, indulge more. 

Give yourself more time to do nothing. “Productivity” can often be the killer of softness because productivity is the art of slicing and building with precision and intent, while rest is following rounded edges and stillness. Productivity is a triangle and rest is a circle - reflect accordingly. 

Notice what level of touch your body needs to feel soft and safe. Would it feel more gentle to be untouched? To be held? Keep track of how it feels, since it can change from moment to moment. 

Remind yourself that it’s okay to be whatever you are. Feel whatever you feel. Don’t try to change your thoughts or behaviors right now, just allow yourself to add softness to whatever those thoughts or behaviors are. This is the art of seeing yourself and meeting yourself where you’re at. 

________________

Have a wonderful holiday week and if you’re still looking for a gift for you or a fellow sensitive, go pick up my book I Don’t Want To Be An Empath Anymore. :)

Of Course You're Exhausted...

This week’s report is coming at you early in preparation of the full moon on 12/12 which will occur at 12:12am. We’ve got twin angel numbers here (moon in Gemini also, so more twins!), representing culmination, the turning over of a cycle, love and partnership, and twin flame energy. 

If you’ve been dealing with a resurgence of emotional trauma coming up in the past few weeks, you’re not alone. It’s been a purging period. For myself, I’ve been exploring a new relationship and emotional intimacy which has put me ass-deep into a HUGE exhausting mess of old energies and fears rising up. It wasn’t until I realized what this full moon was that it all seemed to make sense. (Hey my fellow sensitive earth empaths - how often do we have to tell ourselves that we are crazy only to be reminded that we’re actually in perfect alignment with how the universe is shifting and moving? Goodness gracious.) 

So I want to encourage you to allow your purging this week leading up to the full moon. I want to encourage you that what you’re feeling doesn’t make you crazy. I want you remind you that even if you feel like you’ve been doing nothing but sitting in grief and you’re absolutely exhausted, you’ve actually been doing the Big Work.

Because of course you’re exhausted. 

When you’re actively working with emotional trauma, you are mediating between your body’s original responses to trauma, which can be incredibly visceral, your brain’s automatic conditioned responses and implications from that trauma, AND simultaneously teaching yourself a new way to process it and work through it. 

You are actively trying to calm your nerves, reminding them that what your brain is saying may not be true. You are trying to stop your brain’s impulse to send out the adrenaline alarm bells that create hormonal changes and stress in your body. 

You are calming your body, teaching it how to breathe again. How to relax its muscles. How to expand instead of contract. Teaching it how to feel safe, even when history and adrenaline is trying to convince it otherwise. 

You are feeling your feelings. You are doing your best to send out love and compassion for yourself when all you want to do is cry or give up or isolate. 

OF COURSE YOU’RE FUCKING TIRED. 

But you’re literally changing your brain. Your body. Your emotions. Your energy. You are changing everything. Shaking out the entirety of your experience and using a sifter to separate the dirt from the stardust. 

Don’t forget to reach out for help even when you tell yourself you can’t or shouldn’t. When you choose to reach out instead of isolating, you’re rewiring your brain to accept community and support. Don’t forget to rest. Eat plenty. Move and stretch. Sleep more than you think you need to. It’s okay to not be okay. 

Crying With The Moon

This week I cried with the moon. 

Not once, but twice. 

The first time, my period was really late. I knew it was coming, but it seemed trapped in my body, like it was waiting for something to happen first. I had so much anxiety, over both its lateness and many other things happening. I was working with some themes around feminine and masculine romance, and also pushing away some uncomfortable feelings brought on by that work. And so I drove up to the overlook, and was immediately taken by the sight of the large crescent moon, bathed in glowing red light. It was setting over the mountains, and I instantly and automatically cried. I gave her my fears and my insecurities and she accepted them. I said goodbye to the bleeding moon as she fell behind the mountains and went home, where I finally started bleeding the same night.

The second time, days later, I trudged into the woods through the fresh snow, my uncontrollable sobs echoing between the birch trees. For a few paces, I ran clumsily in my winter boots, as if I could outrun my feelings. Then I stopped entirely, looking up to the clouds…I knew it would be dark soon. I fell onto my knees from the sheer weight of my emotions and all the pain I was trying to pretend wasn’t there. But as I stared into the cloudy darkening sky, most of my body now submerged in snow, the moon, now much larger than before, peeked out for a minute, bright and demanding. Once again, she accepted my feelings. 

When was the last time you sobbed in a forest,

your breath labored against the silence of the snow,

because you knew your body could no longer hold the size of your emotions,

but the moon whispered to you that she could? 

Sometimes our bodies don’t have enough space for our feelings. We need release. We need a larger container. But the body has a wisdom of its own, and its wisdom often says, “Please. Take me somewhere safe.” 

Nothing compares to the complete acceptance of nature. No man or beast has the capacity for the true size of your feelings. But the moon does. The forest does. The goddess does. And so once again, in between sobs, I whispered my devotion to her as my primary lover in this world. 

Practices and Questions to Ask Yourself:

-When was the last time you took your feelings into nature? Have you ever cried in the woods? Screamed at the sky? Let yourself experience the kind of embrace nature gives you when you bring your feelings to her. 

-What feelings are too big to be held in your body? What feelings are too big to be held by others? How can you express them outside of your body? What does self-care look like for you when it comes to overwhelming emotions? 

Pumpkin Pie and Healing Ancestral Trauma

Everyone has a shadow side. 

We learn more about the light from the shadows than we do from the actual light itself. Without contrast, there is no growth and no understanding. 

The key to healing ancestral trauma is recognizing and knowing the shadow doppelgängers of your family members. To see each person as multiple people, and being willing and able to look at them in a multifaceted way. To approach with curiosity, not bitterness. To be prepared for compassion to replace any impulse for demonization. 

This week I dreamt that I was kidnapped by the shadow doppelgänger of my grandmother, and she demanded I go to live with her and my shadow mother, or as she put it, my “real mother.” I learned some interesting things about the both of them, and where their shadows were. I even called my mom afterwards to talk about it, and to figure out whether these shadow depictions were accurate. (They were!) And seeing it laid out like that gave me a clear path to ancestral patterns being passed down and passed up and altered with each generation. And honestly? Seeing them like that only filled me with more love and compassion for them. I mean, the shadow side of my female lineage literally asked me to come live with them. Which is a very clear call for shadow work and compassion and illuminates the areas ready for more love. 

After this nationwide holiday week filled with family time and many mixed dynamics, you may be feeling the same call. Whether you’re estranged from family, or need strong boundaries when with family, or actually feel very close to family, this energy of togetherness can shine a light on ancestral dynamics. So as I sit here, enjoying pumpkin pie and coffee for breakfast, I’d like to encourage you to take this opportunity to reflect on how you view the shadow doppelgängers of your family members and how those reflections may bring you more and more understanding on how to heal your line.

(note: this doesn’t mean you have to have any certain type of relationship with family members if it’s your choice not to. You can still do this kind of work from your end without any real-world contact.)

Practices: 

Clear yourself - use smoke cleansing, ritual baths/showers and nature to clear yourself of any excess energy taken on from family time. 

Gratitude - no matter what your experience with family is like, hold onto at least a thread of gratitude for the things that make you feel loved so you may weave together more. 

Cord Cuttings - this is a great time for cord cuttings if you’re trying to break a certain dynamic or pattern with someone 

Journaling - try journaling and creating shadow characters for your family members so you can begin to separate out their aspects. Once you’ve developed characters for their shadows, you can have an intentional relationship with those aspects so you can learn even more about how to heal ancestral patterns. (This is very similar to the Victims and Villains exercise in my book I Don’t Want To Be An Empath Anymore) 

Riding Blue Whales and Shouting "Fuck" Into The Void

After many weeks of not remembering my dreams, I dreamt I went swimming with a blue whale. She put her enormous face towards me, so I could nuzzle her cheek lovingly as she blinked slowly in recognition. And then she let me slide onto her back as she took me on a ride.

The cool thing about blue whales is how they take up space. They’re the largest animal in the world, even bigger than dinosaurs. The reason they can get that large is because the water is what supports them and not their own frames. If they had to support themselves, they couldn’t. But because they rely on the ocean to carry them, they can continue to expand into the space they’re in. 

The metaphor is almost too beautiful. How many times has your power diminished for the sake of fitting into a specific space that wasn’t meant for you? How often do you quiet yourself, shrink yourself, primp yourself, lie to yourself, or stunt your own growth, to match your surroundings? To fit into the space you are “supposed” to fit in. 

What if you just…didn’t. What if you knew with absolute certainty that the Universe was on your side, supporting you and your power even when you couldn’t support it yourself? What if you expanded and took up more space? Took up different space? Created entirely new space just for yourself? This is the primary message she had for me as I rode on her back through the water.

The thing about taking up more space is that you kinda have to say it out loud, like a verbal handshake with the Universe. That’s where mama whale helps again…her calls are can be heard from hundreds of miles away. That’s some clear communication! I think when you take up that much space, and you inhabit such a vast environment, being a clear communicator is a necessity. Clear communication is the best way to express boundaries. You must be able to express them verbally, too. Thinking them isn’t enough. Especially if you’re going to be a powerful oneironaut traversing the universe with grace. 

Let’s practice being fierce spiritual blue whales. Try shouting this into the void. Or into the comment section. Or into the face of your ex. Your call. 

They may say your body is wrong. Too big. Too small. Too pretty. Too ugly. 

Fuck you! This is my physical body and it takes up space! 

They may tell you to stop being so emotional. 

Fuck you! These are my emotions and they take up space! 

They may say that no one cares about your opinion.

Fuck you! This is my voice and it takes up space! 

I really like the therapeutic qualities of shouting “fuck” — it expels a lot of energy. So I always recommend it. It’s a great shortcut for expressing power and confidence. But whale energy is easy. So once you’ve practiced shouting “fuck” into the void, it’s time to settle into the ease of taking up the space that is meant for you. Whales don’t need permission to be. Whales don’t care about the opinion of fish. They move with grace and elegance. They exist because they know there is more than enough space for them to do so and they have the discernment to know where their space is. (A blue whale would quickly die in a desert.)

Affirmations: 

I trust that the Universe supports my expansion. 

I verbalize my boundaries clearly to others so I can expand into myself even further. 

I recognize which spaces are for meant for me and use discernment in expanding into them. And at the same time, I recognize which spaces were not meant for me but I am destined to expand into for the betterment of the world. 

Keywords/themes: Listening to and following intuition, taking up space, trusting the universe, allowing yourself to be, using clear communication, verbalizing boundaries 

Other influences: With Mercury Retrograde now at an end, now that you’ve reviewed and sifted through those deep relationships or patterns that aren’t compatible with the space you now need - allow yourself to take up what you need to grow. 

Extra practices: 

Singing - clears your throat chakra, gives you power, and it just feels so damn good

Work with Boundaries - make sure to read the chapter on boundaries in my book I Don’t Want To Be An Empath Anymore, for more detailed practices. 

Dreaming - start a dream journal, even if you think you don’t remember your dreams. Even starting by writing down the tiniest details or just the feeling you woke up with, will open up your dreams quite easily. 

Reality - Watch a doc on underwater creatures. Oh the things you’ll learn! 

Journaling Exercise - journal about the different spaces that you live in. The ones that you’re expected to fit into, the ones that people try to push you into (and the ones you try to push yourself into), the ones that you wish you could be in. Bringing awareness to the way you take up space in your life is the first step to changing how you approach it. 

Once you realize how you’re operating in the space you’re in, you can call upon the blue whale to help you expand and grow into the realest and truest version of yourself. 

____________________

can we all just be real people for a sec?

Sometimes I fall down this particular rabbit hole…the rabbit hole of spiritual cults. I read a bunch of articles on past and current spiritual cult leaders, I rewatch the documentaries on Netflix, I google for connections between various cult leaders and verifications of their actual histories vs. the extraordinary accounts offered by the leaders themselves. 

And it drives me fucking crazy. 

By the time the day is through, I have vowed to myself that I will never work in the spiritual industry ever again. I’ve decided that I refuse to have one more conversation about “higher consciousness” ever. again. 

Of course, I’ve done this at least a dozen times. But spirituality is a part of how I see the world, how I express myself, and I always come back to it in my own quiet (or loud) ways. I can never truly escape it. Probably because there’s nothing tangible to actually escape from. But it makes me sick to see how often spiritual leaders have been abusers. Even figures like Ghandi and Osho aren’t innocent in this. Outrageous displays of narcissism and inappropriate expressions of sexuality towards followers have been reported about nearly every single spiritual figure out there, on all levels, from local to international, dead and alive. 

It’s almost too easy for spiritual leaders to abuse. They have enough philosophical information, enough of an understanding of spiritual principles, and enough false humility, to garner the attention and respect of normal, smart people. Who wouldn’t agree with calming the mind and conquering your fears, becoming one with your higher self and the god consciousness? But then comes Act II, where that universal spiritual knowledge gets twisted and bastardized. Cult leaders know how to find the spiritual wounds in the soul, and they know how to pretend to fill them. And brainwashed followers are born. 

It makes me so angry that anyone would take such pure spiritual wisdom and twist it to fit into their own intentions. But the more I trace it back, the more the true problem reveals itself: We shouldn’t be “following” anyone. 

We’re always looking for a savior. We’re always looking for the superhuman, the supernatural, to lead us. We’re always looking for that thing that’s *more* than human. Because human is flawed. Human is boring. Human is undesirable and dirty and evil. 

But what if human is what is truly divine? 

What if it’s really a complete snore that we’re all magical aliens from various cosmic places with  hidden superpowers and agendas that will like, totally raise the consciousness of the whole world. What if every other person is a reincarnated deity, and every other person apart from those people are half-fairy quarter-mermaid mindreaders? What if that shit is what’s really standard and boring? 

For real, fuck all of that for a minute here. 

For a moment, let’s imagine that the truest and most spiritual manifestation of a person is someone who is fully committed to being a normal human being on this planet in a normal human being body, doing normal human being things, and having normal human being feelings. 

What if I don’t care that you’re really an angelic being with healing powers that would make all the saints jealous? What if I care more that you intentionally have a kind conversation with the disabled woman behind you in line at the coffee shop? What if I don’t care that you have an online subscription site that has 200,000 members and your mission is to heal the world? What if I care more that you apologize when you’re wrong, and regularly tell your people that you love them? What if I don’t care that you saw Jesus when you were 7? What if I care more that you rescued a shivering dog from the side of the highway? What if I care more about how you found hope after your devastating breakup than how you channeled Isis the other day? 

We came to this planet to be human beings. We came to experience the messiness of love and heartbreak and community and isolation. We did not come into the world of humans to be nonhuman. And anytime we raise others or ourselves to a nonhuman spiritual status that deserves “followers”, we betray the divinity of humanness. 

Yes, let’s support brilliant minds and fearless leaders and lift up the work that will heal our broken hearts, but let’s make sure that those minds are real and human and humble. Let’s raise up those that can admit that they fuck up, but who strive to repair relationships and love fiercely anyways. 

You can train yourself to see the dogma in others. You can train yourself to see the dogma in yourself. (I know this is dumb and cheesy but you realize that dogma spelled backwards is “amgod” right?) 

Let’s adjust our gauges of what wisdom looks like and begin our adoration at the level of the mundane. There is a deeper current of magick there. Maybe a dirty and unglamorous version of it, but that version is the true essence of why we’re here. 

Let’s change the way we build relationships. It’s all too easy to make friends and build relationships on similar ideologies and our nonhuman qualities. This is the benefit, and the drawback, of social media and online communities. You can easily find your “tribe” this way. Oh, a group for crystal healers? Yep, so there. A group for single moms who are buddhist vegans? Cool, yeah. Queer femme witches? Click, join. There’s nothing wrong with finding people who understand you on these levels. And it can be super healing too. But too much of it and we find ourselves only embarking on relationships where these conditions are met first. Anyone who doesn’t meet these superhuman qualities right off the bat, and they’re not “our people”. 

And I get it, I’m really guilty of this too. Nothing has informed me of this more than living in this tiny town in Northern Minnesota, where who I am is a bit of an anomaly. But the more I cling to those superhuman standards, the less I meet or talk to anybody new, and the more I reject everyone for stupid reasons. But ya know what? When I talk to the stranger in the YMCA sauna about the weather, or when I greet someone hiking on the same trail, or when I apologize to someone I accidentally bump into in the grocery store, I can feel the current of humanity running through me. And I’m just a boring human, just like everyone else is. And it’s beautiful. And real. And where this all should start. 

If being a boring human is the baseline for divinity, and is the only requirement for being worthy of love, then any problem or disagreement can always start with love. If every relationship is built on the camaraderie of the human experience rather than whether you think energy vampires are real or aliens are secretly running the government, there’s more space for heart-centered discourse. 

I can easily see this in my own interactions. With the friends that I’ve had for decades, those relationships are based on love and shared experiences as human beings over the years, so even when our ideologies clash, we approach each other with love and humanness (or try our best at least), because that’s what we started with and we don’t want to lose eachother. And even if we will never meet up in some of our beliefs, we both become kinder, more compassionate people to differences in general as a result. We become more aware of our personal stories that influence those ideologies. But if some dude I don’t personally know is posting on my Facebook wall with clashing ideologies, I verbally slay him and/or block him. And that’s totally fine - I’m not saying you have to be nice to the assholes you don’t know. (And you have to know where your own personal lines of unacceptable ideologies are crossed…) But if I can approach every new relationship on the baseline level of being regular humans together, I’m increasing future opportunities for compassionate discourse because I am making space for each human being’s story. 

If our focus in this world is on our experiences as humans, we don’t need spiritual gurus. We don’t need to follow anyone, because we’re kind of following everyone. Storytelling becomes our guru, humanity becomes our leader. And it’s not that we can’t also be magical fairy alien angel people with cool abilities and shit, but that shouldn’t be what defines us. That shouldn’t be how we categorize our worth and the worth of others. 

No one is better than anyone else. 
We’re all just shouting into the void. 
And even if some of us have more elegant things to shout into it, 
the void doesn’t discriminate. 
So let's just be real people, k? 

xoxo, 
Ora

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(PS Did you know my book I Don't Want To Be An Empath Anymore is available?! Cool. Just checkin.)