In the photos above, I was purely, joyously me. No fucks given; annoyingly, blissfully happy.
I wouldn’t know until the summer of 2021, after suffering some pretty traumatic and painful menstrual cycles, that at the age of 8 I started to hide who I was. Given the dynamics of my family and religious upbringing, it was no longer safe to be me. I must conform to the tribe or who would take care of me?
When these things happen, you don’t consciously know you’re doing it. Or I didn’t. I was trying to be a good girl, accepted by my peers and my family. Interestingly enough, there was already a divide, and in order to fit in in both groups, I had to change who I was. I was constantly hiding who I was to be who I thought those around me wanted me to be. A shapeshifter of sorts.
This served me well for a while. In hindsight, I can see where it was going wrong and how my behaviors were a cry for help to the inner child who so desperately wanted to be set free.
Through my own healing and self-empowerment adventure, I started to post on Facebook some pretty raw shit I had been through and/or realized about myself and my life. It felt so good (I mean it was scary as hell), but it felt like freedom. I was owning all my stories and all my shit that I tried to keep covered up for so long. I was vulnerable and real and completely honest.
As the world started to change in the spring of 2020, it was no long safe to share. The world had started a campaign of vile meanness when your opinions or experiences did follow the groupthink of the day.
I retreated back into the hiding I knew so well. In this group I said or didn’t say certain things. In that setting over there, I could be somewhat honest. There were very few people that I could be 100 percent me.
It’s lonely and heart wrenching to feel like if you were to expose the real you, the societal pack of wolves would tear you apart.
So you get really good at shapeshifting… Until you become miserable. I would have moments of darkness. Not because the world seemed grim because I had lost who I was.
Naturally you will stray from the groups that don’t accept you. They don’t even know that what they’ve said might be offensive to you because you’ve never shared your thoughts (for fear of ridicule or public shaming).
This all came to a head in early July of 2021. The pain emanating from my body, particularly my womb, was unbearable. Ten days that month, even when my cycle was over, the pain continued. When it finally stopped, to say I was relieved would be an understatement.
Knowing that this wasn’t a medical issue, it was my job to heal what needed to be healed. Quite honestly, I was pissed. I was pissed that my body betrayed me yet again. What I realize now is it was a cry for help. There was healing that needed to occur that I was either avoiding or wasn’t aware of.
I sat on pins and needs awaiting the next month. Please, please don’t be as bad. Luckily the duration was less but the pain was the same. I sobbed. Nothing I did would come close to touching the pain. I knew intuitively (and through the wise words of my mentor) I needed to sit with it and listen to my body, but when you’re angry, loving words and thoughts seem impossible.
As I struggled to sort things out myself, I sought some outside “help.” I chose three different modalities that all brought healing in their own ways. The common theme among the three: a seemingly insignificant incident in early June brought up feelings of not being good enough/smart enough. Instead of standing up for myself, I had learned that it was easier to say nothing and laugh it off, as if what was being said was true.
By the fall, my cycles had gone back to what they were previously, not fantastic but not like they were.
After I had made the decision to step away from my job/business and start pursuing what I really wanted and what had felt like my purpose for a long time, there has been no pain. What I thought was this mythical idea of loving your cycles has become a reality for the first time in 26 years.
Some may call it a coincidence; I say being truly me set me free.
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