Path of recovery

Five things I have learnt in my journey of becoming whole.

Hello there and welcome,

THANK YOU as always for being here, I really do treasure your presence.

For many years now, I’ve been on a journey of coming back into wholeness, trying to restore and recover a sense of who I am after abuse and trauma.

I thought I might share with you, a few things I have learnt on this journey. They aren’t meant to be rules you need to follow, or things that will necessarily be right for everyone. But they are things I found that helped me, and, when I glimpse other peoples recovery journeys, it has helped me on my on path, and so maybe these five things will resonate with you or stir something up for you, do feel free to share in the comments if any of these resonate, or if there is anything you learnt that helped you.

Herikita

1- You cannot scrub away what has happened.

I spent years trying to scrub away what had happened to me, it lay like a dark stain inside, heavy, frightening and hard to carry and I just wanted a magical spray for the psyche, that melted it all away like ‘vanish’ does on clothes.

The wounded child, the victim, the ghosts, I locked them all in a prison cell within my body, suppressing the voices, the hurt and the confusion. Hoping that through abandonment, starvation and a lack of care, they would just die.

I spiritually bypassed my pain, my rage and my grief. I did ‘spiritual’ things that promised happiness or enlightenment without having to look at my stuff. A sort of ‘positive vibes only’ approach that with enough happiness and light everything would vanish.

And of course it didn’t, because it was there, needing love, attention and care to be able to alchemise and integrate, not ignoring, abandonment and gaslighting.

I tried lots and lots of other things too, such as alcohol, sex, hedonism, self sabotaging, busyness, constant distraction, people pleasing and concreting over my feelings.

But I have to remember in all of this - I had never received help back then for the things I went through. And I did what I could, with the shitty tools, limited resources and crappy stories I had been given to enable myself to survive, and I did survive, but it got to a point here the habits and behaviours that got me through, were killing me.

One day, a woman said to me, “you know what happened to you? you can never get rid of it, so you should stop trying, and instead, find ways to hold it, care for it and tend it”

To my surprise, this was such a relief to hear. That the grime, the weight, the extreme stories had happened, they were in me, they were part of me and I needed to learn how to support myself to love not what had happened, but the parts of me they had happened to. To find ways to bring such beauty and life affirming goodness into my life, that I felt nourished. It was around this time that I started to learn more and more about nature, weaving myself into a greater support system, into ensouled beauty and natures story of recovery.

It’s hard and exhausting trying to always hide from something, especially from oneself. The body, the soul, the psyche wants us to be well, whole and alive, and so it will keep trying to show us the areas that need holding, that need tenderness and attention, and we just cant run away from our own body, soul or psyche. We can find all sorts of ways to block it, suppress it, numb it and distract ourselves from it, but its exhausting to do so, and we end up scared of our feelings, scared of being alone with ourselves, scared of the quiet times, incase what is hurting, is felt and heard and we become scared of facing the abandoned parts of us that we have abused for so long.

So instead of trying to numb out, cut it off or hide parts of me, I started to pay them attention, bringing them into the light of awareness so they can become guides and teachers rather than something that was misleading me unconsciously from the shadows.

This kind of work needs to be done with care and kindness and a great deal of compassion towards oneself. I needed to find ways to honour my pain in manageable and safe ways. Remembering that I am my own gatekeeper, and just as I can open the gate, so too can I close it again when needed. I slowly learnt how to converse and commune with myself in ways that were supportive, kind and compassionate, and in doing so, the haunting within could integrate into the whole. For instead of pushing them away, I was bringing them closer into my heart.

2 - Inside your body, is an innate well of love that wants you to thrive and bring yourself fully into your days.

We are nature, just look at the very essence of nature, it is full of self love. Each being taking what they need to be whole, each being moving towards being fully them, and in doing so, becoming medicine for the whole. This way of being is natures MO, and because we are nature, it is ours too. Our body, heart and soul is always trying to guide us to what is right and good for us, we have just moved so far away from being able to hear, feel and communicate with our feelings, our sensory guidance, our bodily cues. But it doesn’t mean it’s not there, we just have to slowly slowly start to listen and feel and in doing so we need to not belittle what comes.

Tijana Lukovic

3 - The importance of time-travel.

Coming back to wholeness has been a journey of time travelling back to the child me before the truama and the taming really took hold, back to the time when I was closest to my soul, nearer to how it tasted, how it felt and the songs it sang.

That little one knew her own soul intimately, and so when I want to remember who Iam, I head back there and recall what lit me up, what my longings were, how I imagined life to be and how I felt. Time travelling in this way, is deeply healing, it tells a part of us that may have felt unheard or abandoned that actually they were right. It’s coming back and saying ‘hey, Im sorry I walked away, I was scared and trying to survive, but Im back and Im listening and I love you’

Saito Tomoko

4 - People will fall away and thats ok, good, even.

Becoming whole, means change, being human means change, being made of nature means change.

And as we decay parts of us, as we let go and compost what doesnt serve, we become excruciatingly aware of what and who no longer resonates or fits with our core. It can reach a point where we either have to swallow who we are and suppress our authenticity, or, we can back ourselves, choose being alive and true by letting friendships compost away too. It’s a natural thing, people change and not all at the same time, and we cannot expect them to change just because we have.

Amy Beager

5 - Self love is the first seed to sow

Because of the stories I had been given, the narratives that were handed down and the experiences I met, I believed, from a young age that I was unworthy, stupid, idiotic and always at fault. I didnt value myself, I didnt love myself and I didnt respect or care for myself. This meant that whatever I tried to grow or change never lasted, for I always found a way to push myself off the path as I didnt feel worthy of it. I also worried that if I tried to step out of the belief of being unworthy and stupid, I would end up being shamed and put back in my place. It wasnt until I decided to attend to my lack of love and care for myself that things started to change. It was as though that self hate was the concrete and weed killer that would always stop my garden growing into a wild medicine patch. Self love is like a dandelion, it will open the concrete, shift the stagnancy, create flow and remineralise the body, reminding us of the beauty and magnificence we still are, under the taming and the trauma.

Amy Beager

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Books I am loving lately -

God is an octopus - Struggling to comprehend the shocking death of his teenage daughter, Ben Goldsmith finds solace in nature by immersing himself in plans to rewild his Somerset farm.

Enchantment - From the internationally bestselling author of Wintering comes this balm for anxious times and an invitation to rediscover the feelings of awe and wonder available to us all.

Fable house - Is a beautiful children’s book, written by E.L Norry who came on a retreat I was leading. She is a wonderful and inspiring woman and this book is just like her in that way, AND, I inspired one of the characters! Miss Isolde.

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Things of interest -

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Plants -

Here are two little videos I made, both an ode to rose, you may have seen on my instagram already, but if you haven’t, I hope you can enjoy them here.

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Thanks again and much wild beauty to you

Brigit x