I Choose the Bear, Part 2
And life did go on, but it was never the same again…
Life went on. My mind blissfully forgot, but my body remembered.
Locked doors have keyholes, and keyholes have the space from which memories can trickle.
Living in the Shallow Waters of My Own Body
At the time, I didn’t know it, but I was checked out from my body. I lived in it, but only in its shallow waters. I made do.
I was surviving. I thought life was great… and on the surface, it was.
But beneath that surface, unprocessed trauma and the emotions it carried became the silent narrative of my life. The silent program running in the background.
I love love. I love to love and to be loved.
That has always been true. But that silent programming wasn’t fit to give or receive the kind of love I daydreamed about.
As I grow more comfortable sharing my full story, I’ll reveal the ways those unprocessed emotions manifested, because this unraveling was just the beginning.
At the time, I didn’t understand why I was stuck in a loop. I didn’t even realize I was on a hamster wheel. That’s how detached I was from my own humanity.
I didn’t yet know we are energy and that we attract what vibrates at the same frequency we’re emitting.
Actually, credit to 19-year-old me. I don’t remember the exact words, but I once posted on Facebook:
“If we attract who we are, and I keep attracting shitty people into my life… then am I a shitty person?”
Well, damn.
I was onto something. I just didn’t know it yet. That was a soul whisper I wasn’t ready to hear.
⸻
Therapy, Awakening, and the Records That Saved Me
In early 2021, I started talk therapy for the first time. I told my therapist I was ready to process my experience. She explained that what I had felt that night at Sports Authority was a visceral response to trauma — my mind checked out, but my body was trapped in it.
For ten months, we met weekly. She helped me connect the dots, speak my feelings instead of suppressing them, and begin nervous system regulation in ways I didn’t yet understand.
That journey came to a graceful close after my spiritual awakening. That’s when the Akashic Records became my therapist of sorts.
Through synchronicities, I found The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. I read the first chapter, then left it on my shelf for two years — until my 200-hour trauma-informed yoga teacher training assigned it.
I learned a lot. Realized a lot. Got triggered a lot.
The “online creeping” I mentioned earlier? That was my nervous system clinging to control. Hypervigilance. A survival strategy rooted in trauma. When you’ve been hurt or blindsided, the body starts scanning for threats, not out of trust, but out of fear.
⸻
Emotions are energy in motion. If they’re not felt, they’re repressed. They fester.
That visceral response at Sports Authority was my body blowing open the doors I’d locked that night.
From Mausoleum to Sacred Temple
Now, that I am more in tune with my spirituality, and realizing that I am not this body, but it is my body… I stopped treating it like a mausoleum and began revering it as a sacred temple.
I’ll skip over many stories for now, because I want to get to the happy ending.
I’ve learned the beauty of presence. The only moment that exists is now. Not two hours ago, not two hours from now. And to stay present, we must stay in our bodies.
If you’re uncomfortable in a room, you leave it.
If you’re uncomfortable in your body, you leave it — moving into your mind.
But life doesn’t happen there.
It’s my belief we’re meant to feel our way through life, not think our way through it.
⸻
The unraveling of that 2010 trauma led me down a path that wove together the spiritual, physical, and mental — my own Holy Trinity of healing.
I can do the work I do and hold the space I hold because my heart was broken… open.
When I stopped staring at the shattered pieces, I saw the spaciousness created within me. My heart broke open because I was ready to expand.
I travel — both physically and into the depths of my soul — to unshackle fragments and bring them back into the light.
The Akashic Records became my guide, showing me where emotions were stuck in my body. Then it was my choice: process and transmute, or let them fester.
Some took longer to face, and that was okay. I worked through layers of shame — shame for being defenseless, shame for blaming myself, shame for surviving in silence.
⸻
Healing is a spiral. Every time I circled back to this experience, I thought, I’ve already processed this. And I had, at that level. But each return brought me higher on the spiral, through new lenses, until the loop began to close.
Trauma is an energetic surge. Unprocessed, it loops endlessly. Closing it means sitting with the version of yourself who lived it, listening, and helping them rewrite their ending.
And that’s what I’m doing right now.
In telling this story, over and over these past weeks — I’ve been ready to listen. Ready to give myself the pen.
Now, the spiral’s tail is in sight. I’ve shared this story without emotional charge, a sign the somatic healing, therapy, spiritual work, and plant medicine ceremonies… worked.
I never let this define me.
But now I see it shaped me.
It planted a seed that sent me down the path of my healing journey. And in tending that seed, I’ve redefined who I am.
Dancing With Shadows, Returning to Light
I say this with utmost humility: The space I hold for others is unparalleled. I’m not afraid of the dark. Your shadows won’t scare me. I’ve danced with mine too many times.
The journey back to the self is one we must take alone… but not without support.
⸻
Over a decade ago, I read this quote:
“Someone I once loved gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that too was a gift.”
I believe there is a gift in everything. Sometimes it takes years to unwrap, but it’s there.
Would I have unwrapped this sooner with steady support? Yes. That’s why I’ve devoted my life to holding space for souls ready to explore their own dark, beautiful waters.
Because once you swim past the darkness, you find the gift. You find the light.
The greatest gift of all? The journey back to myself.
And in writing this, I’m ending the spiral.
This story has left my body. The endless chatter is quiet.
A new story begins. Now.
⸻
If you are still here, thank you for your presence.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, please know:
You are not alone. Your voice matters. Your healing matters.
📞 National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN)
1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
Free. Confidential. 24/7.
Originally posted on my Substack on 22 July 2025