The following is a journal entry from this evening. I’ll provide a little bit of background before I share the entry. I have been going through an amazing process of healing with an amazing woman. She is helping me dismantle so many years of limiting beliefs and ancestral trauma. This last week we discussed the women in my family. The following entry is my brain processing all of the information that I took in. As I read over what I wrote I laughed a little because the revelations or “AHA” moments only carry one sound, “DUH!” I can honestly tell that you that often times the things I have been so afraid to confront have resulted in that response. Sometimes it guts me from the inside out and other times I laugh at myself and think, “THAT is what you have been avoiding?” Before I get to long winded, I will just share the entry now. And if you are currently working on healing your heart from trauma, I see you. I honor you. The light in me recognizes the light in you.

Tuesday, August 18, 2020 New Moon

I am my own now. As Julianna guided me to say those words I started to cry. Up until that moment I had never uttered such words before. It was foreign. I  am my own now. I am my own now. What does that even mean for my life moving forward? Years and years of generational beliefs released in the amount of time it takes to utter five words. Here’s the thing about generational and ancestral DNA, it was never mine. It was never theirs. And still it’s handed down like fine china. It’s who we are. Right? I don’t know how many times I have heard myself say, “I am who I am because of the women who went before me.” That’s the thing.  How could I be something that was never me to begin with? The bitterness? The suffocation? Every time I shoved my feelings down deeper? Or the fact that I am familiar with the salty taste of my own blood because I bit my tongue so hard it bled? Each time I have muted myself to make others more comfortable? I have done this since I was a little girl. We are strong women I was told. If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all. Keep your suffering quiet. That’s what women do. Deny yourself every day. That’s what good Christian girls do after all. Feel nothing. And when you do? Be quiet. Swallow the lump in your throat. That’s far easier than opening your mouth and using your voice. Don’t make waves. It seems these beliefs run far deeper then my own mother. Or even her mother. These skewed narratives have been apart of our DNA makeup for a very long time. Too long. The moment I released these ties to these women in my lineage I felt an immediate sense of relief. I am my own. Over the last few days I have been so emotional and incredibly sad. Sad that these women who lived before me have been so shut down. When things became uncomfortable for my own mother she left. That is incredibly heartbreaking. My sadness very quickly turned into rage. Holy fucking rage. I am here present day wading through the darkness and the rubble to heal what they could not. To be my own. To heal for them. To heal for myself. I am doing this incredibly difficult work so that one day my great, great, great granddaughters can be proud of where they came from. So they will truly know that they are were they are because of a woman who became her own. A woman who healed the ancestral cycle. So they will never suffer in silence. So they may never deny themselves for any person, religion or thing. So when they do suffer (for we are human after all) that it’s done in the loudest, most obscene manner. So they never know the taste of their own blood in their mouths. So they may KNOW themselves. So they use their voices. LOUDLY. So they never have to wade through the wreckage. So they know their worth. So they realize they don’t need to make waves because they are the god damn ocean itself. SO THEY ARE THEIR FUCKING OWN. Just as the woman who cried over those very words and felt the relief for the women who would long come after her. “I AM MY OWN” will be the words echoing in the hearts and mouths of these women for years to come.