A new chapter begins…
Dear Reader,
I’ve decided to stop pursuing sound healing as a business. I found sound healing during my healing journey. It helped me greatly, and I thought that meant that it would be a great business to pursue. The harder I tried to make it work, the farther away I felt from myself. Oops, I did it again.
As a human who has struggled immensely to understand her place in this world, I’ve attempted so many times to find “my path,” only for it to fall short. On each “wrong” path, so many “right” things happened, which is such a blessing. And now it’s time to let go of anything that isn’t a true expression of myself.
All of my past career choices came with burnout, or they never reached the success that was equal to what I put into them.I see now that it was, because my whole heart wasn't in it. I was trying to follow other people’s paths instead of allowing myself to forge my own.
All my life, I’ve attempted to make other people’s paths my own, and it doesn’t work. I’ve come to realize that to have true success in any path I choose, I must be obsessed, and it must come with a certain ease. With all my attempted careers, almost everything felt forced. When I was on the receiving side, as a client, the therapy or modality helped me tremendously, but I couldn’t truly find success on the practitioner side.
So what am I obsessed with? What is the thing that since my childhood I have lived and breathed every day? It’s Self-Mastery. Since the beginning of my life, I’ve been obsessed with finding the path to wholeness, connection, and joy. I’m figuring it out as I go, as there is no blueprint for me. I’ve always been searching for how to be in my fullest expression of myself while also contributing to the world. Now I see that just being in my fullest expression of myself is contributing to the world.
I have been a mental health therapist, and I have been on the other side as a client. I know what it takes to surrender to the faith that my life could be different. To have faith in myself that I could move through the world differently than I learned in childhood. Through the trauma of adoption, emotional neglect by my parents, and societal expectations, I learned that I didn’t matter, and it wasn’t safe to be who I truly was. I learned that I didn’t have body autonomy and to let people violate my boundaries. I learned how to bury my dreams and ignore my emotions. I learned how to read people and look for the tiniest “proof” that they wanted to leave me or didn’t like me. I held shame for breathing, and it was impossible to have healthy relationships.
I was covered in dirt for so long that I didn’t have a lot of access to my true self when I started trauma therapy.With therapy, I began to crawl out of the dirt. I threw myself into healing every area of my life. Little by little, I began to see myself transform from the inside out. I felt my defensive walls come down as I released the only view of the world I ever had. I learned how to feel safe in the world. I learned how to have boundaries with people. I learned how to go inward and make friends with my shadows, and how to express my pain in beautiful ways. Every year that goes by, I gain more and more self-trust. True progress is subtle, but it’s also tangible. Healing is an evolution, and it’s an unraveling of all the fabricated identities I put on for survival.
It’s been 8 years since I started that journey. In a way, it feels like I’m just 8 years old. Trying to start a successful business when I’ve had so much to conquer first. I forced myself to do things before I was ready. Of course, I will never be completely “ready,” but there’s a difference in stretching my nervous system, rather than shocking my system, which causes me to go into retreat mode afterwards.
I’ve been taking note of my natural habits and behavior without an agenda or a goal. I’ve been reflecting on my strengths rather than my weaknesses. I hesitate to say what I’m planning on doing now, because I don’t want to feel the pressure of “having” to do it. I want the freedom to just see what happens and allow whatever I do to unfold in my own time.
My expertise is navigating the world as a human who was relinquished and raised by my emotionally neglectful parents. I've learned how to express my emotions & experiences in creative ways through music, dance, and art, because I couldn’t use my actual voice for so long. I love going on retreats and I love writing. Of course, all of these things can come together to be something magical.
I came across a post recently that spoke about how if you keep hiding your magic, then how can the people that need your help find you? A big part of me doesn’t believe anyone is waiting for me to help them. But there is this other voice. A quieter, calmer voice tells me, people are waiting. So every day, I try to lean into that subtle voice more than the dismissive louder voice. Every day, I allow myself to be more of who I am, more of who I always was underneath the masks, the dirt, and the trauma
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I hope you found some of yourself in my words. May you follow your dreams, because there is a reason they are in your heart, and nobody will be able to bring them to life in the way you can. You are a beautiful, magical human. See you soon.
Stephanie