I keep finding these amazing beautiful pieces of myself pieces that I have always kept a little hidden in the shadows because I was told over and over in my life that I was too much.

I have been patiently working on myself and learning that being authentically me is the only way to bring to the feelings to the surface to heal and let healthy me shine through.

The thousands of pieces of myself that felt shattered on the floor have all turned into lessons that I have found and turned into wisdom. These pieces are profound for me as I have been successfully navigating post traumatic growth for some time now.

One piece at a time.

Over and over again; daily, for years, forever, as a lifestyle.

I created a post traumatic growth lifestyle for myself by picking up each piece of me, one by one by one, then utilizing every single skill and resource that I had available to me to put myself back together. I figured it out!

It’s rather complex to articulate, but here is my best effort.

The path to healing is through all of the things you are currently afraid of.

There is no magic pill, or anything like that. So if that is what you are after I will save you my wordy explanations and tell you sorry, this ain’t that.

This isn’t going to be easy. It wasn’t easy for me, my family or those I had to leave behind to grow.

It is hard, but well worth every ounce of effort, paid back to you in the fulfillment feeling you can achieve for your life, loves and legacy you are probably scared to create. I was!

I was scared of losing everything we had worked for. I even wrote it somewhere a thousand times or so in a journal. I was scared of the reality that I was creating right before my eyes.

When I began to observe myself I began to take note of the pieces of me that were facing the most obstacles.

It’s not until I recognized the patterns that I could trace them back to what I believed could be the why for those thoughts, feelings and experiences I was cycling within those patterns.

Once I had the observation I was able to then take a corrective action with myself by using my concept of helping vs hurting.

I observed and judged my situation based on my values, applied what I wanted to do better at, and made my trauma informed decision with all of the facts that I had, plus some research to make sure that I didn’t miss anything. (My ocd is so prominent when I write it out like this… superpower ocd!) I like to be super informed as the CEO of my life.

I make an excellent case for ocd because I over think for the purpose of over-delivery.

My pieces shattered all over the floor it provided opportunity. My life had already kind of imploded all over. My Symptoms were at an all time high due to the stresses that my medical issues placed on every relationship in my life, but most importantly the one I had with myself.

Things were not working so I decided to square one myself in lots of ways. It may have been over-whatever, that’s my style of chaos. I was comfortable there. With everything a mess I started from scratch, and stepped back on square one. I learned about emotions and energy, I learned until I felt confident again.

With all of this I was able to clearly see that I was having altered thought patterns and I shared all of this with people I loved.

As I began to do my work and shift for myself the people that I love were triggered by my trauma healing attempts in whatever ways my journey affected them.

Unfortunately it is often only when people feel triggered themselves that they feel any urgency around cleaning the air about the “pieces of you” that are bothering them.

When someone feels victimized they are unable to actually see that the “pieces of me” that they believe are about me that bother them are actually about the “pieces of them” that they need to bring the light to and find their own lessons. Anytime someone is triggered by you it is a reflection of a hurt inside of them; not you.

I was triggered by a plethora of scenarios that would have seemingly “rolled off my back” but the reality for me is that I hid lots of me to be accepted. I people pleased and left myself last in line for the love that I give so freely to everyone else.

I’ve been traumatized my whole life, and been learning ways to live with it in peace, and love.

We as a society do not respect mental health like we should and trauma is largely ignored, even though it is the root cause of nearly every single disease or syndrome of the central nervous system/ autoimmune system.

There has been no real education or advice that has become a known productive best practice for mental health support of loved ones who are attempting to navigate mental health, let alone getting them safely to post traumatic growth.

But there does come a point when you can start to blame someone for “trying” especially when their trying is blatantly ignorant to your expressed needs. Because no matter what as a human we need to have our expressed needs respected as a baseline. If someone doesn’t have the capacity to respect your needs they do not deserve space in your life. Every human deserves respect as a baseline no matter the relationship, anything less is hurting not helping.

It is when we start to love and respect our authentic selves that we can begin to look at those pieces and turn them into the wisdom that they are intended to be.

Those pieces that you are afraid to look at do not have to have control anymore fear doesn’t have power if you are not afraid. Those pieces only have power because they keep you afraid.

Everyone has pieces, let them be the lessons that turn into the wisdom that propel you forward.

That’s what I’ve done with all the pieces of me!

-B. 💋