All Gussied Up

Hey hey! Happy Thursday! I’m so nervous yet excited to share this post with you. It’s one I’ve wanted to share for a long time but I didn’t know how. My spiritual awakening has been a long yet fulfilling process, and it’s also difficult to share in terms of expressing the HOW. It’s not something that’s tangible, ya know? 

I’m writing this post because I know that many of you are going through an awakening and I have some tips to share with you. But I also want to share my story to give you a background.

I feel like awakenings aren’t talked about much, probably because people fear being called crazy or feel they’ll be misunderstood. I want to do my part to break this stigma!

My awakening story started back in 2013 when I got divorced. Omigod am I terrified to share this. So…ever since I was little, since I can remember, my intuition has been STRONG. I can read people, situations, and as an empath, I really feel and understand what others are experiencing. Even without spoken words. I had always listened to my heart as a child – most children do – and as we become adults, we use our hearts less to make decisions. 

I knew intuitively that my marriage was not going to last before I got married. I had shared this after my divorce with some people close to me and one came down hard with judgement, which maybe you’re thinking too as to why I went through with it if I had this intuition. The simplistic answer is that I ignored my feelings and I went with my brain vs. my heart. 

Fast-forward to the divorce. As I was going through it, I gained an understanding and knowing that I could create my own happiness and wholeness. You know that saying, “it is what it is”? Well, that’s what I really recognized. I accepted that this was my path and that listening to my heart would never serve me wrong. It was hard as hell but afterward, things in my life really started to align. I had the choice to pave the path being guided and protected. My wisdom was back and I promised myself I’d never let it go again.

Then, in 2020, probably like many of you, I was forced to face everything (good and bad) about my life and myself when the world shut down. What do you do when you’re not going anywhere, seeing anyone outside of your immediate family/housemates, the economy is basically shut down etc? You find what’s missing from within. In March and April of 2020, my awakening shifted into high gear. It became more spiritual than before. This has nothing to do with religion, BTW. There are so many facets to this awakening, but through learning more about injustices that our world is and was facing at that time, the truth about many things being snuffed out by the mainstream media and beyond, I developed a muscle to reallllllllly trust my own intuition and the truth like never before. Side note: I’ve heard people ask, “how do you know what the truth is?” on any given topic. My advice is to follow the truth you authentically feel to be true and aligned with YOU.

There was also a realization that we are all one. I began to notice so many synchronicities and coincidences in the world around me. It was and is wild. I heard the saying, “Coincidences are God’s/The Universe’s way of staying anonymous”. LOVE that! 

When faced with taking a look at my life though, I realized that I have the power to create my own reality. I understand that I have the ability to access deep corners of my mind and have the power to create a positive experience for myself and for others. And that is my purpose. 

Becoming whole, if you will, and integrating the mind, body, and soul is a challenge. It’s a life long project for sure.

4 tips for going through your spiritual awakening 🔮

1. Rest. This was personally very difficult for me at first – I always like to be doing something. Making plans, having an agenda for the day and week ahead. So this was really hard for me to begin implementing and honestly I began to have no choice at first when the world shut down last year. I do schedule down time in my calendar now to make sure that I get it in. A few ways that I like to get my rest and alone time in are walks outside, hikes (nature is the best medicine), massages, yoga, weight lifting meditation, and journaling. It’s so easy to distract ourselves and try to never be alone (even if that just means scrolling on social media). Being around others all the time, distractions such as social media, numbing with alcohol or food take time away from knowing our truth.

2. Meditate. My favorite ways to get meditation in are meditating while walking in nature and/or by following an Insight Timer meditation. It is the best app for meditation!

3. Journal and automatic writing. Automatic writing is exactly what it sounds like. Grab a journal and don’t even think about a prompt etc. Write down whatever comes to mind. You will be surprised by how getting your thoughts and feelings out works for the mind. 

4. Eat organic. It’s still easy to find ‘organic’ foods that are highly processed, by the way. Avoiding fast food and highly processed foods will make you feel amazing vs. lethargic, weak, and sick. Personal story: when I stopped living a vegan lifestyle, I began buying consciously raised meat, eggs, and dairy.

xx Lynn

Anxiety can be a real bitch. It’s something I think I have dealt with for most of my life, but I was only made aware of it in my early 20’s. We won’t get into the how’s and why’s for now, but I know that a lot of you also deal with anxiety and I want to share a modality for treating anxiety that has helped me IMMENSELY. 

Anxiety is what brought me to therapy. After about a year and a half of therapy (broken up over years and a couple of therapists), my ride-or-die (can I say that?!) therapist recommended EMDR to help treat my anxiety and PTSD. Side note: I was pretty shocked to hear that PTSD was something I had. I had associated PTSD with war veterans, and not to compare stories and hardships, but mine didn’t seem as big as those of a war veteran.

I decided to give EMDR a try. I was skeptical. After years of trying different things such as talk therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness, and medication to treat my anxiety to hear about EMDR after never knowing about it…I thought, “if it’s so amazing at treating complex PTSD/trauma, why doesn’t everyone know about it?” 

They should. You should, if anxiety, trauma, and/or PTSD are things that you struggle with. 

Ok, so what is EMDR? According to the American Psychology Association:

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy

EMDR is a structured therapy that encourages the patient to briefly focus on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories. {via}

According to EMDR.com:

When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes. {via}

In short, focusing on a traumatic event while experiencing the bilateral stimulation forces your eyes to move back and forth which allows your brain to reprocess the trauma.

EMDR drastically changed the game for me and my anxiety. It helped me become so much more self-aware and a gain of control over my anxiety as a whole. I started in late 2019 and by the beginning of 2020, I stopped EMDR. Just wanted to note that it is usually a short-term therapy. My therapist told me that she suspected I would need about 3 EMDR sessions for the specific trauma I’m about to share but this is different for everyone. 

Before I dive deep into what my first experience with EMDR therapy was, there’s one thing I want to recommend: it’s so important to be comfortable with your therapist before you begin EMDR therapy. You are literally re-living your trauma(s) and feeling safe is the #1 goal as you experience this.

Ok, on to the experience.

I will give provide some details on one of the traumas that I worked through with EMDR to give you a full picture of what that looked like. I did do EMDR for other things, but the format etc. is the same.

About 10 years ago, I fainted in a public setting after being extremely dehydrated. After this episode, I began experiencing what I know now to be panic attacks. Right before I passed out, my body was hot, shaking, and weak. The panic attacks felt just like that feeling. As I carried on with my life, many things were tied to this event and I would feel ‘random’ pangs of panic and anxiety. It wasn’t until years later that I realized the PTSD and anxiety this caused, left untreated.

The fainting episode is what we started with. While I was re-experiencing the trauma of that day, most of the physical sensations came rushing back while sitting on my therapist’s couch. It was scary as fuck. I felt like I was floating, like I had no control over my body, I got HOT, my heart was pounding, and my palms were sweaty. After I went through it, my therapist helped me to re-process the event as my eyes followed the light and I was able to take the negative, scary charge away from the experience.

By the end of the session, I felt inexplicably calmer. I wondered if it’d ‘stick’ as I mentioned earlier in this post, my physical symptoms manifested and I still felt them at times.

I had another EMDR sessions around this trauma, and my therapist and I will revisit EMDR occasionally if we find a core childhood experience to process. About a week after my second session, I noticed that my physical symptoms had melted away. I almost couldn’t believe it because for 10 years, I felt these symptoms.

I was driving, and my mind wandered to the fainting episode. I thought about it, put myself in that place again, and felt no emotional charge tied to the memory. I was almost…calm?!

The next time I came to therapy, I asked if this sense of calm was tied to the EMDR sessions, and she said yes, absolutely. I realized then that that memory was now in its proper place. It’s been over a year since those particular EMDR sessions, and since then, I have not experienced all of those physical symptoms of panic and anxiety. It’s so freeing, and I had to share with you.

xx, Lynn