My story is a story that starts with a tale of grief and isolation, but it obviously doesn't end that way (que to me writing this.) 

 

As someone who was born a HSP (highly sensitive person) like most HSP's I was at a high risk of being easily hurt by the world and its words and views of what it would perceive me to be should my self-concept not be strong enough, and this is what most certainly happened. 

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At the age of 14 I suffered through three years of clinical depression, a world devoid of true connection, boundaries, authenticity, and any true meaning other than substances and superficial friendships. Masks were the status quo and keeping others at a safe distance was the norm. Ghosting, gossip, escapism, self-harm, backstabbing, and deception was the general ambient noise in my world from almost everyone around me (including myself.. little did I know at the time.) I had severe abandonment and boundary trauma, and so those I attracted to me, and those I were attracted to were also swimming in similar trauma sadly parading as masks of "toxicity" and "being a problem child." Jealousy rampant and pain filled each space of the people around me and myself, all I knew was that I needed the outside validation. Truly, I was living to be noticed.

 

The heavy energetic burden of this energy along with narcissistic adults who didn't have the capacity to create emotional safety and stability helped create an environment for a nine-month chronic strep throat, severe PTSD with regular flashbacks, a binge eating disorder, rare autoimmune disease, severe acne, and extreme chronic fatigue syndrome classified as "Hypersomnia."

Sleeping was one of my only escapes from the situation. 

 

I felt like a failure in every sense of the word and the core emotion I ran on was shame. I often questioned why others surrounding me going through similar situations were able to shove it down with no repercussions to their health.

 

Looking back at it now, I understand that being a highly sensitive person meant that small misalignments in life felt like huge ones to the body, mind, and spirit. I was attuned to most frequencies in my physical space and energetic space but didn't even understand that I was, and I definitely didn't know how to manage them or release them.

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 This was the peak of my first awakening. Questioning reality, self-hate, my human body, existential dread, and more questions than answers seemed to fill the next several years. Once I removed the first abusive narcissistic loved one from my life at the age of 16 was when I truly started healing. It wasn't until the age of 18 when I had my next awakening, this was the awakening the self and my shadow. This was the first time that spirituality gently nudged me. A note of something larger. Although this was so, fear was one of the dominant themes. At the time I was still living in others' expectations, had extremely low self-esteem, regularly felt jealous, resentful, still had many flashbacks, and constantly allowed others to cross my boundaries.  This awakening of fear was showing me myself. I was living out of alignment in an unsafe situation and in fear. It was a messenger. 

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At the age of 21 was when spirituality found me. I call this my authenticity awakening. This is when I became aware that I wasn't the person I wanted to be. I wanted to learn how to be surrounded by connection. I could see where I was to where I wanted to be. I wanted to be filled in a world with honesty and kindness. One with integrity where others are also doing the work of being a better person. This is when I opened my business Beyond Astral. 

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I have had several awakenings since, all within the realm of self-love, health, joy, earth, and being a better person. This journey has shown me through heart shattering pain and grief, thousands of tears, copious amounts of shame, and years of isolation that the best things in life don't come without transmutation and pain. We have to do the shadow work to see the parts of ourselves we reject, disown, and deny. It's possible to become whole again, to love ourselves, and to re-integrate our childhood traits should we want to do so. I'm no longer stuck in loneliness, no longer afraid to talk, no longer afraid of others. This is the outcome of doing this deep soul work. I still have my wounds and shadows to heal and bring to light, and that is the continuous journey of awakening and doing the work. We are doing the work of the many generations before us, and the many that will come after us. To accept this about ourselves and be courageous enough to share this with the world is vulnerable work, but when we remember that our shadow self is something each and every one of us has experienced, we can release the pressure. We've all been someone that we did not want to be at moments. We've all lived in a way that we discovered we did not want to live. We've almost all been around people we discovered we did not want to surround ourselves with. Facing this is not always easy work. It's hard to face our shadows and hold space for them and why they are there. But, when we do this, we give them space to move on and we have a deeper understanding and more compassion for why they are there. I now understand that the loved one in my life at the age of 14 had gone through their own pain, their own grief, and that they had progressed further than those before them. To understand this was a part of my healing, yet it does not mean I still don't cry because I miss parts of who they were. 

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I now offer my work as a way to live in alignment with what I know I'm supposed to be doing here on this planet. I dedicated my life to being the best version of myself, to serving others, and being a superhero if you will, at the age of 21. Of course, a superhero is not realistic nor ideal, but the idea is that I can make this world a brighter and better place, despite my humanness.. and maybe even given my humanness. Because you're human too. If you can see yourself in the story that ends with love, then maybe.. just maybe, you can love those versions of yourself as well. Without having gone through everything we've been through, we would not be the incredible human's we are today, with the amazing superpowers that only we have because of what we've been through.