Journey

Trigger Warning: Mental health, interpersonal violence

Glimmer Forecast: All destruction led to brighter creations than I could have previously dreamed possible! 

 

TL;DR

I have always been blessed, especially with family, friends, and physical needs. As a child, adolescent, and teenager, I had many wonderful experiences and I struggled with mental health and trauma. For years, I was numb yet suicidal. I could no longer survive with my biology, circumstances, and social-emotional toolkit.

I finally found the treatments that worked for me and began to heal by learning to experience my emotions. I discovered how to survive. Beyond survival, I sought to experience deep love, joy, and fulfillment, and positively contribute. Diving into spirituality helped me realize the innate divinity in all things and enabled me to thrive.

Now, I wake up excited for life. Challenges still arise, but I move through them with greater resilience, ease, and grace than before. I experience a range of emotions with gratitude. I see magic in the mundane and feel I’ve manifested a heaven on earth. I want to help others move from struggling to surviving and surviving to thriving. By sharing the social-emotional and spiritual tools I’ve learned and my companionship and support, I am here to help others create their versions of heaven on earth.

 

I believe we are each souls having a human experience and have incarnated in the time and place to give the world a gift it needs that only we can offer. The one commonality we all share is that we are each unique. Being our true selves is challenging in a world that uplifts conformity and fears dissent, but our individuality is not only our connector, it is our gift. When you pursue a life aligned with your most authentic self, you light up the world without trying. Pursuing your truest self enables you to share your gift and heal the world so you and we can live, love, and be as destiny dreamed.

 

 

I believe we feel alone because nobody has gone through exactly what we have, but being one-of-a-kind is also our only connector. We may not be able to relate to the precise experiences of another, but we have likely felt similar emotions. In part, I hope my sharing helps you feel less alone.

Having moved from fearing, detaching, and being ashamed of my emotions to treating them with regard, respect, and love, I’d like to help others do the same.

For those curious about what I’ve moved through to get to where I am today and how I may be able to relate to you, I’d love to share an overview of my journey.

For those who have never been able to envision a life of joy and peace, I'd love to share how I moved from that experience in my formative childhood, adolescent, and teen years to finding freedom, joy, and purpose in life.

Thank you for holding my journey with loving compassion. Thank you for being who you are. Thank you for living, loving, and being.

 

Born into support and love, mini-me was grateful for my parents, sisters, crafts, and the outdoors. I was an outgoing child who loved all things glittery, Greek myths, and playing with animals.

 

Dialectics 101!

At the same time, in childhood, I felt deeply alone, depressed, and ashamed for feeling sad when I had the world at my fingertips. From ages eight to eighteen, I had fun with family and friends and extraordinary adventures. I also struggled with ADHD, school, bullying, traumatic loss, sexual assault, anxiety, suicidality, self-harm, and unexplained physical health issues that I’d later learn resulted from emotional upheaval.

 

Mental health treatment transformed me from someone who struggled to survive and was sure my time on Earth was limited, to a person ready, willing, and able to live as long as this body and Earth will have me. Central to the radically effective mental health treatment I received at age eighteen was a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis. Learning about the symptoms of PTSD, I felt seen and in many ways, not alone for the first time. I was thankful for my loved ones who stood by me when my mental and emotional dysregulation made me someone I did not like. I was sad to hear others felt how I did, but I was also relieved that this was not a unique or innate issue. PTSD was a predictable outcome of enduring what I had, and it has effective treatment options. Most importantly, I learned that PTSD results from the suppression of emotions. Withholding my tears and trauma was lethal.

Without getting into the minutiae, some cute mental health challenges I have experienced managing: major depressive disorder, seasonal affective disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, insomnia. Thanks to the effective treatments I’ve received, I am remarkably grateful to have developed mental health tools at an early age. 

Consequently, I’m currently under the order of pronoia: the belief that the Universe conspires in your favor.

 

Emotions Have Insights!

Instead of fearing emotions as the instigator of overwhelm, poor decision-making, and abandonment, I learned to value my emotions as indicators of humanity and consciousness. Instead of faulting myself for having emotions, I now appreciate that we were placed on this earth to feel, not bypass. I value feelings or emotions as informants, illuminating what is in and out of alignment with our minds, bodies, and souls. Instead of burying emotions and prolonging their grasp as the background to any other experience I may have, I converse with my emotions and explore what they have to say. Consequently, emotions pass through with greater ease and clarity and inspire aligned change.

 

Where sensitivity once felt like a burden, I now see being highly attuned to energies as a superpower. It is easier at the moment to bypass big emotions, but it is ultimately ineffective and prolongs suffering. Additionally, since the trauma we do not process controls us, it is both courageous and compassionate towards ourselves and others to do the hard work of emotional processing.

I appreciate the courage it takes to feel and am proud of my work and willingness to do so. Having experienced numbness, I am grateful for the depth of emotion I can experience. Additionally, the challenging times not only help me appreciate the easy, but the happy times can only get as high as the depth of the dark.  

 

I understood that the only reason why my PTSD did not take my life was because I have the privilege and support to access resources that most do not. Energized by how effective dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), mindfulness, and the PTSD treatment of experiencing withheld emotions were for me, is for others, and could be for more, I dedicated years to studying psychology and social-emotional learning. I learned about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study and how trauma often has lifelong impacts on the brain, graduation rates, relationship outcomes, economic opportunities, physical health, and life expectancy. I dedicated myself to encouraging authentic self-expression and helping to make resilience-building social-emotional resources accessible to all.

 

As a social impact intern at Sesame Workshop, I created resources for children and caregivers experiencing various traumas, such as homelessness, incarceration, divorce, natural disasters, violence, and forced migration. 

As a resident services intern at the affordable housing developments at Jonathan Rose Companies, I designed and instituted integrative health and housing initiatives that bring mindfulness and therapeutic interventions to residents. I created a curriculum for children’s summer and after-school programming that employs mindfulness, growth and resilience practices, DBT practices for distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness, social-emotional learning, and academic lessons to prevent summer slide. I also designed and administered an accessible Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment plan for residents with chronic pain and a wellness curriculum for corporate and company-wide use.

It was a privilege and dream to help make social-emotional learning resources more accessible to children and adults in all environments.

 

Cultures of Consent!

While studying psychology and education in college, I devoted my extracurricular time primarily to eradicating rape culture on campus. From my therapy, I realized the immense trauma I endured in intimate partner abuse that I hadn’t previously identified. I sought to use my experiences of interpersonal harm to educate others and mitigate perpetration. I developed a framework that categorized the principal dynamics that lead to mental, emotional, financial, physical, and sexual abuse and created curriculums on consent, bystander intervention, and survivor support. The club I started partnered with core members of various groups on campus so that individuals could learn about healthy relationships from those they’re most receptive to. We instituted an app-based intervention to make parties safer. Our collaborations and events taught healthy relationships through the framework of making love to demonstrate how fun, inviting, and socially desirable cultures of consent are.

 

Angel Gaining!

At age 21, I faced a life-changing loss when the person I was closest with growing up, my cousin Saoirse, didn’t wake from her sleep. We were three months apart in age, but we called ourselves twins. Like sisters, we had a complicated but very close relationship. We shared many experiences that made us feel disconnected from others, including our mental health challenges, sexual assault, and queer identities. Despite the darkness she felt, Saoirse's light shone miraculously bright and was infectious. Anytime, anywhere with Saoirse was a dance party and adventure. She loved freely, expressed openly, and lived wildly. Her living on Earth is missed madly.

One silver lining in this cloud is that Saoirse’s transition into the spiritual realm sparked interactions with psychic mediums that gave me an unwavering faith in the afterlife. This gift of spiritual assurance sparked a recognition of and desire to connect with my innate divinity and the divinity all around. 

 

Silver Linings!

I don’t believe everything happens for a reason, but I believe silver linings exist in each experience. Seeing the good is one of the main determinants of resilience, or how adept one rebounds from trauma.

 

While mental health resources helped me move from struggling to surviving, spiritual practices guided me from surviving to thriving, eager and determined to create a life and world I’m excited to live in. Since gaining this faith in angels and divine oneness, I have rediscovered our magic within and practiced my clairvoyant abilities. Viewing religions as various cultural illustrations of one love, light, and creation energy and knowing all is recycled stardust, I appreciate the oneness of the world. 

 

 

Covid-19!

When COVID-19 struck New York in March 2020, I and many other college seniors returned home to finish classes via Zoom. When I arrived from school in Albany, where my father was living and working as Governor, Dad was arguing with President Trump about the constitutionality of a state lockdown. The muted television showed bodies piling up in the streets of Italy, where they had more deaths than land and workforces for burial sites. Surrounded by the planning of pop-up parking lot hospitals, I was eager to help mitigate suffering in any way I could and was grateful for my unique proximity to effect change.

Concerned particularly about reports of declining mental health and skyrocketing domestic abuses, I directed state-wide interventions. I worked with the team at Headspace to provide free meditations and mental health resources for New Yorkers in a collaboration called “A New York State of Mind.” My background in experiencing, studying, and working to end intimate partner violence attuned me to an alarming drop in incident reporting. I advocated for the institution of a 24/7 domestic violence hotline and text program to confidentially aid survivors and provide lifesaving interventions, which launched in April 2020.

As the movement for racial justice gained momentum later that year, I instituted a jewelry fundraising effort that donated $10,000 in proceeds to various racial justice organizations. I was extremely grateful to feel I could help, even in small ways, during a time beyond an individual’s control. I was remarkably inspired by the demonstration of the power of collective action that New Yorkers modeled.

 

The Woke Mystix!

Passionate about making healing tools more accessible, I worked for The Woke Mystix, a podcast, author duo, and platform created to amplify diverse voices in wellness, spirituality, self-care, and astrology. Ellen Bowles and Imani Quinn’s transformative work was an invaluable experience that opened me to the power of utilizing media to make mental health and spiritual healing resources accessible to all.

 

Motivated to keep harnessing the power of media to make healing accessible, I partnered with “How Are You, Really,” RAINN, and 1in6 for an ‘Interpersonal Violence Survivors Collection’ in which survivors shared their experiences of mental health and resilience to diminish stigma. I devised the context of interpersonal violence prevalence and risk to illustrate the cyclical comorbidity of interpersonal violence and mental health challenges, designed storyteller artwork, and co-authored the resources provided. Witnessing the transformative impact this project had on the storytellers and survivors it reached encouraged me to keep sharing healing and connecting resources and community through media.

Content Warning: Rape

The most recent and transformative shift in my life came a couple of years ago when many of my significant relationships abruptly ended.

I was raped. Having spent so much time processing the traumas of previous instances of sexual assault and studying and advocating against interpersonal violence, being revictimized felt like a burden I was more adept to bear, but wished I did not have to. I looked forward to processing this trauma more effectively and efficiently by sharing it with trusted loved ones instead of hiding in shame and self-blame for years as I had before.

When I told the person I thought was my romantic soulmate that I was assaulted, his response was asking that we not speak anymore. The following month, a parental figure of over ten years left my life without discussion. One month after that, a close friend of five years and roommate of four years left our shared apartment and our friendship without a conversation. In consequence, our lease agreement was broken and I had to move out of my apartment without warning or agency. A romantic partner I admittedly rushed into a relationship with amidst this period of instability cheated on me. Meanwhile, my parents were publicly embroiled in different tumultuous disagreements regarding personally traumatic subjects. I simultaneously needed to move from my father’s home of ten years without warning or agency.

These months of upheaval destroyed my life as I knew it in the best way possible. I cried hysterically for weeks on end, and amidst those tears, was grateful to experience emotions in contrast with my PTSD numbness of the past. Instead of fearing an unrelenting depression like that of my high school days, I knew emotions were energy in motion that came and went, so I allowed myself to cry and was, therefore, able to also laugh.

As more and more poop hit the fan, all I could do was laugh. And cry. And trust this was all for the best.

 

I am thankful for the relationships and exchanges I have had. I’m grateful for the connections I’ve shared for as long as they have lasted. I appreciate everyone doing the best they could. And I am thankful for the room made for more aligned relationships in our lives if and when we are no longer a match.

I was grateful for what felt like rejection because I trusted it was redirection. I knew this destruction was all far too great to not be leading to something greater. I had faith that the Universe was closing doors so I would open another that I’d otherwise not reach for. I had blind faith that the connections I treasured and lost were necessary to make room for more aligned connections. While I didn’t know what that would be yet, I trusted that what it meant for me would not pass me by.

Sure enough, I could not be more grateful for the lessons learned from those losses and the life I’ve been able to create in their wake.

Anthem: "Too Much Love" by Devon Cole

 

I learned that you can spend your whole life trying to make others happy and never succeed. But, if you spend your life trying to make yourself happy you can guarantee at least one person will be happy with you. So, I learned to trust my intuition from my loving soul above all else. "Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't." -Eleanor Roosevelt

Appreciating that the only guarantee in life is change, I learned to appreciate all that could be appreciated in my preset. I am attuned to what’s within my control and make it unapologetically me, radically rainbow, sparkly, kind, loving, inviting, and beautiful.

I learned to create the world I want to live in, because if not me, then who, and if not now, then when? I want to live in a world of joy, gratitude, dance, laughter, connection, presence, and play, so I try to embody the playful spirit of a child, unselfconscious, curious, awestruck, dancing, singing, spinning in public. I stopped waiting for the love I wanted to live in and created it instead. I now bask in that love, beauty, and joy, and attract the same.

I learned that our only guaranteed partner for life is ourselves, so I vowed to become my own best friend, my romantic soulmate, parent, supporter, and healer. All of these allow me to be a better friend, soulmate, parent, partner, supporter, and healer to others. I committed to becoming my muse and artist, and to design my life as one I love. This allowed me to trust my next chapter, even if I am not yet positive about what it holds because I am the author, and I will always be by my side.

Anthem: "New Beginnings" by Moonlight Scorpio and "I Choose Me" by Samantha Leah

 

I am grateful for each experience and person and the roles played in my journey. I didn’t enjoy every experience, but I appreciate the wisdom gleaned and the personal and collective growth that has and will come as a result. I value, love, and forgive myself and others at any phase because I know we were each doing the best we could with the knowledge, experiences, and resources we had at the time. 

Anthem: "Let's Go (I'm Ready)" by Carly Pearl

 

Along each step of the journey, I have been, and we are, already whole, capable, and worthy of love. We are all divine all along. We are perfect as we are and grow even better with each day!

The consumer society and economic structure rely on us believing we are never enough. Messages that we have more to fix and heal constantly bombard us. Therefore, being content with who we are and our lives at every phase is a challenging, radical, and revolutionary mindset. Since goalposts change as soon as we achieve them, being content along the journey is the only way to find peace and happiness.

Anthem: "The Journey" by Shanin Blake

 

Desiring an outlet to share the healing resources that have been so transformative and to connect with and support others on their journeys, I created Mic Loves Me.

I began by selling one-of-a-kind crystal healing and chromotherapy jewelry and artwork to share tools and insights. Each item is accompanied by information on the associated healing properties and a meditation and manifestation form so that individuals can utilize their new tools to manifest the healing and dreams desired. 

As my healing toolkit expands, so do Mic Loves Me offerings. I now offer the healing services that have been most impactful for me, from meditations to tarot readings to personal coaching to access your intuition to live your most divinely aligned life. I am overjoyed to be able to share these gifts with you!

 

This world can be whatever you dream of. It can be one in which it is safe to be kind. We could all run around with the joy, presence, unconditional love, trust, and lack of self-consciousness of children. To create that world throughout, we must first heal any limits to living, loving, and being. We must heal ourselves so we do not project unprocessed pain onto others but rather project unconditional love, acceptance, and compassion.

Anthem: "Step Into My Power" by Modern Headspace

 

We heal to experience our humanity, reconnect with our divinity, be present on Earth, connect with another, and be our authentic selves to be what the world needs. We tune into our truths to create the world we want to live in and bask in those paradises together. Thank you for healing yourself to heal the world and for freeing yourself to free the world.

I love you!