🎵Music🎵 This week on the Dear Love the Universe podcast,
Truth prevails.
Mental health and sexual trauma are so important and need to be talked about.
It's 1105pm on a Thursday night and I'm just getting around to finally filming this episode.
I've been mentally putting it off because I know that it will require me to revisit triggers,
But I'm ready to grow past that now.
First and foremost,
The biggest lesson that any sexual abuse experience has taught me is to truly love myself.
Let's talk about self-love for a second.
Self-love is essentially practicing acts of love to build yourself up.
Living from this place entails aligning your life with what feels good and right for you.
It's a process and that looks different for every unique person.
First,
You must have an awareness of where you currently are and desire to make a change in your life.
If you don't want to change,
Then you don't have to because wherever you are in your path is perfect for you.
And I really,
Really hope that you understand that wherever you are is perfect for you.
Second,
With this awareness of your desire to change,
If you desire to change,
Then now you can take the time to get to know yourself and contemplate on who you are and where you want to be.
Then align yourself to the values that are important to you and who you know yourself to be deep down on the inside.
It's normal for people who experienced trauma to blame themselves for getting into that situation and begin a pattern of self-loathing,
Disgust,
Or even hatred.
One of the most important things that I've ever done was make a decision to live as stress-free as possible,
Which made me figure out ways to do that.
I had to let go of a lot of the pain that I was holding on to.
Multiple times after being sexually abused,
I would have a feeling of sickness in the pit of my stomach.
It felt as if someone had taken a piece of my soul without my permission.
It's honestly one of the most gut-wrenching feelings.
I also felt as if my power had been taken away from me.
Overcoming this was not an easy feat and I believe that it is still a continuous process,
But realizing that no one can take my power away unless I allow them to was really big for me.
I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before,
But when the past is too painful,
Sometimes the only thing that you can do is look forward.
This doesn't mean that you completely disregard everything that happened to you,
But rather focus your attention constructively in a more positive direction because reliving your pain and your pain is what makes you feel better.
I've been learning how to have better boundaries.
For example,
I mentioned in the previous episodes that I would be intimate with guys and hope that they would stick around and develop feelings for me.
Now I require exclusivity before any of this.
The main reason for this is because I want to know that the person who I'm going to be intimate with is really into me for me.
Personally,
I'm a very deep person and I know that when I'm intimate with someone,
I get very attached and I'm not going to be able to be intimate with someone.
When I'm intimate with someone,
I get very attached and I think that it's safe to say that most ladies,
When they're,
You know,
Getting it on with someone,
They just get a little bit more handsome and stuff like that or beautiful,
Should we say the other way around,
And you know,
It just is heavy emotions and it's just a much more comfortable and safe place to know that I am exclusive with someone before going into that and knowing that they love me for me.
Another example is that I used to endure so much drama in past relationships that disrupted my peace only to feel wanted by somebody.
Now if someone messes with my inner peace,
They just have to go.
I learned from Pat Allen to love myself over any man.
I'm gonna say that one more time.
I learned from Pat Allen to love myself over any man.
When you love yourself and choose yourself,
You are showing yourself and those around you that you value yourself.
It's a really powerful thing.
I've learned that I'm stronger than I ever thought I was.
I've realized that I can bend but I will never break.
I've picked my own self up from the times that were the absolute hardest so I know that I can go through anything by myself if I ever need to.
I think that it's the hardest moments of our lives that make us into who we are.
We all have a story.
It helps us build confidence because we know that we overcome anything that comes our way.
Just saying this honestly just made me a little bit emotional because of the truth that all of these experiences have made me so so so strong and I'm sure that all of your experiences have made you so strong too and it brings out a strength in us that we just maybe kind of forgot or just we just didn't even know it was even there and this version of you that's growing and ever evolving and ever evolving has been possible because of everything that you've been through.
You are incredible.
You are so beautiful and so strong.
Something that is interesting to contemplate is how we can all have very different paths that can lead us learning the same thing.
Know that there are many ways to learn a lesson and not one being any better than the other.
We are all unique in our own beautiful ways.
I want you to know that even if you feel that no one believes you please be kind to yourself.
Your pain doesn't need to be understood by someone in order for it to be real.
You know what happened.
They were not there to see it or feel how it feels inside of your body to be taken advantage of.
This is really really important and I just really want to make sure that you really understand that even if no one necessarily is on your side or believes you or is supporting you or there for you your pain is still real.
It's real and you can give yourself that validation.
You don't need it from somebody else.
I've learned that life feels best to me when I'm living in the present moment,
Not forgetting the past but not living there either and the same goes for the future.
Have you heard of the saying that the past gives you depression and living in the future gives you anxiety?
It's called the present for a reason and it is truly a gift.
When I'm living in the present moment I feel so much joy.
Today I went to the beach and my dog right when we got to the sand she just starts rubbing herself all over it and I just look at her and I just I just laugh.
Of course a part of me is like oh great I'm gonna get sand all over my car she's just like oh great I'm gonna get sand all over my car she's all dirty now but then a part of me is also like she's a dog you signed up for this and I just can't help but laugh and it's like when I'm in that present moment and I'm just laughing and I have this big old smile on my face and I just feel pure joy.
I mean I truly feel like that's what life is about you know.
I want to share with you that I think well I honestly feel that God is what has carried me through a lot of the most rough times.
I try to stay away from talking about God on my podcast for some reason but it's honestly so important to me that I always end up bringing it back in and when I am referring to God I'm just referring to whatever you believe to be your God.
I'm not referring to God in any particular one way or sense or form.
I'm just referring to God in however you believe it.
So I really feel that if you are having a challenging time going through your experiences bring your troubles to God.
Pray to God.
Surrender.
Wave the white flag.
I mean it's not your burden to hold.
It's not your burden to carry.
You can let it go.
Even if I have been mistreated by people in the past I know that my heart is full of gold and my soul only has pure intentions.
I trust that there would be so many more incredible people to meet moving forward in this journey of life.
I trust that it will only continue to get better and better and I really really really hope that you know this too and I'm mentioning this too and I'm mentioning this because I want you to understand that people in your life they will only get even better and better just because like maybe not so wonderful people have come into your life in the past.
It doesn't mean that someone amazing won't come in in the future.
You never know what the future holds.
You never know the man or the woman of your dreams could walk down the street tomorrow and you would be best equipped in a place where you love yourself and are living the present moment can move forward with them than to be in a place that is so worried about the future of the past.
I want to share that having gratitude is essential to live a happy life.
You can be grateful for your home,
Your body,
Your life,
Your commitment to personal development,
The oxygen that you're breathing,
Anything and everything and literally so many things.
By focusing on what you do have you will feel a lot better than focusing on what you don't have.
I think when I was a younger girl I was just kind of in that headspace of focusing on things I didn't have for some reason even though I had so much to be grateful for and then I think once I had that turnaround when I realized that gratitude and focusing on what I do have feels a lot better to me and just started actually living in that way.
I actually allowed the floodgates for so many more blessings to come my way because I'm like radiating positivity and it just honestly feels so much better and I really recommend living in that headspace.
I've learned that pain has a message to tell us and it serves a bigger purpose than to be something wished away at every arrival.
Pain is our inner intelligence trying to bring attention to what is not healed yet.
It tells us that there's so much more for us out there.
It is the signal that change needs to happen.
All that pain is is your body trying to tell you to pay attention to pay attention.
Often we can wish it away but it will only get stronger every time every time until your pot overflows.
The only way that you will overcome your feelings is by feeling them and connecting with yourself.
I've learned that it's okay to forgive myself for everything and anything in the past because I didn't know any better.
Obviously you know I didn't want to get sexually taken advantage of.
I didn't want for these things to happen but somehow I still put myself in that situation and you know what I can't be mad at myself.
I can't be.
It's best to really just let it all go.
It doesn't serve a purpose.
I mean it serves a purpose of keeping me low so you know choosing to let go is just really the best thing to do.
I've also learned that it's best to rely on only myself for all of my needs to be my own fountain of love and admiration.
When my cup is so full on my own I feel so much more at peace of myself because I'm not asking for anything.
I'm not asking for anything.
I'm not asking for anything.
Because I'm not asking for validation from anybody else.
You know life is always running in patterns and we'll continue to run the same cycle over and over and over and over and over and over again until we make the choice to step up and make a change.
It's all about the patterns.
It's all about the patterns.
It would really be wise to take a moment to think about what are your patterns?
Who are the kind of people that you get attracted to?
What kind of response do you have in similar situations?
And get to know yourself because only once you become aware and make conscious based choices then there will be a change.
I've learned that connecting with myself and practicing meditation every morning and every night helps me a lot.
It gives me peace.
It helps me wash away my worries.
I use personally,
I use Insight Timer.
I really love Insight Timer and it actually feels kind of cool to see the tangible time and progress that I make in the app.
I have reached quite a few milestones.
I think I've meditated for like seven thousand minutes in the last 230 days or so and it's pretty cool to be able to see that all added up you know every day.
So I love to for better or worse track my meditations and I would honestly really recommend it.
I love love love playing Sarah Blondin in the mornings or Meg James or any of those other amazing beautiful wonderful teachers.
I highly recommend getting in touch with yourself.
If there's anything that I want you to take away from this podcast episode it's that you can let go and you can move forward with your life.
There's so much out there for you.
So many great blessings coming your way.
You are beautiful.
You are special.
You are worthy.
You're a boss bitch.
You don't need anybody but you.
Connect with yourself.
Connect with your heart.
Be who you were meant to be.
From the moment that I made the decision to let go of my pain to the point of starting a podcast every step forward was a conscious choice to not let my past define me.
With each step my confidence and self-love grew.
To this day every challenge that I encounter only strengthens me into an even more empowered woman and every experience we can choose to see the lesson.
I have found ways to live happily and overcome my challenges and I have full faith that you can too.
Thank you so much for listening to my sexual abuse stories part two what I've learned.
If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends and family.
Maybe it can help them too.
In next week's episode I'm going to share a coaching call with Kate and Carolla from the Mighty Mothers podcast.
They're both such lovely ladies and I'm so excited to share it with you.
To follow or get in contact with this podcast I'm going to share it with you.
You can find me on Instagram at DearLoveTheUniverse.
If you'd like to work with me you can apply for coaching at kalenfood.
Com and I would love to see how I can help you.
I hope that you have a wonderful incredible rest of your day.
