Coming Home To Yourself With Mona Luna

Within the course of a year, Mona Luna acknowledged two major griefs in her life: the grief of growing up with a father struggling with alcoholism and the grief of enduring emotional abuse in a long-term relationship. Yoga, therapy, and working with life coaches helped her return her to herself after years of never truly feeling “at home". We’re talking about creating boundaries after living a life with no boundaries and sharing a helpful re-defining of trauma: “too much; too fast."

Transcript

Grief Growers,

I am so delighted and honored to welcome to coming back my friend Mona Luna,

Who hosts these wonderful gatherings,

I'm sure we'll talk more about them called moon circles that have allowed me to get into deeper touch with my grief,

But also just with myself as a grieving person and she does so much more work in the intuitive space.

That we're going to get into a conversation today so Mona welcome to the show,

And if you could share your experience with grief and loss with us.

Hi Shelby Thank you so much for inviting me on the show,

This is such an honor.

And thank you for the little share about the work that I do as well.

So,

As I was thinking about what to talk about on the podcast today.

I was like you know I haven't had any like big losses in the forms of death in my life and i'm like who am I to talk about grief,

But then I was really bring like grief is so many things it's a loss of anything it's a loss of expectations of identity.

I mean,

Even like moving from one city to another,

Or even one home to another can be grief as well,

So that was just really,

Really reassuring in the sense that I can talk about grief in the larger context beyond physical loss.

So two of the biggest grief times in my life,

One was around the time that I.

Started doing yoga and I started on this spiritual path and personal development and started getting body work and energy work and started going to therapy and I really came to realize that so I had this image in my mind of my childhood being like all peaches and rainbows and sunshine.

And a part of it was having been with a partner at the time who minimized all of my experiences,

Where he was like you know as long as you have a roof over your head and food on the table then you're fine.

So I just had stuff so much down,

And so,

When I started on this spiritual I mean I didn't intend on going into a spiritual spiritual awakening but it sort of happened.

I started to really see how much my dad's alcoholism had affected me over the course of my life and it had just been stuffed down way down swept under the rug for decades of my life.

So it was like this looking back on my childhood and starting to see like Oh,

It actually wasn't as.

It wasn't the like perfect picture that I painted out like you know because just because I always had the latest cell phone or whatever didn't mean that life was just peachy.

So that one was really hard,

It was a lot of stuff just around both of my parents realizing like a lot around how I've been treated.

I do have to say they are amazing parents,

They were doing the best they could,

But,

And it was also really damaging in a lot of ways.

So that was the first time,

And then the second time was.

So I was in this relationship from the time I was 15 until 26 so like 11 12 years was almost 12 years and.

The relationship was very unhealthy,

It was very toxic and abusive in both directions and I had done a lot of things that I wasn't proud of and all of.

The stuff that I'd done was being held over my head constantly and it was being used to manipulate me and I actually didn't realize that until and I have this like very distinct memory.

It was like a Wednesday in February and my my ex and I at the time we were having this like entire month of just like blow out fights like they were the worst they had been in a long time and.

He ironically told me to look up emotional abuse,

So I did and I'm on the train I'm on the brown line in Chicago.

And I'm reading this article about emotional abuse.

And as I'm going through like this article of like 10 signs of emotional abuse it's starting to like dawn on me and I'm like oh my God.

This is what I have been experiencing and it just like felt like my entire world was crashing down around me and like I was like.

I had no idea what was which way was up anymore,

And I remember like texting my friend Lilia at the time just like I don't I don't know what I don't know what's what anymore,

Please help.

And so I she and I hung out the next day and.

I asked her to like read over some of the text message exchanges between my ex and I at the time and she was like oh my God,

This is way worse than I ever could have imagined it just like started to really dawn on me that like.

Yeah,

That I had been emotionally psychologically verbally abused and manipulated for so long and it was so normal to me that I didn't even know any different and so that was like a big part of like it wasn't just a loss of relationship,

But it was this loss of like what is even real anymore.

Yeah,

And I'm I'm nodding my head at both of these different experiences because there's grief is very much about once you see you can't unsee there's like when you have an experience you can't on experience what it's like and this is the case for death divorce diagnosis and beyond and.

It sounds like so much of your grief experiences are like holy **** there's a name for it holy **** there's a description for what this experience is I'm thinking of the story of your dad's alcoholism and then tying in with this partner of if you're provided for that should be enough.

And kind of this roof over your head food on the table like why is that not enough for you and then this other story of like uncovering emotional verbal psychological abuse it's like holy cow there's a name for it and I think the direction I want to go next is.

As you're uncovering all these things and starting to wrap words around experiences that you're having.

What like what happens to Mona like where where does she go is I'm trying to wrap words around this experience too,

But but I'm like how.

How are you geolocating yourself in the midst of all of this because what from what it sounds like.

It could either be a recognition of wow I have wandered so far from myself or I don't even know who I am anymore.

Maybe both yeah I well I would say in both of these instances and then just I really love your reflection of how it's a naming of the thing and like with that experience with my parents.

The name that finally came to me was trauma and complex trauma because prior to that I had thought trauma was reserved for the big T trauma meaning like death and.

Natural disasters war rape and I didn't know about the little T trauma or just like how trauma is basically anything that happens that's too much too fast.

And so I had no idea that I had experienced trauma and then came to learn like yeah if you have a parent that has an addiction or an illness like chronic something that's chronic that is trauma.

So it was really like I don't know it was it was also this like loss of identity there,

But also so.

Reassuring such a breath of fresh air to have a name to it.

Going back to saying about this geolocation.

I didn't even know who I was at the time in especially that that first instance and it's it's funny I realized like both of these things like both of these times that I.

I came to name what all of this was it was actually with same year,

So I realized that year of my life was so transformative and before that year I had.

No idea who I was I had zero sense of identity and I've heard this quote before of who were you before the world told told you who you're you were supposed to be and when I thought about that.

Like I never had a time in my life before that when I knew who I was I was from such a young age told this is the way you need to act like I can remember like from the age of like three years old being told that my skin was too dark and I was too short and things like that from like three or four years old.

I'm like you're too short for three year old.

I'm laughing at that,

But also like.

To arrive into the world and be told you are already too small.

Yeah wow yeah.

So I never I didn't have a sense of identity and.

So it was it was really like this beautiful fresh start in a sense of learning who am I and that friend Lilia that I mentioned earlier she started out as a young girl.

And it's funny because I actually met you through her and I remember in one of our first sessions she asked me who am I and I could at the time name I'm a photographer I'm a designer I'm a yoga teacher and that was it I had no idea who I was beyond those profession names.

Yeah,

And it's like who are you beyond the actions that you take who are you beyond what you do and and.

And this is like the cocktail party question that I absolutely hate when people ask me because I think my line of work is hard to describe because it's not just like I'm an accountant and people know what that is.

But also it's so hard to untangle ourselves sometimes from the work that we do or our careers in terms of identity to know who we are beyond that or inclusive of that but maybe more than what transcends the work that you do.

Is a hard thing to answer and I want to I want to jump back to this really quickly because I think you said some gold and I don't want people who are listening to miss it trauma the definition of trauma is that's too much too fast.

And so erasing the need for these big qualifiers for trauma of it must have been a car accident or a natural disaster or a house fire or something at that level which yes of course is trauma.

Or like war or being a refugee or or something like that being a part of your story which like yes trauma but and also I think sometimes we fail to name or fail to acknowledge the ways that we've been traumatized because we don't think it fits into.

Like a textbook or a DSM or a psychological or even a societal definition of what is acknowledged as trauma but this idea of anytime your life has gone too much too fast is trauma is yeah and even just this year I did another.

Podcast interview in another for another show and just this year I've only started to acknowledge that my mother's death was a sudden death and therefore it was a trauma we had seven days before she died but that's not enough time to assimilate the fact that my mother is dying until the day she takes her last breath and it is different from my mom died in a car accident or my mom had a stroke and we never saw her again so I I know it's different from those things and also there's this acknowledgement of and that was still traumatizing to me.

And that was still traumatizing to a 21 year old girl and so.

Just allowing that deep breath to be taken and to acknowledge that yes,

Maybe some of the things you have experienced in your life have been trauma and allowing yourself to define them that way can allow you or free you up to access different kinds of healing because of that and that's a really good segue into exactly where I want to go next.

So then what did what did you reach for as Mona was meeting Mona for the first time.

What were some of the things,

Maybe that you reached for first or where did you start to uncover your identity in this year of great transformation.

Well,

This this year was really I mean my whole transformation was catalyzed by yoga and so I was able like yoga was the first place my mat the yoga studio.

It was the first place that I really felt safe.

I'd always had insomnia and like on the yoga mat during Shavasana I would fall asleep almost every single time and then I'd also done a bunch of yoga nidra which is basically a deep guided meditation where you just lay on your mat and nidra means sleep and I said like you know the the facilitator.

Has you going through like bringing awareness to like your pinky finger than your ring finger than your middle finger and then like up to your arm and I swear I've never made it past the elbow.

I just fall asleep.

And so yeah so yoga was definitely that place for me it was that solace.

I was in a teacher training program there were six women total in my group and sort of at the end the tail end of the day I was like I'm going to do yoga.

I was in a teacher training program there were six women total in my group and sort of at the end the tail end that training all six of us were hanging out in the sauna one night after class just you know spending time with each other.

And then I was able to tell five other people at once about it.

So yoga was definitely one of them and then I've always had just absolutely amazing friends and I've always had a friend who was like my best friend and my partner at the time and like one friend in college like that is those were the only people I talked to about it for over a decade.

And so I was able to really lean on my friends at the time.

Those were the two biggest ones especially around that first realization around my childhood.

Oh yeah and of course my therapist,

My therapist my life coach my friends and yoga so it's definitely leaning on people.

I want to ask maybe a like a pointed question.

But did you ever feel or tell yourself the story of I am selfish for doing so many things to work on myself in this season,

I find this is a story a lot of grieving people tell themselves that to to access all of these things after a loss to do yoga to do therapy to obtain life coaching or guidance from somebody's like I'm doing so much work on myself.

Shouldn't I be taking care of other people right now or shouldn't I be showing up better at work or should I should.

And I wonder if that story ever came forward for you.

I love that question.

And it wasn't something that I was telling myself but it was something that I heard constantly from my ex.

It was like all the time he would tell me that I was selfish for doing this thing and for doing that thing.

When I started doing yoga,

He told me that I was being selfish,

Because I was spending so much time away from him and away from our house.

Yeah,

Pretty much.

It was like really seen as this.

He's,

I think he saw it as this threat.

He tried to tell me how yoga was a religion and I,

You know,

I started like manifesting writing thinking the universe and he said you're praying and that's,

And I'm not okay with that.

That's wild to me.

You're praying and I'm not okay with that.

Yeah.

No,

It was,

It was not okay to be working on myself he was very against any self help book as well.

So anything personal development was just like a no in his book and so like,

I actually pushed a lot of that stuff away for a long time until I started getting into yoga and it changed my life,

And it was,

It definitely was the crumbling of everything in my life at the,

At that time.

Yeah,

And I want to get more into yoga and exactly how it helps like logistically but also psychologically,

Emotionally,

Mentally,

I was literally speaking with somebody about this last night and they were like yeah it's kind of hard to see what Westernized society has done to yoga because the speed of classes sometimes is so much that how can we get you to progress and progress and progress as opposed to tune in,

Align with the breath like really checking with your body and how it's doing,

Because so many of my personal experiences with yoga have been like how do I get into that fancy pose and half an hour.

Instead of like where are you and that kind of coming back to the geo location of where is Shelby in the midst of the larger world and finding like dropping that pin on a map almost just how I see it in my head and so when I do engage in yoga now it's very like self guided or guided much more slowly.

Yeah,

And I know many wonderful practitioners on on YouTube and insight timer and all the other wonderful places that they live.

Yeah.

So I'm wondering if you can share more with us about like how exactly yoga worked to unlock.

How did it work to unlock any of these stuck things inside of you or maybe free free do you in ways.

Yeah,

So I had done yoga like on and off since college.

And ironically,

I started getting into yoga,

Because I wanted to,

Because I was finally in a place where I was really interested in yoga,

And I was really interested in the way that my body looks.

And I wanted something to just maintain that so I was looking for a very challenging vigorous practice.

And I had so much anger and rage at that time.

So I found a stronger yoga,

And this practice is.

It's a sequence that stays the same every single time so it's really beautiful because anywhere you go in the world,

It'll be the same exact sequence.

And each pose is held for five breaths.

And what's really beautiful about this practice is that because it's the same,

You get to see this,

You get to really notice the state of your mind the state of your body every single day,

Because one day you may be able to get into a certain pose so easily and so quickly and then another day,

It's a huge struggle.

And it really just shows that the body is different every single day.

So it's a combination of that.

And then I started following these yoga teachers on Instagram.

Two of the ones that had a really big impact on me were Keena McGregor and Rachel braven.

And they spoke beyond the yoga postures.

And what's also ironic at this time is that like in Ashtanga yoga there's this peak pose where you put your legs behind your head.

And I was definitely striving for that still can't do it.

So it was definitely this like striving for that external validation that external results.

But what ended up shifting was definitely internal.

So I was,

I was following these teachers and they talked a lot about the philosophy.

And I read the yoga sutras and the really got to know the eight limbs of yoga so it was really like that philosophy that really started to change things in a in conjunction with the physical shifts.

Yeah,

I like this version of yoga where you do the same thing every single time.

It gives you to look at something else.

Besides,

Where your body is in space you're like that's going to be the same,

No matter which class you drop into but this.

It's almost like a forced observation of the internal.

Yeah,

It's a moving meditation.

And I love that phrase too and becoming more mindful of not only where we are in space but what we're thinking as we're moving around in it can be really helpful and be like wow I've had that thought every single time I've gotten into that pose or wow I've been playing this on a loop for the last 20 minutes.

And just to see what that is and how it impacts us and also where we're grief and trauma lives and is stored in the body.

Yes,

Absolutely.

And then I also wanted to add more to your question from earlier around,

Like this geolocation,

Because like yoga was definitely that catalyst for me,

And it still feels like this place to come home to whenever challenges arise I've,

I have practice so embedded in my body now that I can come back there and it just feels like home and a solace.

But around the time of that breakup.

I remember told these are uncharted waters I've never been beyond this relationship,

This loss of that relationship,

I was in that relationship for half of my life.

And it was this shattering of the entire vision that I had from my future.

And during the next six months after that,

That the relationship I went so deep into every single healing modality that I could get my hands on and I think it was that period of time of really working on myself getting to know myself that was what actually brought me home to myself for the very first time.

And I love that phrasing,

I know you can't see me right now but I'm sorry.

Because I think so much of coming back is actually coming home to ourselves because grief trauma disruption and destruction,

Take us so far away from who we are in the world.

And so to,

To come back to return in some ways is to arrive at a place that feels like home and so it's like yoga is home but then I am also home and so it's like yoga is the is the vehicle that's returning me to myself.

Yes,

Over and over again and that's really lovely.

I wonder,

As you're kind of grieving this relationship I am I'm grieving half of my life where I was entangled with a person who was not honoring to my home,

My sense of home.

What boundaries stories limits narratives.

Do you have in place now that maybe old Mona would have never considered having in place for herself.

So where,

Where are you kind of drawing your own borders and bounds now to protect the sacred thing that is your home.

Hmm,

I love that question.

Let's sit with it for just a moment.

See,

Well,

Batteries.

I didn't even know what boundaries were.

I still remember one of the last conversations that I had with him before I broke it off with him.

I realized that,

Okay,

So I just started to learn what boundaries were and realizing that I had no idea what my own boundaries were.

And I remember telling him that I needed some time to figure out what those boundaries were.

And he said something along the lines to me of like,

Well,

It's my job to honor your boundaries and to not cross them and I'm like,

But how are you supposed to do that if I don't know what they are.

So,

Yeah.

The fact that I have boundaries now is a big deal.

I was honoring my own energy and my own space realizing even the physical space of my home,

My physical home,

Really wanting it to be clean and tidy and neat and spacious and that was something that I,

I just,

I had no boundaries,

I had no sense of self in the past where whatever someone else wanted.

Okay,

Sure.

But then that's cool.

I was really afraid of speaking up I was afraid of,

Of sharing what I wanted.

There has been and this is still like a little bit of a lingering subconscious fear that if I speak up for myself and I will be rejected or met with anger and violence,

Which is what happened in the past so there's still that like little bit of lingering thing that's that I'm still working through.

And then,

What were some of the other things you said you said boundaries and then two other things.

What were some of the stories and like narratives that you tell yourself now that are different.

Yeah.

Let's see.

At that time,

There was a whole lot of codependency.

That was just what I knew as my normal.

So it was always.

It was always about the other person and their happiness and what they wanted and getting enmeshed in their,

And my value my worth was so tied with being able to others.

I had no idea what my worth value in the world was beyond that.

So it also led to some codependent friendships,

In addition to relationships.

Yeah,

And I will,

I also,

I mean,

It was,

It was like,

I needed people to need me.

Kind of,

And maybe this is me putting words in your mouth so correct me if I'm wrong but I need people to need me.

So I know what my purpose is.

Yeah,

Definitely,

Or so that I know I'm useful or that yes worth something.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I heard this quote the other day that like people pleasing is never about a relentless desire to serve other people it's a relentless desire to prove to yourself that you're a good person.

Yeah,

I was like,

Oh my god.

I was like,

Excuse me.

Yeah,

Yeah,

I agree with that please people who am I,

Does that mean I'm a bad person it calls morality and value and judgment and worth into question and that's a very scary thing to do.

Yeah.

Gosh,

I love so much of this ongoing journey for you and and homecoming in a sense for us,

Untangling and getting clearer and clearer and clearer but I can't let you go without talking about color,

Because something that I love so much about you Mona is a your hair changes color all the time.

And that's like a trivial thing I love about you but then also it's kind of not because it's like fun and magical and sparkly and and vibrant and there's almost this permission I feel from you of like yeah dye your hair take up the space.

Yeah,

Be a color.

Yeah.

And every time I see you I,

I feel connected to some sense of play or lightness.

And now I mean you and I have never had these conversations about your story before I know it's very hard earned a hard earned sense of play and like.

I wonder if you can say more on that.

It's really funny that it's really funny that people perceive me,

Or they have this association with me with with play,

Because I was actually just having a conversation.

Yesterday with one of my friends how,

And this comes up for me again and again,

That I am such a serious person and that I don't know how to play.

And I'm like,

But she has green hair.

That's really funny.

Yeah,

And like,

And like spontaneity What is that let me plan that into my calendar.

I do this to Oh my god.

Let me plan some play into my calendar.

Yeah,

But I think there is definitely.

So it's like yeah I may not know how to play in a sense of just like going to do whatever we're having fun just for the sake of having fun,

Especially since growing up it was like everything was done for a purpose.

And I had to go to the theater for a couple years because,

You know,

I wouldn't be able to be a professional dancer beyond the age of 30 so I had to learn how to play the piano and go to art and go to Chinese school and all of these things,

All for the purpose of getting into an Ivy League college.

And that's not something that was really allowed,

But I have always had this sense of lightness of being I love absolutely love color.

And this.

I don't know if this is something that many people know about me but I went to art school.

And I studied design and I absolutely love color and.

I've always,

I think it's.

There's this,

There's a lot of polarity in me,

Where I make,

Obviously I come across as this like super bubbly vibrant colorful colorful person.

And I also love talking about trauma.

I love talking about those deep dark things that people would not rather not touch with a 10 foot stick.

And so I really do feel like part of my purpose on this earth is to bring both that you can be both you can be fun and bubbly and light hearted and talk about death and trauma and loss,

And that it's okay to be all of that.

Yeah,

It's almost like permission for you to be a container for everything.

Yeah.

Yeah,

That were multifaceted multi dimensional beings.

This question just came to me of,

Of,

As you were continuing on in this journey because I think that whenever we start doing the work of Who am I,

We never really stop.

And I was looking at like the timeline of your life I'm like we're not very far out from that year.

And I wonder if you still have these moments where you kind of second guess yourself or doubt your own wisdom,

And I wrote down this question of how do you reassure yourself or what do you say to yourself when you need to know that like,

I've got you.

You've got yourself as you're continuing on like you do have a support in the world and that supports you.

Yeah,

The voices in your head sounds like them.

I think a big part of it is that because I didn't receive the emotional support that I really needed throughout my childhood and throughout my life like I was so beautifully supported in like,

Like financially and having,

You know,

Everything that I needed survival needs but I and I did receive a lot of love for my parents but I didn't receive the emotional needs.

I didn't have a lot of my emotional needs met.

And then like didn't have that in that relationship and a lot of ways,

Either.

And there's this mantra that my therapist gave to me when I first started working with her,

And it was,

I am safe.

I am okay.

I can handle anything that comes my way.

And I remember just like walking my dog and repeating that over and over and over again and it's really become embedded in me,

And has really helped instill that trust and so part of it is like because I didn't receive that,

Because I didn't have my emotional needs met and yet I've still been able to,

You know,

Undo so much of that stuff in my life and heal so much that I really have this proof now that whatever happens.

I've got me and I am okay.

So that mantra is a big part of it.

And it's also just having all of these tools like you know my tarot cards and my connections with my friends and my journal.

And it's just really my space my time to myself,

And it's whenever I actually connect with these things that I remember,

You know,

Anytime like the self doubt is coming up,

I can have a conversation with a really trusted friend or I can just journal.

I can just get all of these downloads from from source from the universe from my guides that just remind me that it's okay,

You've got you.

We've got you.

You're okay.

And I want to kind of circle back to something you said of like,

Look at what what I was given,

You know,

Financial support and roof over my head and things like that but look at what I wasn't given,

And even still,

How far I've been able to go so now that I'm learning these,

These skills and these practices of emotional support and spiritual support and mental support it's like how much farther can I open the door for myself.

It was like,

And I have stories about this too it's like in childhood I was given like half a platform to stand on.

And I think so much of our work as adults is like building out the rest of that foundation for ourselves and continuing that story of.

I've got you.

Yeah,

In so many different ways and I've got you is not necessarily I can make everything all better.

But even when I'm working with clients and stuff and like look back across the course of your life and you have survived you have lived up until this point,

And taking care of a human being is hard work.

Yeah,

So the fact that you are even here right now here today is,

Is very powerful,

Very significant messaging for evidence,

It's like all you have all this proof the history of you have made it up to this point you've taken care of yourself in some fashion to get here.

So now where else would you like to go.