"a place or part farthest away from the center of something"
"something that has grown or is growing"
Activation Warning:
This blog includes themes of suicide, domestic violence & loss with big expressions of emotion (mainly grief).
I recorded the above message on 6.13.23.
The night before my sister's 4 year anniversary.
I had recorded it to send to my soul sister, Jess, as she had checked in on me knowing it was a tough week. The night before my sister's death by suicide back in 2019 is still very vivid for me somatically and a lot of messaging / realizations came in this year facing the energy that accompanies growth, especially after loss. The discomfort...the edge of the unknown...and the coping strategies many of us fall into when we're scared.
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Audio excerpt from my message to Jess. Visceral Vignette filmed on 8.9.23.
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For this blog post to make sense, I encourage you to listen to my voice message (above this picture). You can listen before or after you read this blog post.
As we all learn differently, I have included an audio of me reading this blog post below.
I have hit an edge.
It’s one I’ve hit many times before but this one is different.
It’s compounding.
It’s full.
It can’t be tamed nor can it be denied.
This edge is different because it doesn’t involve me DOing anything.
It doesn’t involve me changing anything.
It doesn’t involve me fighting anymore.
It doesn’t involve me learning something new.
It doesn’t involve me trying to make sense of anything.
This edge has to do with reclamation. With standing in my power. With owning every part of myself.
With trusting the integration of what I know, who I am and what I stand for.
This edge involves being completely honest. This edge requires a level of authenticity that I have been ridiculed for, exiled for, made to think wasn’t worth claiming and would hurt others by doing so.
…and all of that is true.
We are taught to fear and deny the very parts that make us unique.
We are taught to not stand out or make waves.
We are taught to stay small so others won’t have to grow.
We are taught that others know more than us or that it’s been done before.
But my body hurts when I pull my energy back.
My head hurts when my time is spent trying to translate chaos.
My heart hurts when people say yes to me as they actively say no to themselves.
My soul hurts when I am not in alignment…and it is something I can no longer “make fit”.
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I had sent this voice message to my soul sister, Jess, on June 13th, 2023 - the night before my sister’s 4 year deathiversary. In it, I was talking about my sister’s edge of growth, her compounding edge of growth, that she had been sitting in for the last year or so of her life. It was an edge she was fighting, it was an edge she was trying to change, it was an edge she was trying to do differently…it was an edge she was demanding she navigate alone. The last year or so of her life we didn’t talk that much. She was isolating a lot and had refused to let me in. When I would talk to her, it wasn’t her voice in her words…it was deep embodied fears that were swirling within her and I did my best to keep reminding her of who she was; to try and move some of this energy. This was not the time to disregard her fears but to acknowledge them for what they were and recognize that it wasn’t this or that but a both/and. She was deeply connecting to her light and, as we know, the more we illuminate a space, the more we can see…all the hidden places that we’ve tried our whole lives to deny.
This was a time in her life where she needed community.
Acceptance.
Authentic support.
Embodied love.
A space that acknowledged just how incredibly layered it is being a human.
I talk about my anger towards her in this message…because what she was coming up against was very new to her but not a universally new concept. What she was going through was big. What she was experiencing was profound. Spiritual awakening is painful and powerful and intense and incredible and challenges every part of ourselves. It requires safe spaces, intimate connections with others who have been through it and a level of compassion for the process that fosters grounded, empowered actions (however small).
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The amount of times I had come up against edges of growth over the years and would quickly realize that if the people in my life who leaned on me for my support were not able to support me in the ways that I needed anymore, it was time to outsource. Not because they were bad or even unwilling, but because they didn’t have the resources or experiential knowledge to truly speak to or help me navigate what I was coming up against; we had outgrown each other. In those moments, I would seek out books, classes, organizations, healers and helpers who could help guide and or facilitate me to my next edge. However, there were times that I would try to go it alone. Because I “knew more” or “no one understood my circumstances” or “I don’t want to be seen like this”…and every time I tried to just “figure it out” I would be full of anger, resentment, pain, hurt, jealousy, frustration and fear. Because I was fighting my own growth, I was standing at the edge trying to control what the free fall would look like.
My anger that I speak about in this message has everything to do with my sister’s consistent praise for me and my power and magic, my beauty and uniqueness, and her adamant denial of her own. My anger is for all the times I would praise her while actively destroying myself through criticism and judgment.
We were just passing pain back and forth between us, trying desperately to feel seen and acknowledged for who we were - with no reclamation of ourselves.
I wanted her to believe me and she wanted me to believe her and we both were struggling to believe ourselves. Trying to wake each other up…to re-member together.
We talked about changing the world together.
We talked about doing it differently.
We talked about alchemizing our lineage and showing up fully.
In this message, I talk about the perceptions my sister had of me surrounding my courage and bravery and how she saw my life’s highlights through the lens of “ease”. She would often tell me how “easy things came to me” and how “I’m just not like you like that.” And that’s true…we are two different people. But what she wasn’t believing about my life was how much pain and isolation and sadness and fear I was dealing with on a consistent basis. That all the times she was meeting me with the response of how “I just didn’t get it”, regarding what she was going through, she was actively denying my experience…and what I was going through.
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When she moved to Portugal to start her journey to buy land and open a healing center for women, it was the biggest, bravest thing she had ever done. She was on her way to integrating her massage, reiki, doula and shamanic services into a beautiful place and space for herself and others to find safety in the free fall. It was a compounding edge of growth for her. A realization that she could actually help people, that she had an impact on the planet, that she was powerful.
And it shook her.
It shook her to her core.
She was up against another edge of growth…she had been actively working with mentors and teachers, deepening her knowledge and practice with various modalities and consistently releasing old wounds to maintain healing rituals with herself. Shifting from working on herself to then working with others was a big moment.
This shift requires a LOT of support and self care because now it is not just you and your stuff but them and their stuff too.
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The reason I chose to share the voice message to Jess and all of the information in this blog post now is because so many helpers around the world are helping others to try and heal their pain while actively not addressing, ignoring or honoring their own. It is coming from a beautiful intention of love but the reality is that you cannot empower others without embodying your own power. You cannot support from a place with no foundation. You cannot help through trying to control outcomes. When we lead from depletion, pain, sadness, entangled anger and resentment - we are not empowered. When we say “yes” when we mean “no” it is not care - oftentimes we are maxed out but still want to help someone else. Care for others is NOT the denial of self. This is a vibration of harm and not only does it not create trust with others but it actively disconnects us from trusting ourselves.
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I want to lead from the heart, from a place of fullness, from a foundation of safety and intimacy and true empowerment…to connect with others in the spaces that expand and contract and breathe new points of connection - both to ourselves and each other. I want to maintain my care while caring for others because it is not safe or sustainable or responsible not to. I want to build on a lineage of love - not to deny pain or sadness or anger or fear but to disentangle its hold on our ability to move forward in our lives.
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Katie loved and loves so deeply. She feels the pain of the world. She feels the anger of the world. She feels the grief of the world. And it was never her job to feel all of that so others didn’t have to. Her edge of growth, like mine, surrounded and surrounds how she knew she was going to have to let others down to be able to pick herself up. That protecting her energy in order to care for herself would feel somewhat devastating to those who were relying on her to tell them who they were.
We are not meant to carry the dead weight of others’ pain.
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So I share this blog and my voice message to Jess because I don’t ever want anyone to only see one side of me OR my sister. I share this post because that voice message to Jess was not for her to take on my pain, it was not for her to change or fix or meet me in it…that voice message was and is an example of me expressing all of the layers of emotions (energy in motion) that I was having that night, with a trusted, intimate, empowered friend (one of my mentors / teachers / helpers and healers) who has her own mentors / teachers / helpers and healers (me being one of them), her own healing rituals, her own practices of self care that allow for her to witness my human experience, reflect on it with me, be moved by its message, love me through it and then put it down together. Our exchanges are consent-based, trauma-informed, divinely connected and powerfully transformational. We meet in the heart space…the fullness…the darkness and the light. We call on our ancestors and guides and always presence sister.
We meet at our edges of growth, give each other a hug and free fall together.
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…stay tuned for a new offering with Jess.
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One that is free and from our hearts.
An offering birthed from the process of unfolding and…
“Waking Up Together”
Please Note: When I reference how I spoke to my mom about my sister’s behavior, she was unable to recognize that my sister was in crisis. No one was realizing just how bad it was. Because I have training in this area, I was working with an international organization to help navigate getting my sister help at the time.