Healing The People Pleaser

What's the scariest thing for me as a people pleaser in recovery, who was always told to shut the fuck up?

SPEAK THE F*CK UP!

SHOW THE F*CK UP!

DARE to be fully seen in my VULNERABILITY and show up AUTHENTIC!

Having dared to step outside my comfort zone and show up doing a Facebook Live in the Tribe I created, was at the time a HUGE STEP! Still, I can see how I keep hiding behind the safety of a special place and being selective about who sees what.

I realise how many "gates" I can actually create for the world to see me. (That's how sneaky this can get!) There comes a time when I realise that I am half-daring and half-showing up. And there’s actually nothing wrong with that. It’s just that TODAY I feel like it’s time, and just for today, I want there to be no gates whatsoever.

Again, this is a huge step forward in facing the FEAR of being fully AUTHENTIC. You know, the fear will always be there and that’s one of the reasons practising daring and showing up is so crucial to me. I have tasted far too deep how crippling this fear is and can be if I let it control my life. There’s always a big fear of what my family will think or say about me, crying in a video out into the public. Chances are they’ll think I’m crazy! But you know what?!

I’m NOT CRAZY!!! I AM READY!!!! I AM FUCKING READY!!!

Do I really need to be seen? To be honest, I have no damn clue! But for me, this is where fear has been showing up big time and I know this is my free pass for the highway to freedom.

So, today I am sharing with all of you a behind the scenes (RAW & MESSY) of what happened inside that tribe of women a while back, where I held space for all the judgement, anger, frustration towards the people pleaser in me and it was only after this episode that I was able to finally ACCEPT and ACKNOWLEDGE that part of me.

Right now, the fearful side of me is in my head, doing everything it can, to have me post something else rather than this. To be totally honest, it´s been over 2 hours since I started this article.

It seems that there's this wave of authenticity and vulnerability showing up in the world and I can see how it can be easy to start rolling our eyes at that. And that's exactly the monologue the ego is having in my head right now: "Are you really going to write about that authenticity stuff, AGAIN? People are fed up with that!"

Oh yes baby, I am! Watch me! I won't be held prisoner today! It may happen tomorrow, but NOT today!

Doing this video allowed me to tap into unknown parts of myself and to learn that I can actually hold space for the WHOLENESS of me.

I don’t know a lot of stuff, but I KNOW THIS:

- I know for sure that HIDING in FEAR is no longer serving me and only stepping into this authentic & unfiltered experience of myself will I end up knowing myself deeply and truly.

- I know in my bones that authenticity will set me FREE and the more I dare into it, the more I TRUST myself!

- And I know in my bones that the more I TRUST myself, the more POWERFUL I'll be to have the GUTS to be willing to FIERCELY go beyond personal identity.

I don't want personal power to be rich! I don't want personal power to be famous! I don't want personal power to impact millions! I want personal power to set myself free.

I am thirsty and starving for FREEDOM baby!

That's my legacy! That's the impact I want to have in this world!

Being part of this world, I can no longer hide in the false modesty that “I am not important” or that “I don't matter”. This shit ain't about me only! What the fuck is all this talk about "not enoughness" or "too muchness" doing for me or for the world?

Being part of this world, it's my responsibility to set myself free from the cage of fear and step into BOLDNESS!

Being part of this world, it's my responsibility to step away from the selfishness of ego that wants to make this all about me and keep hiding myself in my little world, in a small town, in a tiny country called Portugal.

Being part of this world, it's my duty to share this I AMNESS with all of you! And those who resonate, will vibrate along with me.

In the meantime, I am RECOMMITTING to my own commitment:

1 - SPEAK UP about my feelings;

2 - HONOUR my emotions has a manifestation of my HUMAN EXPERIENCE;

3 - CREATE SPACE to whatever may be showing up in my life, either in my inner or outer world;

4 - NURTURE my childlike CURIOSITY;

5 - DARE to be 5% MORE AUTHENTIC every step of the way until it becomes who I am (and if it doesn't, be ok with that too);

6 - LOVE MYSELF, treat myself with KINDNESS and COMPASSION (no different from what I would do to a puppy or a baby).

We're in for an AWESOME COSMIC RIDE people!

Bless you all

<3

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I Pray, I Meditate, I do Yoga and I say F*ck

I remember when I started doing yoga and meditating, sometimes he would come to me and say:

— So much yoga and meditation, and after all you're still... (fill in with a judgement).

You know, it wasn't about him. That had everything to do with ME.

I was the one who secretly and silently would go over judging myself hard. I was always on trial, and I got to be the judge and the defendant.

I was the one blaming MYSELF for doing all those things, and still feeling I was failing. You see, I knew I wasn't perfect but I thought I had to become such! I thought that all those Buddhist practices and retreats, and Tony Robbins seminars and all the MindValley’s courses would turn me into a perfect person.

The day I knew that was WAY FAR from being the purpose of this, things started to shift massively, and I signed myself up for the most AUTHENTIC and LOVING adventure I could never have imagined enrolling myself into — one of SELF-LOVE and SELF-ACCEPTANCE!

Well, it took us many tries, many falls and many knee injuries to learn to master the science of walking, right? So, why take ourselves so seriously, and be so harsh on ourselves in this adventure of being a human being? 

Yes, I pray!

Yes, I meditate!

Yes, I do yoga!

And yes, I say F*ck (boy, it felt good writing this!) and I can be (and I am!) a b*tch sometimes!

And isn't it wonderful that ... ( I got interrupted by the ego: “Hold it right there, lady!!!! Stop right there!!! Don't do it!! Don't you dare saying it!!!" )

As I was saying... and isn't it wonderful that I get to experience such a vast variety of states and emotions?!

(The ego again: “Hey b*tch, what did you just say?! WTF?? Did I just see you admit the possibility of enjoying all this human experience??!! That's it folks, she is losing it! Can someone get her a lifejacket, please?”)

  — Love you too, ego.

Back to what I was saying… Does that mean I like all of them? Does that mean I like being sad, or anxious, or angry? HELL NO!!! But can I just become curious and amazed at the fact that I am capable of experiencing so many different emotions?

Do you know what happened when I began to ask myself this question?

This curiosity has opened up space for me to start relaxing in the fight I used to engage in while resisting those “negative” emotions, and I am beginning to accept and acknowledge them more and more.

Can you imagine if you would press MUTE in the judge headquarters loudspeaker?

I wonder what that would do for you and what that could change in your life! 

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Cover Photo Credit: Inspiring Badass Kim Bao

My Soul Screamed And A New Woman Was Born

There are moments in my life which I can't really explain to others how much those moments impact me.

I have been told to be a "too much" woman, and to feel "too much".  I used to believe that, and to judge myself for that. Today, I embrace that as a gift, because the most simple things in life can make me feel blissful, and can also shake me to the core, and make me feel more alive than ever.

Today I want to share with you one of those moments, which happened a couple of years ago, more precisely in 2014, when the intense journey into knowing myself really began.

For the most sceptical ones let's say it was a coincidence ;)

A poem crossed my path, and as I read it, I found myself gasping for air, reaching out for a breath that I felt was being taken away from me.

I was shaken to my bones, the cells in my body vibrated, and my SOUL screamed.

I have read somewhere that the soul whispers but that day my soul screamed louder than my pain, and I heard her for the first time. I guess my soul got tired of whispering, and me never listening to her. Maybe she figured out I had hearing problems (insert any kind of laughter you wish here, as I am laughing at myself right now! LOL)

It really doesn't even matter the reason why. What matters is that that day, reading that poem, I really felt ME, an unknown part of myself was shown to me, a part which I had never acknowledged, and didn't even imagine existed.

That poem struck me so deep down to my core, shook me inside out, ripped me off, and…

For the first time in my life, I knew with every cell in my body that I didn’t love myself.

And I cried ... 

And I cried ...

And I cried ... 

And as I allowed the tears to roll down my face, without even knowing it, I was creating the space for a different woman to be born that day.

That day I promised myself that my garden would never be forgotten and dead ever again. 

This was the poem:

“The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine. 

”In return for the odor of my jasmine, 
I’d like all the odor of your roses.” 

”I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead.” 

”Well then, I’ll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain.” 

The wind left.  And I wept.  And I said to myself: 
”What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?””

— Antonio Machado

How have you been taking care of your garden?

Drop me a comment as I would love to hear from you how this poem resonated with you or not. What did it bring out for you?

Myself!

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The Day I Stopped Fighting Myself

My whole life I have been in a battle with myself, and thus with the whole world!

That constant fight harmed my body more than I could ever imagine or wish for. I guess the physical pain was the strategy to make me STOP, and to lead me to a fucking threshold where I finally did something for me, and for my life. 

My whole life I felt wrong, like I didn't belong anywhere, and always resisted the fact that I was born a woman. For me being a woman meant being weak, being superficial, being too sensitive. To be honest, I was angry at the fact that I was born in a woman's body! For that reason, I kept my feminine energy trapped and caged for ever, resisting her, ignoring her, making her wrong.

Rejecting the femininity in me also brought me some deep emotional and physical health issues. Yes, that's how deep I rejected myself! 

Well this post is not meant to tell you the story of my life. Instead, what I really want to share with you is the moment my Masculine and my Feminine energy met.

You see, against my own will but following my gut and honouring my soul's desire, I started being part of some women circles. Let me just share with you that those circles — oh boy, they all seemed way too weird to me.

How could they not? I was the one who felt weird myself. I was totally disconnected from myself and from my core essence.

In the pictures below (first time in that circle), you can see how disconnected I was if you look closely at the red thread. We had to introduce ourselves while passing on the thread to some other woman. By the end of the exercise, the red thread that arrived and left my wrist, on both ends it was beyond loose. I was the only woman who could move her hand and arm without moving the other women along.

Last weekend I was in another circle, and for the 1st time I felt a brand new woman! I felt the woman in me was totally integrated. I felt like I belonged and there was nothing wrong with me.

This healing process took me about 3 years. It demanded a lot of courage from me, a lot of deep work, and an unshakable commitment to be happy no matter what!

Today, looking back at many of the healing moments, I had a breakthrough and I wrote about the moment my Masculine and my Feminine energy met for the first time. I didn't understand that was what was happening back then, but I do now!

I was lying on the floor, fully trusting my body to her hands. 

“I SURRENDER

I am hurt!
I am bleeding!
I am tired!

I have been in the battle fields for way too long!

Me and my enemy
Me and my ghosts
Me and myself

What a long and painful battle it has been!

I am tired!

I stop fighting
I put down the weapons
I allow the armour to be undressed
I allow the open wounds to be exposed to the light

I am vulnerable!
I surrender!

No more running away
No more hiding
No more rejecting parts of me
No more guilt
No more shame
No more fighting myself

No more!

Tears wash my soul

I surrender!
I surrender!
I SURRENDER! 

Suddenly,
As if magic...

I taste the sweetness of tenderness
I feel the softness of loving-kindness
I am cradled by the warmth of compassion

I am finally home!

I see the face of LOVE
It is a WOMAN!”

— Teresa Pimenta

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