Choosing yourself after a smear campaign and complex trauma.
Someday I’ll keep bees. I’ll move slowly, with vetiver oil on my skin, and read last year’s comb like a storybook. I’ll let the bees keep their honey until it’s well and truly spring. God, it will taste so good.
I like being the one who decides what until means. I used to be told that certain remarks were just banter and you had to sit there until you wanted to scream.
Have you ever laughed along with a joke and realized later that your shoulders were up around your ears?
I used to be proud of how much I could take. I could keep working, deliver what I’d promised, and give everybody around me good reason to think I was fine.
I wrote Forged by Trauma for people who know that feeling.
EMBODY
Forged by Trauma
A Trauma Release Exercise-Inspired Somatic Protocol
Forged by Trauma is a body-based guide for working with patterns of tension, bracing, and held stress. It offers a structured somatic protocol for exploring release, movement, and a different relationship with what the body has learned to carry.
What Did Overgiving and Complex PTSD Cost Me?
The rest of It’s Safe to Bloom begins with a pastor who had a peculiar test for friendship. Join Bronze for $7 a month to read the full story and the more personal essays I share with subscribers.