Trigger Warning: Childhood sexual trauma
I am feeling called to share an intimate part of my life experience. I’m experiencing a level of personal healing that I feel empowered to do so.
One of my very earliest memories is of myself, 4 or 5 years old, being raped by an older extended family member. This abuse continued for many years. For so long I was numb, shut off, disconnected from my body and feelings, a hollow shell of my true Being and Self.
I spent much of my childhood being programmed to believe that I wasn’t safe in body, my body wasn’t mine, and my value came from pleasing others. When I started exploring breath work, body awareness, and psychedelic medicines was the first time I felt anything besides numbness. Feelings which came through were fear, distrust, shame, anger, self-pity, self-loathing, and sadness. I often longed to go back to the numbness and would often use alcohol or other drugs to escape the intensity of these emotions.
Many early relationships supported the beliefs which had been programmed in my childhood. I didn’t know what I wanted or how to ask for it. Even today when I connect intimately with a partner I often find that I start to disassociate from my body. I don’t always recognize what I want or don’t want and am still practicing the tricky, but powerful practice of saying “no”. But I can feel that these practices is helping me to take back sovereignty and ownership of my body. It’s helping my body and Self to learn that “we are safe,” “we are worthy,” “we are loved,” “we are whole.”
My first experiences of feeling truly safe in my body occurred this year. I lived for 33 years not realizing that my body could exist without feeling chronic fear, dread, and pain. Around other people I could put out an upbeat, positive, kind, confident expression, but on my own I was uncomfortable, anxious, scared, and hurting.
I’ve been experiencing much relief, peace, joy, and love coming through these healing processes. It’s also been a process of deep mourning. I lived many years with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) not recognizing it. Through hypnosis therapy I began to reclaim disassociated pieces of myself left behind in particularly traumatic memories, hoping one day to experience “wholeness”.
Through continued psychedelic therapy, energy work, and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique - AKA Tapping) I continued to release traumas stored in my body which held the beliefs “I am not safe in my body,” “my body is not my own,” “I must sacrifice myself to be worthy of love,” etc. While powerfully transformative, t’s been heartbreaking to realize the extent of what little Colter lived through to have acquired these skewed views of the world and reality.
What made these deeper levels of recognition and healing possible for me, was forgiving the person who raped me in my younger years. Acknowledging the pain and abuse that they themself endured, the conditioning that their young mind underwent, and that in these traumatic experiences we shared they were running through a program that was so deeply engrained it couldn’t be seen from within. Today I hold as much compassion for my abuser as I hold for myself and the younger versions of myself who I have been getting to know recently.
I’ve been remembering that perhaps there are soul contracts in this relationship which, though painful for both parties, have given to me opportunities to unlock my own healing gifts and abilities, experience deep forgiveness, and contribute to healing the systemic bind of sexual abuse and pedophilia that have permeated our society for so many years. If soul contracts do exist, I am so grateful to my abuser for playing the role that they did. I don’t know that I could have carried the same burden.
My role in this life is to be the breaker of the chain of abuse. My role is to be the healer of a long line of family and societal dysfunction. My role is to find and create new groundbreaking methods of healing for sexual trauma and abusive programming and share them with those ready to do their own healing. My role is to parent myself the way little Colter couldn’t allow themselves to be parented - to gather all severed parts of myself and bring them home, safe and loved in my body, all together in our safe space.
I have worked with many healers and teachers through the years to get where I am today. I’ve invested much energy, time, and money in the process. I am so grateful that each of my teachers have had the courage to shine their light and offer their gifts, knowledge, and support to my healing process. I could not have done it without them. But I’d like to acknowledge the greatest, most empowered, skilled, and knowledgeable healer of all in the process, Myself. For in the end, we are each our own healers. This doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself. Indeed, I couldn’t have done it without the support of skilled healers and teachers, sacred medicines, sacred ceremonies, abundantly loving family and friends, Divine Guides, and healed ancestors. But it is up to me to stand up and say “Enough misery. Enough dysfunction. I’m ready for healing.” I got to seek out the guidance and support of aligned teachers and healers, asking “Can you show me how to heal myself?” And am eternally grateful that each of them has said “Yes.” And in the process I myself have become a knowledgeable, skilled, powerful healer and teacher.
To all on the journey of healing: I see you, I feel the impacts of your work in the world, keep shining the light. To those who have yet to start their healing journey: you are valued, you are loved, there will always be a place for you. Be patient with yourself. To everyone: you are worthy of support, love, and guidance in your process. Be brave to share these vulnerable parts of yourself. Your courage and vulnerability may save lives.
We are the leaders of the New Earth. A world of peace, where we are safe and loved, and communities band together to support one another and care for our Our First Mother - Earth. The changes we wish to see in the world start from within each of us. I will be the first to admit that I cannot heal you, but I can show you how to heal yourself and help you create the safe space to do so. You are so worthy of your own love, affection, and attention. We are so loved.
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