I’ve been noticing some critique in my circles lately…

Voices singing, “trauma doesn’t heal”, “don’t pathologize my life and then sell to me”, “community care over self care”…

Trauma is tender territory.
Systemic solutions are needed in addition to personal solutions.
AND – marketers capitalizing off of people’s pain points is a thing.
So I understand why people have strong opinions and feel protective of their path.

Also, sometimes we are better off not biting the bate that we’re somehow broken or in need of fixing. Our wounds can shape us in the most exquisite ways. No shame. No healing needed.

AND – If you’re body aches to know deep physiological safety, hot and holy turn on, confident and accurate self-assessment, and boundaries based in love not fear (what I consider “trauma resolution”)…

It is possible. It does happen. It’s not just smoke and mirrors.

I have experienced the miracle of completing incomplete emergencies that have been lodged in my body and psyche for decades.

I have felt my body go from terror to turn on. From chronic pain to health and receptivity.

I have experienced my boundaries move from non-existent to right-distance. My self-image transform from ashamed to proud and confident.

I was once was mute and afraid in intimacy. I have a voice now. I am able to speak my needs, my desires and my truth in sex.

I have been stuck in the quicksand of Lost and Looping, using pot or alcohol to cope with just how powerless and anxious I felt, only to make it into the world of Resilient and Resourced… able to self-regulate in times of stress and function powerfully in a tumultuous world.

THESE THINGS ARE STRAIGHT UP MIRACLES.

While I agree that “it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” (Jiddu Krishnamurti), it is a sign of radical sovereign power to be self-determined to heal and contribute to our collective healing. 

When we disempower, marginalize or delegitimize the role of healers and the desire for healing, who or what does that empower?

Through all of humanity, through all of time, we have sought the salve for the mosquito bite from the woman with the pouch, we have hiked to the man at the top of the mountain with the secret medicine from the sacred plants.

Healing is a function of humanity.
Healers are a vocation as old as time. 

In Judiasm, the concept of Tikkin Olam is paramount. Repair the earth. Leave it in better condition than you found it in.

So let’s talk legacy. 

This is the condition I want to leave the world in, the legacy I’m devoted to co-creating with whoever is ready to march with me :: 

Millions of women UNSTUCK from the pain, cost, grief, fear, illness and isolation of trauma.

Millions of women FREE and EMPOWERED, confident and steady… so we can do. our. holy. work. in. the. world.

Because we have the capacity.
Because we are not taken out by our own emergencies.
Because we have AGENCY despite what we’ve been through.
Because what we’ve been through is so fucked up that, of course, we become protectors and advocates, teachers and guides, healers and artists, culture makers and doctors.

Millions of women raising children who understand embodied consent, who live and breathe reverence, who are sovereign and inclusive with values of love, justice and decency… so we don’t keep re-creating the cycle.

Millions of women who are fueled by pleasure, who trust we are WORTHY OF FEELING GOOD, who have shed the shroud of shame and oppression that’s taught us (SO SEAMLESSLY) to deny, neglect, exploit and repress ourselves. To take the punches. To settle.

Millions of women who support millions of women in the pursuit of whole life turn on.

Millions of women who celebrate the holy necessity of grief, and rage, and frustration, and VOICE. Who have space to hear it all, be with it all, say yes, sister, yes… I hear you, I’m with you, I know, me too. Let’s break out of this fucking cage together.

Millions of women who both compassionately and rigorously shed the secret experience of victimhood*. Who see the system as the trap, and self-determination, self-love and solidarity as the necessary way out.

*No, this is not victim-blaming. IT IS NOT OUR FAULT. But we must acknowledge and take responsibility NOW for our reality.

No one is coming to save us.

And under this damn trauma spell we experience emotional and embodied hijacking that often leads to deep-seated feelings of powerlessness, shame, self-hate, unworthiness, disregard, depression and coalescing with violation.

No, it’s not fair.

It’s not fair that we are left to clean up the mess of a broken system and a violent culture, with only fractions of the financial resources as men.

But we must be willing to do it now, anyway, fairness be damned. 

Because waiting for justice does not forge justice. 
Insisting on it does. 

And for that, we need each other. 

We need each other as healers.
As guides.
As lawyers.
As teachers.
As philanthropists.
As students.
As activists.
As musicians and poets and story-tellers and cartographers.
We need sisterhood and sleepovers and naps in our grandmothers beds.
We need the stars and the earth, the ocean and the land.
We need as many of us as heavenly possible to be empowered in heavenly ways. 

We need hope. Audacious, outlandish, irrational amounts of hope.
Hope that says, goddamnit, I love us too much to claw at each others attempts at making this place more bearable and beautiful for us all.
Call me in, please.
But don’t claw at me.
Claw at the heart of the problem: we still haven’t learned how to love ourselves or each other.

It. Is. Not. An. Easy. Road. To. Love. Or. Power.

It is EXPENSIVE.

It has cost me years of attention, significant amounts of cash, a handful of friendships, my comfortable/miserable identity of stuckness, my addiction to powerlessness that was fed to me from birth, a recognizable place in dominant culture, and more.

This road has broken me a thousand times over. For the better. Brutally and beautifully.

Broken me open to a calling.
Broken me open to my power.
Broken me open to more responsibility than I wanted or thought I was capable of.
Broken me open to the absolute requirement of pleasure in order to be nourished on the path.
Broken me open to the best. orgasms. ever.

It will break me ten thousand times more.

And–this breaking open, breaking into more love, more power… is the road every group of oppressed people has ever taken to break free.

It is an inclusive, stubborn road.

It is the path of…

Togetherness AND sovereign strength.
Shared meals AND spiritual devotion.
A movement AND leadership.
Frustration AND action.
Grief AND dancing.
Despair AND hope.
Rage AND comedy.
Naming, reclaiming AND re-appropriating.

It’s. all. needed.

Yes, even the critique that led me to write this post. To get clear on where I stand. To sing loud and clear with love for all of us ::

I believe in our collective healing.
I believe in the power of healers.
I believe that within each of us, there is a healer and a path of healing.
I believe your path is deeply personal–and it does not have to look anything like mine or ascribe to any dominant cultural programing. Does not have to be in service to the whole. Does not have to seek to save anyone–not even yourself. Does not have to believe you or anyone else needs saving.

And–I cannot deny that I know too many women who are sitting on gold mines of giftedness, mounds of untouched pleasure, and whole galaxies of leaking power. 

I cannot deny that I have tools and stories, poetry and practices, to help those women reclaim themselves. Fully. So they can see and know and embody their magic. For themselves, for their sisters, their cousins, their co-workers, their granddaughters, their granddaughters’ granddaughters, and our earth.

The apocalypse might be impending either way, but let’s go down with fierce love and commitment to each other. And let’s strive for miraculous survival. Because that’s what humans do best. That is what we are designed for.

That’s is what I am here to do.

You are welcome to join me, or not.

I love you either way and evermore.

With fierce devotion to our wholehearted, whole-bodied awakenings.

xo,
Rachael

PS – If you’re ready to come all the way back to life and then some, I’ve got one 1-on-1 space available in my practice right now. Hit reply and we can talk. <3