Who Am I Really Trying To Impress. The Truth. Vulnerability. Ho'oponopono.

High-school was if not the biggest, a huge influential time for me.

I shifted from elementary to secondary, sharing a school from grades 7-12. I was a small (okay I still am small) new student looking up to all the older students. Like many, it wasn’t until too long that I was bullied.

I was bullied almost all through my post-secondary education…. mostly by girls. I had select girlfriends, but a majority of my friends were guys. Because I had mostly guys in my corner, that made the rumours and gossip even more appealing to those girls.

I don’t like conflict, I have always been about peace and love, baby. Though, at that time, because I never stood up for myself and almost always chose seclusion, all I had at the end of the day were my thoughts.

I didn’t have a voice for myself. I was going through stages of depression and suicide. I had my stomach pumped twice or maybe three times from overdosing on sleeping pills. My memories are still fuzzy from back then, but I do remember not graduating with my grade 8 class because I had to separate myself from that crowd.

I got sick with hyperthyroidism the following year, and I truly do believe that all the bullying, stress, depression and hurtful acts, manifested into an over-active thyroid. I was off of school for six months, taking numerous pills a day. I was happy and saw this as a gift.

By the time I got back to school, I was handling life better. Those students started to mature and weren’t as cruel. Although, once you have a reputation, they only see you as ‘that girl’.

Theres so much more to this story, but this is the backstory I want you to know.

Becoming a student of yoga gave me hope. Hope that there are people out there that are not concerned with who you were but you are inside-out. I peeled away the layers of my hate, shame, grief and sadness, to find all that I was left with was vulnerability.

Becoming a teacher of yoga gave me a voice. The voice that I never thought I would have. The impact that I had never dreamed of. The life that I couldn’t foresee all those years ago.

The most courageous acts are made through vulnerability. Raw and willing to share your truth wholeheartedly, so that you may shed your skin and rise above your past experiences and self-defeating loops.

When I think back on those people that made it their mission to make me miserable, I think of Ho’oponopono. An ancient Hawaiian healing practice of reconciliation and forgiveness in which you repeat:

I love you.

I’m sorry.

Please Forgive Me.

Thank You.

Loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world.

I love who I am today, and

I’m sorry for all the pain I inflicted on myself.

I forgive those who influenced that pain, and I also forgive myself.

I thank you for the lessons that taught me I am enough, worthy and loved.

I do the work that I do, because I’m trying to make up for all the hurt from high school that was placed on me by others and by myself. I want to impress the girl that thought she would never find a voice. The girl that never saw herself as a leader. The girl who never thought she could be an inspiration for so many.

We all need healing on some level. Start with shedding old skin, right down to the raw parts of yourself.... until all that you are left with is your vulnerability. Take a moment, and repeat to yourself the healing power of H’oponopono.

And remember to be good to yourself too.

#mentalhappy #teacherconfessional