How to Know When You're Healed: Messages from Mushroom Medicine
Published in July/August issue of Radiance Wellness Magazine next to Lorie Ladd!
How do you know when you're healed? Seven + years into my healing journey: hundreds of Theta, EFT, Hypnosis, Plant Medicine & EMDR sessions in – I begin to wonder.
Is this a bottomless lake of tears inside of me that will never dry up? Am I singularly clearing out all of the trauma from my bloodline and the collective? Will this ever be complete?
I don't want to be a warrior anymore.
These were the questions on my heart as I led myself into my 25th full-flood ceremony with sacred mushroom medicine. Here is what was shown to me:
We will know we are truly healed when we decide that we no longer need to position ourselves as better or worse, more or less, farther ahead or farther behind than another (or than parts of our own inner psyche).
The need to “position” oneself is trauma perpetuated: The Control Cycle. Trauma's job is to perpetuate itself (like cancer). So it turns itself against itself, over and over again with “Control or Be Controlled” as it's sustaining mantra.
We often position ourselves by taking on archetypal roles in the lives of others; “The mother” “the big sister” “the smart one” “the empath” “the broke one” - are all examples of positioning oneself above or below another in order to control.
When you release the need to position yourself with anything/one you are no longer at war with YOURSELF.
So how do we stop the cycle?
When you feel triggered - the invitation is to ask yourself,
“How can I not NEED to control right now or to position myself as better or worse? What would that feel like?”
When we tap into these rhetorical questions we are switching the train OFF of the trauma track and creating new wound-free neural connections.
Boundaries are also incredible ways to stop the trauma/control cycle. But, it's the intent behind boundary creation that distinguishes wounding from healing:
A wounded person creates boundaries in order to hijack control,
“I need to control you & I need to see myself as better than you.”
Whereas a healed person creates boundaries while energetically releasing the need to control,
“I don't need to control you &
I don't need to see myself as better than you.”
Isn't that the same in any relationship when you come to a draw - or a truce?
“If you put your gun down - I'll put mine down too.”
The feeling of “needing” to control/position is trauma-induced; period. And we will know we are truly healed when we decide that we no longer need to keep a gun in the first place.
