Hey everyone. I debated whether to state this intention publicly or just quietly put it into practice – like who the fuck cares enough to read about this decision – but ultimately I decided there are some good points worth making as a teachable moment.
I’ve decided to unblock everyone I blocked on Facebook and to stop being so defensive in my comments sections. I knew for a while that this moment was going to come eventually, that I wouldn’t be able to reach my full potential as a coach without making that shift, but for a long time I was busy holding a protective space for myself while doing my own healing and I figured I could put it off til later. But if it’s an inevitable step in my growth, why not start now.
Here’s something you should all know about some of my trauma: In 2008 I was doxxed as a pro-domme by the NY Post, and others doxxed my legal name and session location online in response. My email was hacked and the marketing packet I’d written for my house staff was published on the blog of another pro-domme competitor and circulated around the domme/client community. As a result, for a month straight the message board where I had posted to interact with clients was packed with posts about my being insane, a sociopath, a person who was going to hell. As an outed sex worker with a horde of unstable people holding very strong negative emotions toward me, and with the fact that the NY Post reporter had tracked down my address and stalked me inside my own apartment building, this meant my life was in actual danger (not kidding about that, other pro-domme related murders/kidnappings were committed by unstable clients at that time). So what this meant was that being attacked online became a trigger that literally made me fear for my life.
It’s important to me that you know this, because I need this reality understood in order to express self-compassion for why I reacted as I did.
However, self-awareness around your trauma means little if you don’t use that awareness to improve your life. And it’s time for me to stop living in the trauma of the past if I want to get better and be happier.
As it was pointed out to me, my defensiveness was a block that was holding me back as a practitioner and as a person with a soul mission to raise the vibration of the planet, because I was getting angry at people instead of helping them. But even more importantly, I realized that I was actually hurting myself in believing that anything anyone said on my posts was actually ABOUT ME. Because anything ANYONE says is 100% about them. Only I determine my worth. So by taking on the energy of the people trying to tell me what to do, or attack me, or attack women, or espouse beliefs that endangered me, I was actually hurting myself. I was choosing to take on that pain. The healthier option is to simply allow that those comments are coming from a person who is at a less evolved place on their journey, and to either help them improve or just leave them the fuck alone and not engage.
I defended my actions just weeks ago by explaining that I needed to curate a safe container if I was going to share my healing process publicly, and weeks ago, that was true. The difference between then and now is that now I am strong enough to be my own container. The container is my own energy, my own knowledge of my value, my own knowledge of what is true. And anything that doesn’t mesh with that truth doesn’t need to be a part of my reality. As the Buddha taught, if someone tries to give you a gift and you do not accept it, that gift still belongs to the giver, and the same is true with insults. So, I don’t need to accept those comments. They can remain there in the hands of their givers without my accepting them and throwing back comments of my own.
So when I have a moment, I’m going to unblock everyone I blocked, and I’m going to do my best to resist the seduction of getting sucked into arguments that drain my energy and corrupt my truth. I would like to say that eventually I’ll have the energy to engage these people with kindness and teaching, but I’m not there yet, so what I can promise is that I’ll just ignore them and let them be. Y’all can duke it out if you want.
And finally, as a side note, can I just say that growth as rapid as I’m experiencing right now is super awkward? I’m now contradicting things I said less than a month ago. But Neil Strauss once said that if you’re not embarrassed by who you were ten years ago then you’re not evolving – and me personally I am embarrassed by who I was two weeks ago, so that means I am super awesome.
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