“Hey everybody! I have decided from now on I am only choosing things that are good for me! So if I’m choosing you, I am pretty sure you are good for me. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty smart.” (4.7.17)

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I got my ass handed to me this weekend in ceremony. And I’m proud to say that when it happened, I didn’t flinch or run or try to make excuses. I fuckin TOOK IT, and I said, wow, thank you. Because now I know how to be better.

I realized that I’ve been failing the people who believe in me by not choosing things that are good for me. My history is littered with bad decisions, self-harm, recklessness, trauma, and pain. I thought that being trustworthy meant that my loved ones could trust me not to hurt them, but that’s only half of the picture – people also have to be able to trust me to take care of myself enough that I won’t let them hurt me either.

Up until recently, if I told you I trusted you, you should have been insulted. Empirically speaking, I was putting you in terrible company. How could I not see the idiocy behind telling people I trusted them while simultaneously complaining about all the people I trusted in my past who hurt me? I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry that through my actions I’ve devalued my trust to where it has practically no meaning at all. I don’t want that anymore. I want my trust to have integrity. And in order for that to happen, you need to start seeing me choosing things that are good for me.

I’m showing myself compassion for this because I know exactly why it happened:

First, I realized that the majority of my trauma narrative didn’t come from growing up with an abusive parent, because even as a small child I knew he was a crazy person and that his abuse was no reflection on me. Instead what affected me were all the adults I went to for help – teachers, lawyers, judges, guidance counselors, psychological evaluators – who ignored or disbelieved me. I was taught at a very young age that I was not allowed to define my own personal boundaries and take care of myself, because our society keeps children legal prisoners of their guardians. So instead I prayed for someone more powerful than me to rescue me. That’s where my submission came from: it was a plea-bargain to be rescued. “I can’t take care of myself, but if I can be valuable to you enough maybe you’ll do it for me. Please protect me from the world because I can’t do it myself.” I thought that I didn’t need personal boundaries if I could just find someone stronger than me who deemed me worthy of preservation. Of course that’s a fallacy, because people destroy beautiful things all the time.

And second, I came as a spiritual being to this planet to have a human experience, and part of that was learning about pain. I dissociated from my body so that I could take it to extremes. I needed to go to all those dark places to see what they were like, and I wasn’t satisfied until I hit the bottom. Some part of me knew that the things I was choosing were dangerous, but I did them anyway because I was curious. My healer Katherine Gerardi said she believes that I cleverly got a huge amount of pain out of the way during the first portion of my life, so that the second part could be dedicated entirely to studying pleasure, bliss, joy, and rapture – and if you know anything about me, this is entirely true. As a kid I used to eat all the cereal in my Lucky Charms first before I would let myself have a single marshmallow, saving all of them for five or six last delicious spoonfuls, and it’s clear that I’ve chosen to live the span of my life in the same manner. So thank you to those who have had patience with me along the way, who have let me have my free will and explore the things I needed to get out of my system. I’m sorry you had to watch that. I’m sorry I made you suffer vicariously through me. I’m sorry I didn’t draw my boundaries clearly enough that you could see them.

The only way you can trust me not to make you into an asshole in my life is if you see me choosing things that are good for me. So from now on, I am going to strive to be worthy of your trust.

The mark of a true magician is someone who can be humbled and embrace it instead of running from it. And to tell you the truth, pain is boring – I’ve done it and I’m over it. I’m ready to see what it feels like to be ridiculously, stupidly happy.

Huge thanks to my amazing shaman for facilitating this quantum leap through spacetime into a better version of myself, and for seeing it in me even when I didn’t. And to all my friends and loved ones who have stuck with me along the way.

And huge props to me for having the foresight to title the next Arden & The Wolves EP I’m working on “Who Can You Trust” A YEAR AGO – because hypersigils fuckin work.