A Love Letter, To My Younger Self
Dear Rayanne,
Much of what you are about to read might not make sense, and if it does (because it's hella logical), you may still disregard, fall, and have to pick yourself up a few thousand times more before you are ready to RECEIVE this information. You're resilient and strong willed. I feel you. In all likelihood, we will go to our death bed telling people they can't tell us what to do - even when that person is ourselves.
Who doesn't love immediate gratification? (raising my hand) That shit doesn't last. You will struggle with anger, denial and frustration over what you're about to read. They say the truth will set you free, but first, it’s going to piss you off.
You will want and think you have to have everything about life and yourself figured out; you will try to begin each experience as though you have already mastered it. That is not cheating per se, but it would (and will) set you up for dismissing the grandeur of expertise. You would have no relatability or hilarious killer stories to call upon should you wake up one day having it all, all at once. You can, and will, have it all, I promise you - but the wins will come in stages that can be appreciated and cherished (but mostly laughed about) over the years.
Be open, wander the globe with a Childs Eye! You will grow up to fast - skipping childhood altogether. Even so, try not to demystify your existence, even though I promise you- two of your many coping mechanisms will be hyper rationalism and hyper-vigilance. Though life may embed and stoke your patterns of survival - this letter, in part, is to help you hold onto the part of you that knows Magic and Faith are the same. When You believe in the magic, you unwittingly believe in yourself, in your abilities - in your power, and that my love is FAITH. Faith will carry you through the darkest of times. It will keep you going even when you want to quit, even when you cry out mercy and wish for death.
The culture you now live in has long forgotten the simple truth of love due to its hunger for greatness. In our future, it’s your love, care and semi sweet nature that will allow you to hold space for others so that they may see themselves through your eyes. I say semi sweet because the darkness of our experiences, and the embracement of the part of yourself that can switch off your humanity to get shit done deserves to be honored always. You will teach others how to love themselves wholeheartedly through demonstration.
You are NOT crazy. You will have drives, urges, and triggers created millennia before you were born. The elements and spirits even animals will whisper in your ears regardless if you choose to listen. Learn to Listen when blood sings with the knowledge of your ancestors. It will save you plenty of misdiagnoses in the future. You are not alone in your body. Each strand of your DNA, all the microbes that call your body home - have walked this path before and will walk it now again with you. It will be exhausting, confusing, and still glorious. You will deny your family out of shame and fear, but when you are ready, lean into your heritage. In this century, you have the opportunity to heal your lineage, to put to rest your ancestor's worries and fears. You are a cycle-breaker.
There are people in this world that will seek to dismantle our peace, that will dismiss our achievements. Take heart, dear one - they are not attacking you - they are attempting to self soothe - they are fearful and feel less then. So as not to lose sight of their own identity, they will invalidate your feelings, your accomplishments and even try to sabotage you to avoid feelings they don't yet have the tools to process. When you can, be patient and kind. Their pain is a mirror of your own. Learn from them. When you can't - hold boundaries, not grudges. Love is unconditional. Relationships are not.
You will be expected by those closest to you, threatened emotionally at times even, to take the route that others have laid out for you. Sometimes, their insistence will stem from love. Their desire to see you avoid the struggle and hardship they endured. But at other times, their expectations are there to validate their mistreatment of you. Attachment to Self Identity can be a real fucker when we start to question it. It will encourage others, and ourselves to shirk the responsibility of our actions and cause us to deny learned behaviours we carry and pass on. You were made for more significance than what anybody but you and Spriit can see. Those that witness were not gifted your vision - because you are the cumulation of thousands of lived lives before you. Each ancestor has added not just unresolved traumas but also their strengths and resilience to your very cellular makeup. I promise you - you were made for the life the path you are now on.
Write down your happy moments, and place them in a jar like lightning bugs so that when you become lost in other people’s opinions, when you become desensitized by your drive, you can recall those moments of delight that you worked so hard for. The moments that you created with love and effort and affect. By revelling in your love during the fallow seasons, you can reignite your flame during the spring of creation.
You won't be able to take everyone with you. Many people will walk away and or fall away as the years pass by. It will be painful to let go of the people you love, to release the idea and fantasy of how things should be for how they turned out. It will be a hard lesson learned, but you can not carry people into a future they can't see for themselves. It will hurt like hell, and it will not always be carried out with grace, but you will learn to love people from a distance, even when you wish daily that they were by your side.
You're going to be the villain in other peoples stories. Sometimes you will revel in that status; other times, it will be painful. This wisdom will hit you when you learn to be grateful for the
difficult people in our own lives. We invite experiences, people, in to help break the patterns that no longer serve us - Ultimately, it means you are upholding your part of the cosmic contract.
We are never fighting the outside world. The outside world, our outer reality - is a reflection, a projection - of our inner truth. You will become a master at hiding your honest thoughts, your real motives, your true nature. Your survival skills. Your ability to adapt is just one of your greatest strengths. It will be challenging, but eventually, you will find a way to express our authentic self without the fear of having something or someone who can undo and take away your dreams.
There are people in your life whose adoration will twist into resentment - that is their truth, but it doesn't have to yours. They will set you up to fail in their eyes to maintain the narrative of their self-identity. Allow them that space. Continue to love them anyhow.
Your capacity for love and joy will offend others. Their jealousy, your OWN jealousy in life, is there to show you not only what your hidden desires are but that you have the capacity to grow in that direction!
Holding a victim mentality is easy. It's a survival tool that will serve you only as long as you serve it. Take things personally enough to affect change, but not so personally that you feel attacked and armour up. Learn to own your behaviors. Learning to accept the tools that helped to keep you safe might now be hurting you, will make it easier to seek out a healing modality that allows you to learn, laugh and grow. Power resides where we direct our attention and focus. If we focus on the fear of being found out, we will never learn to use our voice so that generations from now, we can stand in our truth, united.
You will feel guilty 90% of the time. As though you have done something wrong and everything is your fault. This is because your feelings will be invalidated from birth by your parents. You will be taught to abandon yourself out of fear of being abandoned. There is a more profound emotion at play here. It's called betrayal. It will be confusing; you will take on others emotions as though they were your own, and it will make you feel as though you belong in a nuthouse. There will be no one left to teach you in your family that these are gifts because the last few generations felt and dealt with them as though they were curses. Don’t worry about it. The right teachers will ALWAYS come to you at the right time and teach you how to heal yourself.
You will (eventually) learn to celebrate your individuality while honoring our oneness with creation, so trust that though you will feel lost, you are precisely where you need to be at times. Though it may be a small comfort or none at all while the statement holds no meaning for you - though you assimilated to survive as a child, you were and are not damaged! You are changed. You are magnificent.
You will eat, bury and build a shrine for your Grief, then call that wall strength. You will be wrong. That shrine is fear, and it will take years of running and denial before you self destruct.
When you can’t get out of bed, try not to beat yourself up. Eventually, you will learn that breakdowns are actually breakthroughs. They feel like you are breaking down because you ARE. You are breaking down the carefully constructed beliefs that kept you safe while living in a hostile environment. Your breakthroughs will come when you are in a safe space, ready to let go and shift into alignment with your true nature. Ignore the peanut gallery and hear the wisdom of your soul when it asks gently for time to process. Depression is just another word for Deep Rest.
Nothing is ever a sacrifice. Things are sacrificed - but in the name of a choice made and carried out. You will be afraid to make those choices, and that is alright. Greatness is earned over time because Courage is just fear in forward motion.
As you grow, you will shed personalities like a snake sheds its skin and eventually take a new form, with deeper meaning, fed by your life experiences. Fed by your Core Values. You will not always recognize yourself, or love yourself. You will even resent yourself as the changes will be preceded by behavior patterning that sits deep in your subconscious. You are capable of loving both the old and new form. The Dark and the Light. You are meant to be a paradox.
Just as emotions are energy in motion, when we become stuck, anxiety can build up until it seems insurmountable. You will freeze, you will self protect, you will think so many times that you can not go on. Know that these blocks aren't there to discourage you but reroute you - onto a new path, uncovered terrain - as you construct a blueprint for not only your advancement but for humanity's betterment.
You are a Legacy Ambassador.
