a journey from self-shame to self-acceptance
there comes a moment when you read your own words and suddenly see yourself —not through the distorted lens of self-criticism, but with the startling clarity of recognition. recently, while revisiting my own words on ig, such a moment arose. the poem communicated my experience so authentically that i felt seen. this is why i write poetry: it's the only way to truly communicate how i personally experience life.
but with this recognition came a painful question: why have i been so ashamed of who i am?
the prison
i have built a complete prison of self-shame around myself. i have been my own captor, my own jailer. while i could point outward and identify where this shame was taught to me—and i certainly have valid reasons to be afraid—the truth is more complex. what i've been denying myself isn't simply the full permission to be who i am. it's something deeper: the constant shaming and punishing of myself for who i am, particularly for the most magical parts of myself that i'm constantly avoiding, diminishing, or trying to change.
my life is rich and beautiful in ways that amaze me when i allow myself to see clearly. i write poetry that moves me to tears. i don't simply cook—i explore the depths of everything, working with chocolate, celebrating the complexity found in vanilla, working with my hands to help wild things grow wilder. i'm teaching myself to sew, making chopsticks and hashi from pruned pear wood. yet somehow, i've been successful not in masking who i am, but in diminishing it.
the revelation of being seen
a young woman i've come to love as an adopted daughter—someone who needed nurturing and with whom i've developed a beautiful relationship—helped me see this clearly. as we rearranged my temple together, moving the talismans, bones, shells, and dried plants that fill every corner of my home and car, she made an observation that shattered my illusions.
when i mentioned moving into my "witchy era," she was surprised. "it seemed like you already lived that," she said. in that moment, i could see all the ways this sacred part of myself had manifested in my life, and simultaneously, all the ways i'd diminished it in the world. my home is a sacred space, filled with so much expression that few people enter it—because it is so authentically me.
a new kind of prayer
the past six weeks have marked a profound shift in my spiritual practice, sparked by something caroline myss wrote about a 15th-century mystical nun. the insight was so profound i didn't need to read further: we are such a self-centered humanity that when we pray, when we manifest, when we serve our god, it's always about how it can benefit us. even our most spiritual moments revolve around what we want, what we need, what we lack.
this realization liberated me because i recognized that my humanness—my need for stability, safety, expression, and security for my family—was actually what i could offer. i didn't surrender my need for these things. instead, i surrendered my desire for someone else to fix it. i surrendered my desperation, my hopelessness, everything that made me want to ask for help rather than embody the solution myself.
this surrender has been nothing short of self-annihilating, and it has opened a portal of self-discovery and compassion that i am deeply grateful for.
nourishment and violence
one unexpected result of this work has been that i've started eating—truly eating. those who know me understand what this means. i am someone who has survived on remarkably few calories, shaped by cellular memories of starvation from the womb, by anorexia and bulimia. paradoxically, i became a chef because my synesthesia creates a unique relationship with what we inadequately call "food"—such an ugly, unpoetic word for something so complex and essential.
food is everything. it's the only thing that connects us to the natural world that we actually ingest, becoming part of us. yet in america, i can feel that our food isn't just lacking or dead—it's violent. the entire system is built on negligence, conditioning, and blind obedience. hunger became easier than engaging with this violence on a visceral level.
coming home
my family is moving to a place i've wanted to be for a very long time—somewhere impossible to reach, somewhere i don't deserve. but we're doing it anyway because i want to feel home and safe, to align the cells in my body with where i know i belong. the conventional wisdom of blooming where you're planted has never worked for me. i want to go home.
this shift happened within those transformative six weeks. a stone from the isle of alba appeared in my life, so hot in my hands that its sharp edges seemed to cut my palms. holding it, i said simply, "take me home." then i put it down and realized: i can just decide this. it's that simple.
much of my desire for this place stemmed from believing it was the only way i could fully be myself—somewhere my uniqueness would go unnoticed because everyone else would be similar, where i could have the safety to breathe into the richness of who i am. but i realized that to pull off something so fantastical and impossible, i needed to become what it is i'm going there to be. instead of being pulled to it, i needed to pull it to me. i had to become the vessel rather than expecting to find the vessel when i arrived.
the path of the seeker
this system we live in gives zero space for the kind of work seekers must do. if you are someone who will consistently shed layers of yourself to reach truth, there is no support system. you must keep functioning while allowing time for deep reflection, for questioning whether this is the path you want, for the possibility of waking up from the collective dream.
being a seeker means sometimes going hungry, sometimes becoming homeless, because what do you do when you need six weeks, two months, or even a year of solitude to produce something meaningful? how do you show up to that necessity?
i recognize now that when i'm in the deep work, i don't share anything with anyone. i start creative projects—podcasts, new explorations—as doorways into my own experience, ways to make the internal tangible and observable. as an old writing coach once told me, i'm making clay. this clay takes different forms, and if a project has enough gravitational pull, i return to it, building something substantial.
it isn't that i don't finish things or constantly abandon projects. the things i start are tools, doorways into my inner process, ways to create something visible and tangible. what an amazing gift this recognition is.
the portal opens
through this work of shedding and becoming, i've discovered something revolutionary: i don't need to wait until i reach some destination to be who i am. the portal to authenticity opens when we stop diminishing the magical parts of ourselves and start honoring the full spectrum of our experience—the sacred and the human, the mystical and the practical, the poetry and the pain.
this is my meditation, my practice, my becoming. and in sharing this process, i offer it as a doorway for others who might recognize themselves in this journey from self-shame to self-acceptance, from asking to be fixed to becoming the vessel of transformation we seek.
the work continues, and i am grateful.
Photo by Carlos Torres on Unsplash
Share this post