​​​ I am a Xicana/Mexicana Seer, Medicine Woman, Counseling Psychology Ph.D., and mama.

For a long time, I overextended myself, was there for everybody but myself, feeling overresponsibilty and showing up in servitude. I come from peoples that carried powerful wisdom, medicine, and also experienced poverty, violence, and exploitation after colonization. For a long time, I felt like to honor my ancestors I had to sacrifice. I felt guilty for having it "better than them." I now understand this is not how intergenerational trauma works, it is the most recent generation of a lineage that carries the unhealed trauma of the previous generations. But this belief kept me pushing through, being the strong one, enduring, and in cycles of exploitation and depletion. Simultaneously, I was hiding my spiritual gifts, forcing myself into a paradigm and pace of life that my body couldn’t keep up with. And, extracting from my mind, body, and life force finally resulted in a health collapse. I almost lost it all and I experienced a symbolic death, a dark night of the soul. I became ill because I was engaging in colonial narratives, feeling like I had to always show up to honor the sacrifices of those before me. In those dark days, I had to face myself and my patterns, and the root of my unwellness.

 

Where did I learn to treat myself this way? Where did my mothers learn to treat themselves this way? How did we get here? Surrendering to this journey allowed me to go within to reflect on what got me there. Through an intense death and rebirth, I was able to identify the programming and the patterns that kept me colluding with my own oppression. I learned that I was forcing myself to tolerate a toxic work environment and had been indoctrinated into toxic colonial work & living habits, disconnected from myself, and the natural world. I realized the heaviness I was feeling, and the physical pain that I was enduring, were related to trying to force myself to be in a way that was not natural to me, trying to push away my gifts, working and living in a way that honored everyone else but me, depleting my vitality because it is not where I was meant to be and how I was meant to live. I realize now that the physical symptoms I was experiencing were signs that were inviting me to shift into my divine purpose, remember my ancestral ways, and embrace & honor all of who I am and this is the journey I invite you into.