Trigger Warning: this article discusses sexual assault and physical abuse

Now that the Universe had sent me the framework to begin writing this book and all initial roadblocks felt somewhat resolved, the only challenges left were on an emotional and energetic level. (If you missed Part One of The Writing Process, catch up here.)

I had an outline of what lessons I wanted to share with my reader and certain stories and memories came rising to the surface asking to be included in this book. I was excited to write a chapter on interpreting dreams and share the amazing experiences I’d had with premonition dreams and how to recognize them. I knew exactly what I wanted to share about creating an altar and how to know the difference between anxiety and intuition.

But some of the lessons that I wanted to share about feeling disconnected from intuition or ignoring intuition felt much more complicated. 

Uncovering Blocks

The blocks I felt around my outline reminded me of how I felt before coming out and how once I shared the truth, that I was Gay, everything opened for me and communication became easier. I decided to get the hard things out of the way first. I knew that once I did, the rest would flow freely. So, I looked at the parts of my outline that gave me anxiety and decided on tackling them one at a time.

I knew I wanted to include a chapter on Boundaries and how important they are for highly intuitive people, and I wanted to explain the purpose and process of connecting to your own essence and spiritual energy. These were the lessons that felt most important and at the same time challenging to me as I realized I had some deeper work to do processing the experiences I wanted to share in this book. 

What are you most afraid of?

I began by asking myself what I was most afraid of sharing, and immediately two things came to mind. The first was that I had been sexually assaulted as a young teen and how that had made me feel disconnected from my body and intuition. The second, was that I had been in an abusive relationship my senior year of high school that further disconnected me from my myself. These experiences felt essential to telling my story of Uncovering Intuition and at the same time, hard to talk about. 

Revisiting the Past 

I tried to remember how I had felt during these times in my life. I imagined I must have felt lonely, disconnected, and sad but I couldn’t recall. I meditated on it, journaled, and talked with my therapist and still I did not feel anything. Finally, I decided to just start writing and ask my intuition for guidance and clarity. I would start by writing the facts that I remembered, and I hoped that the rest would come. It did. 

An image of what my face looked like when I felt this disconnection sat in my mind waiting to be approached. I held on to this one, solid, complete, tangible memory of my too thin eighteen-year-old face with vacant eyes, dried leaves in her hair, and bruises across her collarbone. I closed my eyes and saw my younger self looking back at me watching, waiting, and wanting something. I whispered to her, “What do you want to say?”  “The truth,” she answered, “I don’t need you to protect me.” 

In retrospect I realize that my lack of memory around how I felt was because for most of that time in my life I was simply focused on surviving. Being in an abusive relationship caused me to feel so disconnected from myself that I couldn't feel my own spirit. I wanted to share how eventually my intuition had helped me to escape from this dangerous situation and make my way back to myself. 

With this realization came more questions: How did I become a young person who would end up in an abusive relationship in the first place? I knew the answer. Because of the sexaul assault I experienced years earlier, I was vulnerable and searching for connection and belonging. The idea of disclosing this information in my book felt overwhelming, so looked to the internet for guidance. 

As I googled “people who have written about sexual assault," lists of celebrities that had written about the topic popped up on my computer screen. There were a few I recognized, but not many. 

 Here are some that have written beautifully on the subject:

Jonathan Van Ness 

Cheryl Strayed 

Jeff Brown

I thought about the people in my life that I knew shared similar experiences to me, the clients, friends, students, and people close to me whom I loved, respected, and cared for. It seemed that for how common this experience was it was barely written about or discussed.

My thoughts went wild making lists of the pros and cons of disclosing my sexual assault and delivered many unhelpful story lines for me to consider. Things like “this information could be hard for people close to you to hear”, “you don’t want people to feel sorry for you”, “this will make people uncomfortable”, “this could trigger people”, my thoughts were unforgiving “should your kids have to hear this about their mother?”  the list went on and on. 

Still, I had a deep feeling of wanting to share this part of my story and I decided that it would be impossible for me to share so much about my life and particularly coming to terms with my sexuality and being in an abusive relationship as a teenager without providing this context. I decided to stop shaming myself and stop listening to the part of me that wanted to be protective and instead I listened to the part of me that said, “I don’t need protecting, I want to share this truth.” 

The truth was that I had been sexually assaulted when I was 14 years old and it had affected me in lots of ways: emotionally, physically, spiritually, and that it was a part of my story that needed to be included. I decided that I would add my name to the list of people who had written about being sexually assaulted and made a plan to silence these unhelpful narratives that wanted to keep me quiet about the experience.

I knew these thoughts were meant to keep me safe and so I tried to meet them with compassion. 

A Meditation to let go of fears

I closed my eyes and visualized a long line of red balloons floating in front of me. Each balloon had one of these unhelpful thoughts inside of it. In my imagination I took out a long needle and one at a time stuck it into each thought balloon. Each time I did this the balloon would make a satisfying pop, exploding into nothing and tiny red scraps would fall to the ground around my feet.

During this exercise there were more balloons than I had originally imagined there would be since I had spent years in therapy processing this trauma and felt I was writing about it from a healed place. So, it took me by surprise when there in my meditation was a balloon that said “what if some people don’t believe you” and even a very old thought “what if you are making this up” and finally “it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

I popped that last one and stepped on it for good measure. 

Looking for clues

This final processing was what I needed to begin writing the truth. So, I began trying to put a timeline together.  I had years’ worth of notebooks, journal entries and photographs to work with, however the important memories that needed to be on the page were mostly locked safely away in my mind. I had a general idea of stories I wanted to tell that would coincide with intuitive lessons and many of them were traumatic experiences that left me with memory gaps, questions, and doubt. 

At the end of my first full week writing, I convened a meeting with My Spirit Guides and asked for help. I wanted to know how it would be possible for me to share my story with so many missing pieces.  

When I connected to my guides the answer came simply and quickly: “Everything you remember clearly will be enough, it will magically fit together, and you will be amazed!” I heard. 

That message also came with a deep feeling of comfort and resolution that left me wondering why I had waited an excruciating week to ask this question. I added “Connecting to Your Spirit Guides” to my book outline feeling full of gratitude for their assistance in writing this book.

Next week I’ll share about how you can connect to your spirit guides. 

Read the book Uncovering Intuition

Learn more about intuitive readings or intuitive mentorship.

Bookmark to read later: Intuition vs Anxiety: How to Clearly Tell the Difference