When Expansion Feels Unsafe
Two years ago I received an email to be interviewed by a large international magazine and a major online publication.
It took me days to respond and they needed an answer instantly.
I took days to respond: because I was frozen in fear.
I couldn't answer emails, respond to my accountant, and continue shooting videos for an online course I was launching. I was frozen on the couch watching Netflix.
My womb was sore. Really sore.
A beautiful thing had happened and I freaked out because I'd reached my set point l went into freeze mode (a typical trauma response).
I started to do some of the #MoneyMagic Womb Breathwork mixed with some of the vow invisibility breathwork.
I kept seeing a memory of me on the morning of graduation from UCT:
♦️ I'm 21, soo happy and proud of myself because I've worked 3 jobs for 4 years to get my finance honors degree
♦️Then the image changes, in the middle of all these emotions - my mom steps into the image and I tell her my only desire is to go traveling and see the world
♦️All hell breaks loose: and she tells me how I have always been useless, stupid, I always make stupid decisions, I ruin everything and this goes on for most of the morning
And I see my 21 year old self shrink. The damage is done, even when I go on stage to get my degree, I feel no joy, it doesn't feel like anything special.
It's just a piece of paper, which ironically is also what gave me the courage to leave everything and go traveling.
But I realize in the meditation - this is a snapshot of my life until 10 years ago.
My big life celebrations until my mid 20s were accompanied by my mother's criticism - school prize giving, publishing my book, getting my MBA degree, my first TV appearance...
This is why my nervous system sometimes associates expansion with abuse and why expansion feels unsafe for me.
When expansion feels unsafe
I've had to work through various layers of vows of invisibility and loyalty in this plane and the spiritual plane because expanding financially or business wise leads to more visibility, which feels unsafe for me.
Sometimes my inner child and inner teen just want to hide and I have to take days off to just do the inner work, release my vows of invisibility and be in my body and do the work to regulate my nervous system.
And this is challenging, because despite everything, I still love my mom and it's often felt like choosing me and choosing to step into my power has felt like a betrayal to her because she's also a victim of abuse.
Trauma is layered
I’ve spent days crying and grieving for me, my sister, my mom, my aunts, my grandmother, my great grandmother and all the women who came before us.
Because the sadness in my womb was (is?) not just mine, but all of ours because my mother learned to parent from her parents who learned it from theirs and so on and this is now affecting my financial journey.
And sometimes healing looks like this - it's layers and it's messy, heartbreaking and ancestral.
The things that trip us up and stop us from taking action or allowing more money into our lives, often have nothing to do with money. At least on the surface.
The big up levels will bring up the next layer to heal and that's okay because today I feel better and I'm taking action from a space of ease again.
Also my womb is feeling amazing. No more pain.
I didn't have to fight my emotions and power through fear and resistance, and it took me a few days after the incident to stop procrastinating and to get back to work vs weeks and months.
Not only do I feel better - but I also finished the video course I was working on and enrolled a bunch of new students into that.
The magic is in the healing.
