"I'm a therapist. I spend my days holding space for other people's healing. What I hadn't fully acknowledged is how much I'd been neglecting my own."
There's something quietly ironic about knowing exactly how healing works, and still avoiding it in your own life. Brigid called me out on that very directly this month.
The shadow work in this chapter hit differently for me because I know the theory. I've guided other people through grief integration, inner child work, release practices. But doing it for myself — with Juanelle's voice in my ears and the sisters in the circle as witness — was completely different from knowing it academically.
I cried during the full moon ceremony. Properly. The kind of crying that reorganises something. I'd been carrying a version of myself I outgrew years ago, and I think this month I finally put her down with love instead of just abandoning her.
What surprised me most was how open I felt in the aftermath. It was like the clearing made space for the energy to move. My breath got deeper, my chest softened, and I felt my own life force again for the first time in years. That, it turns out, was the point.
"Healing isn't linear and it doesn't wait until you have time for it. Brigid taught me to let the fire in — not when it's convenient, but when it's calling."