Letters from Sofia #8: How to Slow Down and Live in the Moment

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Let’s Go Inside

“Slower is faster,” I say to my clients when they want the work of healing and transformation done yesterday. They often give me an inquisitive look which quickly transmutes into a broad smile of recognition. The message resonates with a deep inner knowing. They long to slow down, rest, and be present for the hard-earned wonders of their life but they are haunted by a sense of urgency and pressure. A part of them possesses the desire to slow down and relish the moment while another part of them comes alive through a persistent need for speed.

Time is a medium that offers a containing sense of coherence necessary for the expression of our life force across past, present, and future selves. Time is intimately linked to our identity and the ways in which we navigate the world as both a cumulative byproduct of our past selves and an active agent in service of our future selves. We have deep inner conflicts and polarizations around time as individuals and as a collective. This is why in this month’s newsletter I want to talk about time management and the parts of us that engage in the perception and experience of time. Not in the ordinary, traditional sense of productivity but in the extraordinary, mythical sense of the “rapture of aliveness” as Joseph Campbell would say. 

One side of our psyches seeks out the commodification of time, using it to manifest our fullest potential through achievements providing increased fulfillment, purpose, meaning, belonging, validation, agency, etc. The parts of us in charge of this domain have a need for speed. They are rushing, doing, and whizzing through time. They are oriented toward outer expansion. The fleeting, ephemeral, and transient are inspiring and even exciting for these parts. They are aiming at quantity–they often want to live many lives in one or experience as many possibilities as possible. They are Doing-centered parts. 

Another diametrically opposing side of our psyches compels us to savor time, relishing each moment in order to rest and imbibe the aliveness unfolding within it. The parts on this side of the equation often have a need to slow down or even pause. They are lingering, riding the natural rhythms of time. Instead of doing, they are being with what arises, offering us a sense of self- and world-coherence. These parts embed us in a greater structure, weaving together threads of our past, present, and future. In this way, we become bound to ourselves across time as a stable yet dynamic whole. They are aiming at quality—they often want to live with depth the one and only life that is guaranteed. After all, this is not a dress rehearsal. These are Being-centered parts. 

Doing and Being “sides” are equally essential and, in fact, we cannot truly flourish without access to both. It would be like attempting to drive a car with access to only the accelerator or the break. It would be like trying to dance with only the left side of your body. But Doing is pitted against Being in our Western culture. We are rewarded for productivity, achievement, manifestation of potential, and the domination and mastery of the external world. Being is often a foreign concept, conflated with the absence of doing, or even non-Being. Perhaps one of the cultural burdens we’ve picked up is that Doing is proof of Being and that ceasing to do is ceasing to exist altogether.

When we’re not doing, we’re “wasting” or “killing” time, indulging in our capacity for “laziness.” We’re proud to be “busy,” making things happen. We’re ashamed to be doing “nothing.” We’ve put one side of our individual and collective psyches on a pedestal forsaking the parts beckoning us to slow down, lean in, surrender, and let life happen. I was once given this piece of advice about parenting in a light-hearted yet serious spirit: “You have to be willing to be shaped and molded by it. If you resist being changed by it, it will be a tragedy.” I believe this can be applied to many realms of life beyond parenting.

In our modern, whizzing, infinite scrolling world of ever increasing stimuli, we suffer from an overidentification with the role of the sculptor. We’re so busy scalpel in hand chipping away at the world to create the life we want that we forget we are also the marble block being created and recreated by Life, by a Higher Power—through the progression of Time. Asleep to the knowledge of our dual nature (both sculptor and sculpture) we turn the scalpel on ourselves accelerating the fragmentation of our psyches. This is the ultimate tragedy.   

For those of us who are survivors of complex trauma, being shaped and molded, letting life happen to you, being the “object” on which external forces act upon, is threatening. It becomes an experience of subjugation as opposed to one of surrender. But to surrender is not to give up subjectivity, agency, or selfhood. It’s quite the opposite. It’s precisely because you do claim your selfhood and do stand firmly in your solidness (not unlock a marble block) that you can surrender to Being. This is a call to adventure, a call to experience the rapture of aliveness, and to transform tragedy into myth. This is the phenomenon of “slower is faster.” We may not be able to control time but we can manage our perceptions and experiences of time by inviting in, befriending, and dancing with both Doing- and Being-centered parts. 

My clients are high achieving professionals who are used to the striving, productive, active life. Their Doing parts are at the helm navigating the currents of their inner and outer lives. Urgency and pressure comprise the fuel that propels them forward. Speed is not only familiar—their safety depends on it. Somewhere along the lines, a part of them picked up the message, “Keep the momentum going or else….” Pausing or even slowing down is risky business. What if you run out of fuel, lose momentum, become untethered, and get swept away into oblivion and devouring despair? What if on the other side of productive Doing lies complete and utter collapse into non-doing and non-being? For these productive, striving parts rushing through life is not only a means toward success and fulfillment but also a strategy of staving off the underlying vulnerabilities threatening the tenuous inner homeostasis they have achieved. For this reason, we need to redefine what slowing down means and offer a new possibility grounded not in subjugation, loss of self, and collapse but in safe yet expansive surrender. 

Slowing down is the ability to surrender enough so you can simultaneously be a master of time (doing with it what you will to manifest potential) and a servant of time (allowing it to act upon you and carry you forth into a future of mythical proportions). Slowing down is the capacity to be both the one Doing the creating and the one Being created. Perhaps you will discover there a dynamic state of ease, flow, and resonance with your most heroic, highest Self.

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Questions

• What is your experience of and relationship with Time? Take a moment to notice what thoughts, feelings, sensations, perspectives, impulses arise when you think about time. These are all trailheads that, if taken, will lead you to parts of your psyche who belong most likely to the Doing-or Being-centered camps of consciousness. It’s important to note that both of these camps are valuable, essential aspects of your psyche and, when in connection to your inner knowledge, wisdom, and Self, they are necessary for genuine transformation and thriving beyond mere survival. 

• When you bring to your awareness the concept of “slowing down,” what arises within you? Identify the productive, striving, managerial parts who have concerns, worries, or even fears about slowing down. What are their hopes, dreams, nightmares, perceptions of your past, present, and future selves? 

• What are the parts of you that yearn for slowing down? Invite them to share with you what “slowing down” means for them and any hopes, dreams, nightmares, or insights into your past, present, and future selves they would like you to know. 

• Set an intention to continue getting to know both sides of this polarization. The more you can connect, befriend, and create a loving, compassionate relationship with them, the more inner harmony and the greater safety and freedom you will have to genuinely experience a slowing down and nourishing rest. 

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More from Sofia

How to Overcome Resistance, Get Unstuck, and Find Inner Peace At Last / article

I share with you how to overcome resistance by exploring it through the respectful yet powerful lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy. You will discover the parts of your psyche underlying resistance, especially if you are a survivor of complex trauma and narcissistic abuse.

How to Get Clarity with Almost Anything / article

I share the number one reason you are lacking clarity and five ways to gain clarity about almost any situation through the IFS therapy lens. You will learn to PIVOT from confusion and overwhelm to clarity and confidence. I share tools to help you master your emotions with greater self-compassion, meaning, and aliveness.​

Invitations for Exploration

• I'm Reading:

  Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul by Michael Meade. This book invites you to awaken to your own Life Force by contemplating and applying the ideas of fate and destiny.

  The Republic by Plato. I’m (re-)reading classics this year as I have found connecting to timeless truths and wisdom has a grounding, clarifying effect on my psyche. Can you relate? If you’re interested in the archetype of the philosopher-king and exploring the ways in which justice and true happiness are intertwined in the individual and collective, then I highly recommend this one.

Ready to heal from trauma and find your aliveness?

Letters from Sofia #7: How to Overcome Resistance, Get Unstuck, and Find Inner Peace At Last

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Let’s Go Inside

When a client first comes to my (virtual) office for therapy, I’m aware they arrive on a mission. The part of them that wants to change X,Y, and Z is in their seat of consciousness. This change-making part is dedicated to genuine transformation. It reveals a laundry list of reasons why A, B, and C need to happen in order for my client to move forward, reach their goal, and be at peace. It knows exactly what “gets in the way” or hinders my client’s capacity to be a fully alive, joyful, and creative agent of Being in their own life.

Before adopting the Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy approach or systemic lens to the psyche, I would create an alliance with this deeply devoted part that is ready to roll up its sleeves, dig in, and do the work. Now I know this is literally only a part of the story. There are parts of my client that “get in the way” of doing the work for historically good and valid reasons. By aligning myself with the change-making parts, I was unwittingly exiling or further alienating the parts that have been labeled by the mental health profession as “resistance.”

The truth is our psyches are comprised of parts who hold different (even conflicting) stories, memories, beliefs, feelings, or physiological imprints of the past, especially unresolved trauma. These change-resisting parts are also on a mission, just dedicated to a different cause. They are equally valuable and inherently worthy of attention, support, and healing. If the change-making parts are committed to moving forward, then the change-resisting parts are committed to staying put or grounding down.

Can you relate? At some points, you may be animated by a force that’s pushing you forward, attempting to make changes by putting self-care rituals into practice, or completing the to do list in service of that lofty aim. At other points, you may be animated by a diametrically opposing force that’s pulling you down or holding you back, perhaps by slowing you down, draining your energy, distracting or dissociating you.

A battle is playing out within your psyche between the parts of you devoted to the cause of keeping you “flowing” and the parts of you devoted to the cause of keeping you “rooted.” Each view you, your relationships, and your life through a lens of different organizing principles. The “flowing” part is oriented toward adventure while the “rooted” part is oriented toward home. The “flowing” part is pulling up the anchor and gazing out across the blue horizons. The “rooted” part is looking down planting its feet firmly into the soil. One side beckons you to venture up and out into possibility while the other side beckons you to venture down and inward into groundedness.

The invitation of life is to tune our capacity to inhabit all dimensions of Being:

• moving forward and staying put,

• venturing out and venturing in,

• being called to adventure and returning home,

• seeking play, freedom, and exploration, and

• yearning for safety, security, and comfort.

The descent is just as essential as the ascent on any hero’s journey. Everything becomes an opportunity to experience yourself as an agent in your own life. That is—a hero of your own myth reckoning with the burdens of suffering acquired as a result of being alive. One of the greatest sources of “resistance” is a deep disavowal of and disconnection from our birth right—our ownership over our innate worthiness and our right to be loved and love as differentiated yet connected, sovereign beings. To put a stake in the ground and claim your authenticity was literally risky business for those of us growing up in abusive households. This is especially the case with survivors of narcissistic abuse.

Your Life Force was actively thwarted, attacked, or shamed in an attempt to cut you off from your own Self. When you’ve experienced extreme psychological abuse, you live in an upside down world. Everything becomes inverted. Words and experiences are redefined to mean their opposites in true Orwellian fashion. Relationships become sources of pain and suffering as opposed to opportunities for love and mutual recognition. Intimacy becomes a means for subjugation and loss of power as opposed to a pathway toward surrender and transcendence.

You may feel deeply conflicted or fragmented as a result. The battle between the change-making/flowing and change-resisting/rooting parts can become so overwhelming that your entire nervous system gets swept up in these oscillating push-pull dynamics. Your internal pendulum swings back and forth between being amped up ready to bear down and push through in one moment and, in the next, dulled down, stripped of energy, and on the verge of collapse and burnout. This can be a self-alienating experience—we become strangers, even enigmas, to our own ourselves. Change is exactly what some parts of us most need and simultaneously exactly what other parts of us most fear. Genuine transformation is a dream to one aspect of our psyche and a horrific nightmare to another.

I assure you all your parts have their reasons. Some parts may:

• fear the unknown territory that lies beyond the old and familiar,

• disbelieve change is even possible or that you’re capable of it,

• believe you’re unworthy, undeserving of change or your needs don’t matter enough to even bother,

• feel weary of taking control and having more responsibility, and/or

• worry about getting punished, attacked, humiliated, abandoned, or rejected for asserting agency and embodying authenticity.

There is another way to live. You are not only a series of warring parts pulling you in one direction and the next until your head spins. You can befriend both sides of your inner battles and recognize they are extreme for a reason. The more curious and open you are to each of their stories, the more access you will have to what is deeply wounded inside and needs healing. Upon healing these early wounds, you reclaim the dimensions of life that you had become blocked from for the sake of survival.

“I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me. I am arch, gay, languid, melancholy by turns. I am rooted, but I flow.” writes Virginia Woolf. Being rooted and flowing are not mutually exclusive. Both parts are necessary for not only surviving but thriving. Children need a secure base from which to play and launch their exploration. They also need a safe haven to return to when turbulent waters arise and the going gets tough. Likewise, you need access to the full spectrum of inner and outer experience. I’m saying here that inside you are capacities to be your own secure base and safe haven. You are your primary attachment figure and caregiver as Dr. Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, states. When you are your primary attachment figure, these previously warring parts can become partners, complementing and dancing with one another to the music of life while you restore and revive the thousand capacities within you.

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Questions

• Are you aware of these change-making/flowing versus change-resisting/rooting parts in your inner world? I invite you to take a moment and notice if you’re aware of these two opposing forces within your own system. Can you get curious about them? Do they make sense to you considering their perspectives and your past history? See if you can be present with them.

• Grab a journal and write down for each side of this inner battle or polarization: what are their deepest dreams, desires, fears, and fantasies? What do they wish for you, your relationships, your work, your life, etc.?

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More from Sofia

When Trauma Fuels High Achievement, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do / article

I share with you how trauma can fuel high achievement and the consequences of striving that is rooted in woundedness. For many of us high achievers, it can be impossible to imagine a world in which fear, insecurity, worthlessness, or shame are not acting as fuel moving us forward. In this newsletter, I invite you to entertain the possibility of an alternative way: Achievement doesn’t have to be a reaction to the love we didn’t receive. Achievement can be an expression of the love that we are.

How to Get Clarity with Almost Anything / article

I share the number one reason you are lacking clarity and five ways to gain clarity about almost any situation through the IFS therapy lens. You will learn to PIVOT from confusion and overwhelm to clarity and confidence. I share tools to help you master your emotions with greater self-compassion, meaning, and aliveness.​

Invitations for Exploration

• I'm Reading:

  Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation by Daniel Shaw. This book is a must-read for individuals who are survivors of narcissistic abuse. I would go so far as to say it’s essential reading for everyone because we all need a theory of mind around malevolence in order to properly navigate our lives. Shaw provides a framework through which to understand traumatic narcissism and make sense of its potential impact on our psyches. If you’ve experienced narcissistic abuse firsthand, this book draws a relational map through which you can better grasp and connect to the survival strategies we took on as well as the wounded parts of you that need to be seen, reclaimed, and healed.

  Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This tremendous book is a classic for a reason as it provides deep insight into the protagonist’s mind and the parts at war within his psyche. Dostoevsky brings to life and gives voice to the internal conversation between conflicted parts of us that experience false dichotomies such as victim and perpetrator, oppressed and oppressor. In addition, we gain insight into the consequences of disavowing our humanity and rejecting the sacred that is a current trend in our materialist world.

• I'm Watching:

  Inside Out 2. A fun, playful way to learn more about parts through the little voices in Riley’s head. Perhaps this film can invoke some more curiosity, tenderness, and love for these little parts trying their best.

Ready to heal from trauma and find your aliveness?

Letters from Sofia #6: When Trauma Fuels High Achievement, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do

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Let’s Go Inside

You are thriving in some areas of life, what pioneering trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk calls the “islands of safety.” But there’s a catch. Nothing feels quite enough or good enough. A sense of emptiness or hollow discontent permeates the recesses of your psyche and becomes the soundtrack to your life. Sure, there may be moments of elation or aliveness but they quickly succumb to relief, then numbness, then shame, and then finally onto the next big problem, milestone, project, or goal. This is how you know you have unresolved trauma as a high performer or high achiever.

You may experience extreme oscillation between self-confidence and self-flagellation. You can muster up superhuman strength and resilience one moment and the next you’re down on your knees at the hands of a relentless inner critic or perfectionist part of yourself. Worst of all you feel like an imposter because your insides don’t match your outsides. You have a life worthy of celebration yet you feel dissociated, deadened, or even resigned to the gilded cage of success and performance. At the heart of the matter is a deep spiritual misalignment. How can you become an authentic leader or gain genuine mastery in the external world when you feel so untethered from your own inner world and sense of Self?

As a trauma therapist and mom, something that has been on my mind and in my heart as of late is how our Western culture and society causes our experience of Being to be shaped and defined by external factors. The message we receive is: how worthy, good, or valuable you are depends on your academic performance, relationship status, career success, social status, money, power, sex, etc. As a result of these messages, we become motivated by avoiding punishment, failure, rejection, or abandonment and receiving approval, validation, belonging, admiration, or praise. These sources of extrinsic motivation have a rightful place as they play an essential role in the outward expression of human experience, endeavor, and adventure.

The problem arises when extrinsic motivation emanates from a trauma orienting us to the outer world as a means of disconnecting us from our inner world. The result is extrinsic motivation being the sole motivation fueling our sense of a coherent Self. Extrinsic motivation does not provide a center or sense of groundedness from which to launch into the external world and engage with life. “All too often, your decisions are based on the fear of getting in trouble or getting abandoned, rather than on the principles of having meaningful and equitable interactions with the world,” states psychotherapist Pete Walker. I would add that all too often decisions are based on working for, fighting for, chasing after, or pleading for the love that you should have received freely, happily, and openly for being you—for just being alive. High performance and achievement become survival strategies to get what you didn’t get back then and there. Success is born from the lacking void instead of the nourishing Love that was your birthright. 

When we witness our woundedness and heal from our traumas, we have more access to intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is fueled by meaning, purpose, growth, fun, play, passion, curiosity, mastery, pride, agency, and the peace that comes from becoming immersed in the flow of life as it's manifesting through you in this moment. High performance and achievement can and will be born from a deep sense of enoughness, aliveness, and Love when traumas are resolved and wounds are healed. There is another way to live. There is another way to achieve and succeed.

I will leave you with this personal story. I noticed a few months ago that my mother would say to my son, “I love you,” at very specific moments during her visits. Moments when he was performing, doing something “smart,”  “special,” or generally “achieving” a hard task (for a 3-year-old, that is). Something inside me clicked into place, and I heard a part of me say, “Wow, that’s what happened to me.” Although there was nothing overtly traumatizing or catastrophic happening in these encounters, I recognized the part of me that got the message, “Achievement equals love.” If we want to go down the rabbit hole of narcissistic abuse, I could see tiny glimmers of how my achievements served as narcissistic supply for my caregivers who were themselves disconnected from their Self and spiritually misaligned. I could witness and hold space for the part of me that had been living alone on my" “island of safety,” namely achievement, surviving and fighting for scraps of love, crumbs of worthiness and acceptance. 

I say this to you because chances are you’re in the process of healing and reparenting your inner child and/or parenting your own child. As adults in the present day, we have the choice to free ourselves (and future generations) from the gilded cage of accomplishment as reward. Achievement doesn’t have to be a reaction to the love we didn’t receive. Achievement can be an expression of the love that we are. Success can be a manifestation of the inner attunement with your Highest Self and the greater spiritual alignment with Being, God, or however you define your Higher Power.

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Questions

• How has high performance or achievement become your island of safety? In what areas do you thrive? How does this thriving (and striving) give you a sense of self or add meaning to your life? 

• What are the extrinsic motivators that fuel the high achieving and striving parts of your psyche? What would happen if you didn’t achieve? What is the worst case scenario?

• What would it be like if you had more access to intrinsic motivation while striving? What is the best case scenario? What visions of your future self may come true? What concerns, wishes, or desires come up?

• I have less of a question and more of an invitation here. Is there a past version of yourself (a young, vulnerable part of you perhaps) or, for that matter, any person in your life that just needs to hear I love you? I love you for being you. Thank you for being here in my life. I love you with no strings attached. You don’t need to be, do, or perform in any way to receive my love. Can you express that love in a way they can absorb and take in?

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More from Sofia

4 Keys to Building a Happy Relationship / article

I share with you the four keys to a happy relationship. These keys are meant to serve as maps guiding you on your journey of deepening and expanding your intimate relationships. I believe true intimacy is a place–a field–where you and your partner meet to discover the sacred and meaningful that make life worth living.  

How to Get Clarity with Almost Anything / article

I share the number one reason you are lacking clarity and five ways to gain clarity about almost any situation through the IFS therapy lens. You will learn to PIVOT from confusion and overwhelm to clarity and confidence. I share tools to help you master your emotions with greater self-compassion, meaning, and aliveness.​

Invitations for Exploration

• I'm Reading:

  The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit by Donald Kalsched. A beautiful book that takes you on a journey inside the trauma survivor’s self-care system and what it does in an attempt to survive and preserve the Spirit through a Jungian lens. Kalsched writes, “Trauma is about the rupture of those developmental transitions that make life worth living.” He shares stories, myths, and folktales that acknowledge and give credit to the parts of us that have worked hard to protect our Spirit from the potential annihilation of unbearable trauma.

  Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up by Abigal Shrier. This is a book that challenges preconceived notions when it comes to the utility and effectiveness of talk therapy for children and adolescents. It is sure to ruffle some feathers as it looks at how therapists, teachers, parents, and caregivers may be doing more harm than good, reinforcing trauma inadvertently. Although I don’t agree with all of her takes, Shrier accurately reflects what I believe to be a detrimental aspect of our culture, namely—an overidentification with our woundedness, vulnerability, brokenness, victimhood, and traumas which leads to not only the the missed opportunity to instill resilience in our children and in ourselves but also the reinforcement of fragility and learned helplessness.

• I'm Watching:

  Awakening from the Meaning Crisis with Dr. John Vervaeke. Dr. Vervaeke, a philosopher and cognitive scientist, has provided 50 free lectures online that tackles the questions of meaning and aliveness from the perspectives of evolutionary biology, philosophy, psychology, religion, and cognitive science (to name only a few). The breadth and depth of these lectures is not only enlightening but also healing for those yearning to understand themselves and humanity on a multi-dimensional existential level. So much food for thought!

Ready to heal from trauma and find your aliveness?

Letters from Sofia #5: Love after complex trauma and why you should have hope

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Let’s Go Inside

Love is all around as Valentine’s Day fast approaches. To some it’s a reminder to celebrate the ways that love has shown up in their lives. To others it’s a consumerist holiday manufactured by the flower and chocolate industries. To those with complex trauma it can be a reminder of all the ways in which love was—and maybe still is— absent.

A common misconception is that trauma is only what happened to you and how that impacted you. There is an overlooked piece to the puzzle that has affected my clients just as much if not more so. That piece is what didn’t happen to you—how you were not seen, heard, known, witnessed, held, cherished, adored, and loved. A lack of these experiences can lead to a sense of an inner void or abyss.

A great degree of our suffering is a result of these holes, these inner voids that shape us. We grow around these holes the way a tree grows around its injuries. These inner voids can lead to a mental, emotional, or spiritual emptiness that has us sleep-walking through life, numbing or distracting ourselves because feeling anything at all can become overwhelming, pushing us over the edge.

Neglect can make love exceedingly complicated because there is no reference point, compass, map or guide based on past experience to show us the way back home to a greater sense of connection, attunement, or resonance with another. It’s important to acknowledge this loss, what it meant to your younger self, and how it affects your relationships today. This is a deep injustice that shakes up the very foundation of your sense of Self and Being.

Can love exist after such seismic trauma? Yes and here’s why: you do not need to have past experiences of love to know and experience love. You don’t need a reference point from your childhood. Love is not just your birthright. You are Love. It’s your inherent nature. It may be hard to believe at first but what happened to you has not robbed you of the love that is interwoven into your Being. You do not need to create or cultivate experiences of love and relationship to get back in touch with love (although that can help of course).

Because your natural state is love, you only need to find what is blocking you from accessing its natural flow. These blocks are wounds, burdens from the past, or armor you’ve picked up to bear the unbearable and survive. When those wounds are healed and you’re free from the past, you will naturally reconnect to what has been there all along. You will be living proof of what’s possible—you went to hell and back, you dug your roots down, and at last you can grow to heaven.

Wrestling with the shadows of the inner void infuses your life with greater depth, meaning, and purpose. Parts of you may rightly wish there was never a need to wrestle or descend into your own personal Underworld. At the same time, there can be no true joy, peace, or aliveness without integrating, and even honoring, the full spectrum of your experience—from heaven to hell, from light to darkness, from love to hate, from good to evil, from pleasure to pain. Life paints itself in broad strokes across your Being and it’s up to you to embrace all the colors and turn your Self into the work of art you already are.

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Questions

• How were you not seen, heard, witnessed, or cherished? How you were not accepted, embraced, taken care of, or taken into consideration? How were you not protected, defended, honored, or challenged with love? How were your strengths and weaknesses, desires and needs, talents and skills, not reflected back to you?

• What are all the ways you were not given permission to be your most authentic, bold, creative, thriving self? What are all the ways you were not given the love that should have been (and is) your birth right?

• What survival strategies did parts of you use to fight for the love that is your birthright. Perhaps you checked out completely to shield yourself from the pain. Perhaps like many of my clients you became a high achiever, work and accomplishment becoming an island of safety, a refuge from the abyss.

• Do you believe love can be after trauma? Why or why not? What if your wounds could be healed and you could be free to love without the overwhelming fear? What if you didn’t have to guard your heart with such vigilance and for so much of the time? What would your most intimate relationships looks like and feel like?

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More from Sofia

Letters from Sofia #4: How to Follow Through and Reclaim the Sacred / newsletter

My previous newsletter in case you missed it. I share with you the problem we confront when we set goals or resolutions and how we may be unknowingly sabotaging ourselves. I also discuss the role meaning, purpose, and the sacred play in creating a life worth living.

4 Keys to Building a Happy Relationship / article

I share with you the four keys to a happy relationship. These keys are meant to serve as maps guiding you on your journey of deepening and expanding your intimate relationships. I believe true intimacy is a place–a field–where you and your partner meet to discover the sacred and meaningful that make life worth living.  

How to Get Clarity with Almost Anything / article

I share the number one reason you are lacking clarity and five ways to gain clarity about almost any situation through the IFS therapy lens. You will learn to PIVOT from confusion and overwhelm to clarity and confidence. I share tools to help you master your emotions with greater self-compassion, meaning, and aliveness.​

Invitations for Exploration

• I'm Reading:

  Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health--and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More by Chris Palmer, MD. Chris Palmer, has created a revolutionary unifying theory of mental illness. I'm grateful to see he is receiving greater traction and popularity as his insights on the connection between diet, metabolic syndrome, and mental health can lead to unbelievable transform and healing from the inside out. Healing trauma is one piece of the puzzle, and I know personally and professionally, that what we consume psychologically, spiritually, and physically can either have dire consequences or unlock our body's innate healing potential. 

  The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. This is a classic course that has been recommended to me over the years. Its purpose is to help you reclaim the creative spirit within you. Creating reminds you you are an agent of Life, not only a reactor or consumer. Taking action and articulating a creative impulse reconnects you to a greater power within and beyond regardless of the end result. For trauma survivors, this is critical since disconnection from Self and Source is a root cause of suffering.

• I'm Watching:

  End of the World Series by Jonathan Pageau. Jonathan Pageau is a unique intellectual and religious scholar. He breaks down current events through the lens of the symbolic world and the ancient traditions of our ancestors. If you’re looking to make sense of the modern world and understand how community and connection can help repair us on individual and collective levels, then this is for you.

Ready to heal from trauma and find your aliveness?

Letters from Sofia #4: How to Follow Through and Reclaim the Sacred

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Let’s Go Inside

I hope you're having a wonderful 2024 so far. Did you set any resolutions? If so, how is it going so far? What arises within you when you do follow through or don't follow through? Oftentimes, setting resolutions can feel like planting inner landmines. When we do follow through, we're relieved we didn't step on it, and when we don't follow through, an explosion of disappointment, shame, hopelessness, inner criticism, or even self-hatred, blows up in our faces. Does this sound familiar? 

If you've experienced complex trauma, it may be challenging to genuinely feel good--joy, aliveness, and wholeness--when you follow through, reach your goals, or keep your promises to yourself. Feeling good is often interpreted by parts of us as lowering our guard and therefore being open to more threats. It makes sense considering this helped keep us prepared for the worst-case scenario. Positive emotions or experiences cause suspicions to arise as a result. We can appreciate those parts of us that tried to shield us from danger. The flip side is when we inevitably fall short or disappoint (because we are human), our sense of self is encroached upon. This is especially the case if you see your achievements in the material world as inextricably linked to your identity, and, therefore, to your worth as a human Being. This is often a cultural or legacy burden parts of us have picked up to adapt to a world that places paramount value on working and performing. 

Following through on a resolution or achieving a goal without a contextual framework of intrinsic meaning, deeper value, or greater purpose exiles the sacred from our lives. Aiming toward an ideal, a higher good whether individually or collectively, is a sacred process. From time immemorial we have known this as the ancient myths, stories, and religions reflect back to us and celebrate the heroic journey that is our birthright. Today we are divorced from these traditions in our Western world. We live in a world that distracts us with pleasure and obscures our perception of the Truth. Victor Frankl writes, "When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure." Pleasure has replaced meaning. ​

We are yearning for the ascent to the Psychic heavens, the elixirs of life, without having to descend into our personal Underworld, ground ourselves in Truth, and sacrifice for a higher vision. We are seeking the treasures without daring to go into the cave that holds them. We want to be resurrected without first experiencing our personal crucifixion. We want salvation without suffering. This is a noble attempt on our part to soothe ourselves and provide some relief and protection from the inevitable tragedies that we experience. The paradox, however, is that what we resist persists, what we distract ourselves from only grows and intensifies. The more we exile meaning and see pleasure as the solution to our suffering, the more distracted, untethered, and groundless we become. We find ourselves lost or imprisoned in our internal dungeons and labyrinths. We become consumers instead of creators. 

My message to you for today and for this year is to turn back and remember you co-create with the divine, however you define it. You can let go of the cultural burden that has forsaken meaning for pleasure as the path to freedom from suffering. You can achieve goals and keep resolutions more effectively without the burden of worthlessness or shame weighing you down. You can achieve goals with the virtues of hope and faith lifting you up to the sacred and allowing your light to shine through. You are inherently valuable. You are worthy. And the more you embrace and invite in the meaning or sacredness of life, the more you will be able to tolerate and even celebrate the obstacles, struggles, or sacrifices on your hero's journey.  

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Questions

• What has historically arisen for you when you aim for a goal, attempt to follow through, or keep a resolution? Notice any thoughts, feelings, or sensations that come to the surface when you do or don't follow through. These are all trailheads and worthy of exploration to better understand and get to know the woundedness that often drives us to work more, perform better, move forward, etc.

• I invite you to create a map of meaning or a lens through which you can see yourself and experience the world as inextricably connected to the divine, however you define it. ​How do you define meaning? The sacred? The divine? You can look inside for what comes up spontaneously and/or you can look into ancient myths, stories, and traditions. Are you drawn to any ancient traditions or teachings that resonate with you? 

• What cultural or legacy burdens around work, achievement, success, and striving have you carried into your adulthood? What messages have picked up from your culture or family and how have these message impacted the way you show up in your day-to-day life?  

• What if there was another way? What if you could reclaim the sacred in your life and find a deeper sense of meaning and fulfillment? What would your life look like, feel like, be like? What would you look like, feel like, be like? How would you show up differently? 

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More from Sofia

Letters from Sofia #3: How to Live with Meaning / newsletter

My previous newsletter in case you missed it. I share with you my fear-death experience on the shores of Portugal and how to reclaim a sense of freedom and adventure. I invite you to reflect on the states of rapture and transcendence as potential everyday experiences.

How to Get Clarity with Almost Anything / article

I share the number one reason you are lacking clarity and five ways to gain clarity about almost any situation through the IFS therapy lens. You will learn to PIVOT from confusion and overwhelm to clarity and confidence. I share tools to help you master your emotions with greater self-compassion, meaning, and aliveness.​

Invitations for Exploration

• I'm Reading:

What My Bones Know: A memoir of healing from complex trauma by Stephanie Foo. This book is a heart-breaking yet hope-inducing memoir of a complex trauma survivor. Stephanie Foo's courageous story makes me reflect upon what it means to be resilient and how as a culture we define resilience in ways that can cause more harm and re-traumatization than healing and wholeness. It inspires me to give voice to alternate views of resilience and to recognize how work and achievement can be forms of dissociation that disconnect us from our inherent value and sacredness as human beings.

• I'm Watching:

Harvard Professor: This Food is Causing a Mental Health Crisis with Chris Palmer | Diary of a CEO. Chris Palmer, author of Brain Energy, has created a revolutionary unifying theory of mental illness. I'm grateful to see he is receiving greater traction and popularity as his insights on the connection between diet, metabolic syndrome, and mental health can lead to unbelievable transform and healing from the inside out. Healing trauma is one piece of the puzzle, and I know personally and professionally, that what we consume psychologically, spiritually, and physically can either have dire consequences or unlock our body's innate healing potential. 

• I'm Listening To:

Hans Zimmer | Interstellar (Space Sounds) I return over and over to the soundtrack from Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar. I find it helps me access a sense of awe, interconnectedness, and openness to cosmic possibility. What music do you listen to that inspires you to pause and experience a deeper sense of meaning and sacredness? 

Ready to heal from trauma and find your aliveness?

Letters from Sofia #3: How to Live with Meaning

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Let’s Go Inside

Last month I found myself in the second largest surf capital of the world, Ericeira, Portugal. I was there for my Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy Level 3 training. I arrived at 3am and made my way to the hotel right on the coast. I was met by the warm glow of the full moon, the sound of crashing waves, and the intoxicating ocean smell. Every afternoon upon finishing our 8-hour training a group of us, who came to be known as the "Wave Warriors," would answer the call of the ocean. The "call" is the only way I can put it into words. The waves possessed their own gravitational field pulling us in despite the parts of us that feared for our lives.

The ocean became a sacred space filled with splashes, swells, and surges. Everyday we returned to the waves as though we were making an offering. We were baptized by the water that beckoned us to bring forth what lay dormant within us. Heraclitus' words come to mind, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." With each ocean embrace we surrendered our past self to give birth to our future self. The water became the meeting place, where past, present, and future converged. We reached the point of no return over and over again with each rising crest.

We entered the alchemical liminal space in which lead becomes gold, fear becomes joy, pain becomes pleasure. We met each wave as if we were meeting life, with equal force knowing full well each surge was an initiation demanding us to be present...or else. We were called to experience the power of nature. We answered this call by creating our own gravitational field pulling in the playfulness, laughter, and aliveness we yearned for--that was our birth right. Poseidon would be pleased with us, that's for sure.

This is catharsis, purification, and metamorphosis. It's what we're born to do. Trauma draws a veil over our minds and hearts, blinding us to our truth. It makes us feel like we deserve the fear and pain and are destined to carry the unbearable weight of lead for eternity. It makes us feel like we are not entitled to joy, pleasure, and life itself. The forgotten truth is that transcendence is our default. We have forgotten the rapture--the mystical experience of overwhelming emotion leading to divine knowledge. It's the inevitable result of accepting and embracing your unique hero's journey. We are destined for gold and other hidden treasures that lie in the depths of our wounded Being.

I invite you to think about the moments in your life when you're called to step into the "river" or dive into the "ocean" that beckons you to bring forth that which lies dormant within you. It could be a challenging project, a tumultuous relationship, an illness, the death of a loved one, a sense of disconnection or alienation from yourself and others. These are moments of potential transformation and transmutation. Perhaps they are dark nights of the soul. Perhaps they are an opportunity to throw caution to the wind and to surrender to something greater within you and beyond you. In this surrender, you can find the freedom that awaits you. “Whatever it takes for you to find your freedom, that's what you've lived," as author and teacher Byron Katie states.

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Questions

• Under what conditions or in which situations have you felt the call to step into your "river" or dive into your "ocean" and be transformed? When have you experienced a sense of rapture and undergone an emotional or spiritual baptism? What was that like for you?

• I invite you to wonder about how this present moment can induce a state of rapture. What “lead” is here that can be transmuted to gold? What is your call to adventure in the here-and-now?

• Can you get to know with curiosity and compassion the parts of you that are scared to be present and open-hearted to this moment? How are they burdened by past experiences and what are their concerns today?

• What if transcendence was your default? What if you could turn whatever trauma or tragedy befalls you into your own myth? How would you rewrite your story so you can fall "upward" and come away with a greater sense of meaning and aliveness?

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More from Sofia

Letters from Sofia #1: Your Way Into the Light / newsletter

My first newsletter in case you missed it. I share with you the hero's journey of trauma recovery, how to reconnect with your Self, and the importance of feeling at home in our minds and bodies.

Letters from Sofia #2: Your Invitation to Magical Living / newsletter

My previous newsletter on finding your magic inspired by Halloween. I invite you to reflect on your “mask” or persona, what lies beneath the “mask,” and how to integrate your “shadow” to live in more alignment with greater joy and fulfillment.

Invitations for Exploration

• I'm Reading: 

Dark Nights of the Soul: A guide to finding your way through Life’s Ordeals by Thomas Moore. This book by Thomas Moore provides a reframe on the classic dark night of the soul. Reading it feels like a balm for the soul and make it feel not only okay but also essential and worthwhile to sit in the darkness and wait for the hidden treasures or elixirs of your unique underworld to shine forth.

• I'm Watching: ​

Johanna Under The Ice by Nowness. This is a video of Johanna, who began cold water treatment to prevent the amputation of her broken leg. Through the brokenness and pain a beautiful, peaceful new world was revealed to her. This has become a metaphor for how the brokenness and fragmentation of our psyches can act as trailheads leading us to deep healing, transformation, and freedom.

• I'm Listening To: 

​Doctor Gabor Mate: The Shocking Link between Kindness and Illness | The Diary of a CEO. Dr. Gabor Mate shares the link between relational patterns and the potential for illness. He reveals how emotional dynamics playing out in your relationships may be impacting your mind-body connection and overall physical health. By sharing his vulnerability and transparency, he invites you to reflect on how your body may be saying “no” and how you can say “yes” to being in alignment with your true nature.

Ready to heal from trauma and find your aliveness?