Yoga and Healing from Sexual Assault

Crossposted from The Gohst

 

Okay, If you read this blog, you know that I was raped in 2012 by a friend that I was traveling with. You know that it took me almost 9 months to finally gain the balls to break away from the situation and 7 months after I left to confront him over email about the abuse. It took me 2 years to finally tell a trained psychologist and 4 1/2 years from the time that it happened to finally gain the courage to tell the police.

During all of that time- I felt like a leaf in the wind. Or perhaps a more accurate description would be that I felt like a dead body being tossed between raging waves and a sharp rocky cliff in the ocean. Directionless yet again. Hell, I was so dissociated from my body and my life in every single way possible. I thought that there was no coming back from this ever. And that was all the aftermath.

During the 9 months I had been traveling with him, I had been dealing with such horrible dissociation, depersonalization  and derealization.  I couldn't think and I never really spoke much. Since March of 2012 when it happened- I felt like I had no voice. I felt worse than dead. I felt like I was in a living nightmare and I couldn't tell anyone.  By the time I was able to finally put the pieces back together again, it was late September in Asheville, North Carolina. He had gone away to a meeting with his teacher Drunvalo Melkizidek. And I was finally alone with myself- free of him. So this is where yoga comes in.

Aright- I took my first yoga class in school 2007/2008. I was signed up for a full year. At first, I thought it was just an easy extracurricular activity to score an easy A on my report card. I remember going home from school after taking my first class completely convinced that this was the path I wanted to take in life, something in me was inspired. I wasn't flexible, couldn't touch my toes and I wasn't strong- but I was driven. Driven and angsty. And I had for a long time placed that drive into an eating disorder, and getting high off of whatever. So- that was me at 17. That should paint the picture nicely.

The Artist Formerly Known as Teal Scott

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

On January 4, Teal Scott and Sarbdeep Singh Swan were wed.
The Artist will henceforth be known as TEAL.

Comment Overflow: Once again, we've rolled over to a second page of comments. I'm adding direct links because blogger doesn't seem to handle this well in all browsers, notably mine. Comments: page 2 and page 3 and page 4 and page 5 and page 6


There's a story in the Marine Corps, perhaps apocryphal, about something a senior officer wrote in a FITREP for one of his junior officers: "His Marines will follow him anywhere, if only out of a morbid curiosity to see what he'll do next."

TEAL has many followers. Only some of them are fans. Or so I learned when I wrote a blog post articulating my questions and concerns about the self-described "spiritual catalyst." Shortly after posting the piece, I started getting comments from some of her fans and detractors -- mostly detractors. About a month later TEAL responded to my post.

Last night on my way to the bathroom, I peered into Blake’s room and noticed that he looked incredibly distressed. [Doesn't anybody knock?]  I asked him what happened and he explained that a blogger named LaVaughn (Celestial Reflections) had dedicated a ten page itemized article slamming me for every aspect of my career and personal life that she could get her hands on.  He also explained that he was receiving e-mails from people asking me to refute her outrageous claims [Pssst. I didn't make any claims.] because they “no longer knew what to think”. [I believe what we have here is the need behind the need. Her response is an attempt at damage control.]  It was by far and away the most “anti-Teal” material we’ve encountered to date.  Blake was livid.  He wanted me to write an entire counter article to put people’s minds and hearts at rest.  But it didn’t feel good to me.  On top of the fact that many of her claims were too off base to even be worthy of address, [Did I mention that I didn't make any claims?] I could not get my energy behind the idea of dedicating time to defending myself against a random person who crawled out of the woodwork to gain popularity and attention by slandering me. [Dear God, could this woman be any more vain?]

It is profoundly out of alignment [Alignment with what?] to design an entire piece of writing around resisting someone or something, which is what this woman did.  She does so from a place of bitterness and fear and therefore pain.  I would not seek to increase her pain by attacking back to defend myself. [Aaawww. How sweet.] It seems that what people wanted from me was proof that she is wrong about what she said about me.  Proof is a difficult thing because there is ultimately no way to create solid proof that could not be refuted. [I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that this is the real reason she won't defend herself against the many claims I didn't make. She can't.] I could refute each piece of her evidence, the same way that she is refuting mine, but what would be gained?  I will not convince her that I am good.  I would not be doing so for any other reason than my own need to be approved of by everyone.  And I do not distrust the discrimination of the people who enjoy my material.  People do not need my proof to know what is good for them or right for them personally.  What they need to do is trust themselves.  And whatever answer they receive about me, is right for them at that time. [Aahh. So I didn't so much critique TEAL as I insulted the judgment of her many, many fans. Did you hear a dog whistle? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I heard a dog whistle.] I do not wish to prove skeptics wrong.  I gain nothing by resisting skeptics.  As my fame increases, [Dear God...] there will be more and more skeptics.  I gain only by continuing to do what makes me happy and hoping that what brings me happiness, brings other people happiness.  I understand how hard it is when you distrust yourself, to navigate a world full of opposing perspectives.  When you live without self-trust, the world seems to be full of people who are out to get you.  And so, you don’t know who to trust. [I believe that should read "whom to trust" but I probably shouldn't play grammar noodge with TEAL. That game has no end.] But you can trust yourself.  And by not refuting every skeptic that comes up against me, I am in essence giving people the opportunity to consult their own feelings and their own personal truth, and thus learn to trust themselves.  It would be a great world though if the people, who were inspired to write ten pages on one person, did so from a place of loving that person.  All too often, the only people full of enough bottled up energy to write ten pages on one person, do so from a space of hating them. [Yup. I'm a hater. Haters gotta hate, yo.]

Luis Eduardo Luna on Ayahuasca

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

From Graham Hancock's YouTube channel, comes this brief but informative interview on ayahuasca. Luis Eduardo Luna gives an overview of the chemistry, history of use, and healing properties. As Hancock has explained at length in Supernatural and in numerous interviews, it takes a certain kind of moral courage to take ayahuasca and it is anything but a lazy approach to enlightenment. It has, in fact, been used effectively as a treatment for addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Offered as food for thought.