These Waters Run Deep

Emotions come and go. They are just feelings, and they should be paid attention to. Not clung to, as I have for many years, but felt and released. I am thinking about this as I have my morning cup of chamomile tea. I’ve always loved this herb, as it is good for its calming effects. It is one of the gifts from the Universe I have used to bring myself back into balance. This calmness that I have cultivated is one of the biggest reasons I love to serve women in childbirth and their health. As a woman, I have been expected to be emotional, hysterical even. That has been a double edge sword because while I am aware of my emotions, the world we live in chastises women and the feminine energy of deep feeling. Women have a delicate system of hormones at work throughout their lives and our emotions are affected by its ebbs and flows. I am particularly interested in the messages these emotions carry for us in our menstrual cycles and as I head into my midwifery training, pregnancy.

Our monthly cycles come with a lot of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual fluctuations. In paying attention to the rise and fall of our subtle energy, we discover a lot about how interconnected our bodies are. After reading the chapter on the menstrual cycle in Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, I began to observe how my body was like the moon. On Day 1 of my cycle, which is when the menstrual flow begins, I would feel not just the physical release from me but also a mental and spiritual one. After menstruation, my body would steadily wax, become full of ideas, creativity and energy as I approach ovulation. When I would feel a strange prick in my lower abdomen that I later learned was my ovary letting an egg start its journey to my uterus, I would also notice how I became more receptive. Ovulating made me more likely to want to dance, desire to be touched, and make love. Post ovulation, I began to feel my energy wane as I looked up at the sky and saw the full moon was waning gibbous. I was more quiet and to myself, not desiring to be in touch with many people. I call this part of my cycle the magical time – my intuition was heightened in the way my breast would become sensitive to the touch. I dream more and would have emotions come from the depths of me. This part of our cycles is usually referred to as PMS. Women are expected to be completely irate and moody during this time. I have learned from studying my cycle that I was prone to this moodiness because of the changes in my body and also because this pre-menstrual time was a way for me to connect with what those emotions needed to communicate. Then around new moon, these emotions and my blood would begin to flow out of me, and the cycle starts again.

Working with pregnant women at various stages of their journey has made me realize how the complex changes of hormones in her body also affect her emotional state greatly. She is at her most receptive, a 10-month full moon of a woman open to her body and psyche. I have witnessed women have strong memories, hopes and fears come up during her pregnancy; some are unpleasant. What I find missing from our growing understanding of what a woman experiences while expecting is a special attention to her emotional state. I have not been able to physically attend a birth since the end of 2011 but have provided phone and internet support to dozens of women. I tend to focus on asking them about their mental and emotional state of being. I gently let them know that though pregnancy is thought to be the happiest time of a woman’s life, it is also wrought with many feelings, some of which may be disconcerting and difficult. Our emotions, especially at the heightened level they come up during pregnancy, are messages for some psychological and spiritual gifts. A woman can be prone to becoming depressed during this time because she can begin to have memories of her own childhood, mother and family life. Additionally, any mental or emotional issues that she has had in life are also at the forefront. I feel deeply that pregnant women should be encouraged to release and speak on all their feelings, not just the physical symptoms they have. I often come across women afraid to feel because they don’t want to upset the baby or affect the child’s development. Surely, the emotional and mental state of a mother can influence the child but things that go unspoken and are thus bottled up are much more harmful. Furthermore, I am beginning to see a link between a lack of emotional, mental and spiritual support and postpartum depression, especially when a woman’s body and hormones drastically change once again.

I think of how I have been able to heal from debilitating anxiety and spiritual distress. I consider my tribulations with coming back into balance as a gateway to how to best support women in their reproductive life and pregnancy journeys. What I have been able to use to facilitate the much needed releases have been some things I can share with you all as we sift and drain the emotions:

1. Therapy - Spending 2 years in intensive therapy was one of the best things I was able to do for myself. It took me longer to finally go to a therapist because of the stigma that exists towards mental health and wellness. I was scared to be seen as crazy but with the help of supportive sisters, I finally reached a point where it was no longer an option not to go. I recommend therapy to anyone who feels they should seek help to sort out their memories and traumas. I found it useful to have a space to completely unload without having to worry about an emotional bond to the person. Often, we can hold back our deepest emotions from close friends and family out of fear of their reaction or feelings; therapy removed that barrier for me. Additionally, having someone with experience processing emotions was very helpful.
2. Meditation - My mind is used to always racing. It is this racing of thoughts that can produce anxiety. I have taken up meditation for at least 30 minutes to an hour each day to connect to my breath and calm down my mind. Of course, my mind wanders; the meditation is a practice in learning to let those thoughts and emotions come and go. During the menstrual cycle, I have found it useful in relaxing during the pre-menstrual time and for accessing deeper messages from my moodiness. For pregnant women, I recommend meditation as our breath is very important during our labor and birth process. Connecting with the breath and deepening it is great practice for staying with our bodies and breath when birthing is at hand.
3. Creative expression – Keeping a journal for the majority of my life kept me sane. I have also found joy and release in painting and dancing. Expressing ourselves creatively helps to access our unconscious mind. It is an integral part of my healing practice because of how private the process is. I share about 10% of my writing with the world and the rest is me working out my thoughts. I’ve often said that writing was a release valve for me; it was a way to siphon thoughts out of me. Ask yourself what medium works best for you and create something.
4. Diet and exercise – When I speak of diet, I don’t mean to lose weight. I mean eating in a way that makes your body feel at its optimal health. Processed food and sugar in excess can lead to the feelings of sluggishness; I have found that changing my diet to include more water, vegetables and fruits while cutting back on junk food helped change my mood. Water helps not only flush out your body but also emotions. I know quite a few folks who walk or jog daily. Moving our bodies helps to keep us overall balanced and can give us a place to let emotions flow out of us.
5. Energy work – Reiki has helped me balance my subtle energy field as I continue on my healing journey. It can be very soothing for pregnant women and help with the processing of difficult emotions and thoughts. Reiki is gentle for mommy and baby. Menstruating women can also benefit from energy work for the same reasons.
6. Bodywork - I am a huge supporter of massages. Be it a professional full body massage or a back rub from a loved one, the power of touch is underrated. Massages can help women release tension that stays in our bodies from past and present trauma, as our bodies record the imprints of those experiences. Prenatal massage can be particularly helpful for the extra aches that a woman has during her pregnancy. It feels great to be rubbed down and have a relaxed body. Relaxed body makes it easier to release emotions.
7. Cry, Scream, Yell – Many of us don’t scream nearly as much as we need to. I learned during my time at a woman’s healing space how great it felt to scream and yell out emotions that had no words. Crying is a wonderful way to release emotions as well. If you don’t feel comfortable screaming out loud, I suggest grabbing some pillows and screaming into them. This extreme expression of emotions may feel foreign to some of us but they help get things flowing out of us.

Paying attention to our emotional and mental health work to create balance physically and spiritually. It is different for each woman and her journey is unique to her life. There are various types of therapies and tools available to us. While one thing worked for me, it may be different for any of you. Let those emotions through through you and out of you. It will help free up space for healing and reprogramming your self.

I often get asked why I want to be a midwife, and how I got from talking about the AfroLatina identity to childbirth. I suppose I would have to start from the very beginning. When I was a little girl, I would always say that I wanted to be a doctor, mother and teacher. Those were my favorite role-playing games and they came so naturally to me. Life started to happen to me, and I began to believe that I wasn’t good enough to do any of those. I remember in high school, not being particularly good at math or science and as a result, gave up the dream of being a doctor. I thought it would be too hard for me. It was also the first time that I felt myself be envious of others who were going to go to medical school.

I decided to major in television and radio productions after doing a radio story for WNYC in my junior year. I enjoyed the production part of it and thought it was something I could do with my life. I certainly don’t regret what I majored in college; along with television and radio, I took up Black Studies. This is one of the single most important things I’ve done with my life. Becoming a Black Studies major was a quest to know more about everything that was kept from me for the first 18 years of my life. I became interested in my womanhood as it relates to my African roots when I took the Black Woman course. Black Woman in Antiquity by Ivan Van Sertima was one of the required books. This opened my eyes to the legacy of greatness that Afro-descendant women stem from. It was reading The Black Women’s Health Book: Speaking For Ourselves by Evelyn White that reignited my interest in health and wellness.

At the same time, I began to realize that I was still struggling with depression. I had not properly addressed my mental health and decided to look into meditation and yoga. This snowballed into changing my diet and tapping into my inner knowing that we are psychosomatic beings. Psychosomatic meaning that our thoughts and emotions have a direct impact on our bodies. During this shift in spiritual dedication and eating habits, I wanted to share this knowledge with others. I began to also become more interested in my reproductive health as a result of becoming sexually active. I struggled with shame around my yoni and menstrual cycle; these were things that I gained the ability to talk about towards the end of my college career. I began to own that I served as a healing presence for friends around me. It was at this time that I realized that I was naturally a teacher and healer. What woke me up completely was a question my sister friend, Caroline, asked me in my last semester of school. She asked me what I wanted to be when I was little. I told her I had wanted to be a doctor, teacher and mother. She shared with me that it is when we are children that we know what we want to do with ourselves. Reconnecting with that childhood dream, I decided to pursue it.

After college, I went on to write my book, Hija De Mi Madre, in which I wrote about my experiences as an AfroLatina struggling to liberate herself of internalized oppression. I also dedicated myself to learning more about my yoga practice and briefly studied to be a holistic health counselor. From this short time of studying, I learned a lot about how food contributes to health. I also came across a book that radically changed my life, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Dr. Christiane Northrup. After I read this book, I was filled with the desire to not only speak about internalize oppression but also women’s health. I decide at this point to pursue becoming a doula.

I began my training as a doula in 2010. I knew from the start that I wanted to eventually be a midwife but wanted to test the waters. I was afraid to take the leap still. My first birth as a doula made me realize immediately that I definitely wanted to pursue midwifery. My interest became in learning about how Afro-descendant women were experiencing birth and health, and was alarmed at the neglect my sisters were experiencing. My decision to be a midwife then was a calling to serve my community at large. It was realizing that layers of internalized oppression also led to shame of our bodies and consequently handing over our power to doctors who don’t always have our best interest in mind.

I knew immediately that I wanted to concentrate specifically on supporting Latina and African-American women, as well as low-income families. Because of my own person work with my anxiety and depression, I knew that our mother’s emotional and mental health has a profound impact on us as well. Last year after my trip to Ayiti, I began to actively pursue my midwifery education. To be honest, I always wanted to  be trained in the traditional direct-entry model but went for the certified nurse-midwife track because I could get student loans to pay for it. It was more of a mental choice than a heart one. I thought I could just bit the bullet and go against my real desire to train in a more holistic approach. In short, I didn’t have the money to pay out of pocket for the program I truly wanted to go through.

Last fall, I believe the Universe made it so that I had no choice but to be true to myself, not just in midwifery training but in my life. In the fifth week of my nursing program, I had a panic attack/nervous breakdown. All the years of not getting help for my depression and anxiety caught up to me. I was holding myself up barely, was recovering from strife with family and friends and constantly worried about my basic necessities. I withdrew from school and began an intensive 6 month therapy program, as well as work with my spiritual mentors. For those 6 months, I focused on getting my mental health back to stable. It was a hard 6 months. I wondered often if I would ever be well enough to continue to pursue my dreams. I was angry that the Universe had stopped my path so abruptly.

I realized that I needed to experienced this for a couple of reasons. First, I needed to release all the trauma I’d been carrying for 27 years. I knew my old self was dying; it is what spurred my transition to a new name. Secondly, I had to learn how to listen and truly take care of myself if I was to be a competent health care provider in the future. Lastly, my interest in maternal health leans heavily towards psychosomatic wellness. My personal journey with mental health would only be an asset when I begin to serve women who have suffered in their lives as well.

This fall I start again. I will be embarking on a year long program at Maternidad La Luz in El Paso, Texas. I will be reaching out for financial support in the coming days. I will admit, it is nerve wracking to start this journey unsure of what is going to happen and how I’m going to pull it off. I guess that’s what birth is like. You have to trust yourself to know that you will make it to the other side. That somehow you will get what you need and pull it off. I look forward to serving women as a certified professional midwife. This time, from the heart and with trust.

Yesterday I had a breakdown-breakthrough moment with a situation in my life. I was consumed with anger and frustration. I found myself yelling and screaming out of a rage that possessed me from remembering the past with a particular person. The story is not important anymore; it is what I gained in self-knowledge that I carry.  After I wiped my tears and drank a glass of water, I closed that chapter of my life. It is not constructive for me to rehash and retraumatize myself. I am stepping into a space of embracing compassion for that situation.

This morning, Iyanla Vanzant posted a very poignant quote that caught my attention immediately:

“Shhhh! Don’t tell that story again! Don’t utter another syllable about the pain, the losses that have left you broken, unless you are ready to recover right now. Stop dragging yourself back there, reminding yourself of how bad it was for you then unless it has some relevance to what you are doing right now. Each time you think about, talk about, or remember then, you put that energy squarely in the middle of your life right now.“

Shortly after, my sister called me to check on me after yesterday’s breakdown. I told her where I had come to with it, and we had this conversation about getting out of cycles of despair. It always brightens my day to talk to her, because she and I share the position that transcendence is possible through evolving. Though, we are not negating the shadows of life, it no longer serves us to go and drudge it back up. I seek to let my shadow pass over me so that I may bring more of my authentic self to the light. Instead of a place of blame, I seek to have more compassion for everyone I come into contact with, and exercise my healthier boundaries.

I have a practice of retiring poems and blog posts I’ve written in raw emotions during specific parts of my healing process. Retiring them and not looking at those words is how those wounds become faint scars. I am a strong supporter of sharing and telling stories. It gives our pain a voice. Yet, it is very easy to stay in that energy vortex if you keep telling the same story over and over without coming to a new place with it. It’s the difference between, “this happened to me!!” and “this happened to me…and this is what I did with it.”

Transcending the past is a powerful choice one must make. It does not mean that it didn’t happen; it means it no longer has power over your present and future. I remember that evolving out of my past trauma came with being tired of repeating the story. It caused anxiety in me just to tell the gory details. Going to therapy and having friends along the way support me served its purpose. At this height of the game, I can’t even so much as think about certain things in my past without feeling a little dizzy. Our thoughts and words are very powerful. For anyone who is ready to evolve out of their past and clear the way for the new, here are some questions to consider:

Who are you without the burden of your past?

Why are you still holding onto the hurt? What do you get out of it?

What would happen if you gave up the memory?

What are you resisting?

What is at stake if you stay trapped in old stories and memories?

What parts of the story do you still need to honor to properly let it go?

What do you want to take with you from the past? What lessons and healing have you received?

Who do you want to be in the here and the now?

I am creating a new sense of self, aware of who I am and am becoming. The past is too heavy to carry with me into that new world. And so it goes…

All praises due for this auspicious moment in your life! I string garlands of lotus blossoms, lay fresh white sheets as your receiving blanket and pour libations so that the ancestors may be properly welcomed for this event. Your rose petal bath has been drawn, the water sweeten with honey and perfumes. I have laid out the finest jewels, bracelets and rings to adorn you. Your dress will fit you like a glove. Your throne has been polished and prepared to receive you.

Dear Sister: I have been waiting for you patiently. It is an honor to crown a Queen.

You are so brave, my sister. Death is never easy to face. You were thrown into this descent knowing you would never be the same again. Uprooted from the familiar, the journey to the birth canal is wrought with fear and confusion. Surrender becomes your best friend. You’ve been called to dig deep and find your light. You found the power to let go of that former girl that no longer is. This moment is centuries in the making. There are forces in the world that wish you would stay dead. Woman after woman has been sacrificed and held down, while those that came before us prayed that someone as brave as you would break this cycle.

There was so much to release. So much to give up. Your old self-image. The friends that were never friends. The job that drained your life force. Your obsession with your sadness. The search for love in all the wrong places. It was so hard for you to become a woman after only being someone’s daughter. Those childish things had to end. You had to forgive so many, but most importantly, yourself. You had to let go. Stretched and pulled beyond your comfort, you were so scared for what you’ve been asked to perform.

Sister, the worst is over; enjoy the best of your self! It takes courage to commit to your path. In this world consumed by fear, it was so easy for you to forget who you are. There were so many dark years in which you stumbled and fell hard for everything that seemed like salvation. Forgive yourself, love. Everything has happened in perfect timing. This moment is what we call, the “rest and be thankful” phase. You’ve labored beautifully through all your trials, and now you are ready to listen to your body and give your light.

To be born is to make peace with death. I couldn’t be more proud of you. You knew the life you were living had to end to make room for the life you’ve dreamed of. Now is your moment to experience the ecstasy of freedom. We have all been patiently waiting for you to arrive. I knew it was just a matter of time. You transitioned. You gave it all up. You took responsibility for your life and decided to claim it. Go! Pursue your dreams now! Awaken to your full empowered self! A butterfly forcefully breaking the chrysalis. Come forth goddess!

For the last 6 years, I have thought about birth almost every single day. It started with a letter I wrote to my future children. The most important part of that letter was telling these future beings that I was working alchemy on myself to be golden enough to receive them. It was at that moment that something in me shifted, and I realized that to give birth in an intentional way, I must do it for myself first.

I have definitely been through my baby-craze phase, where I wanted more than anything to become pregnant. I suppose a big part of that was hormones, women around me having babies and a desire to be a mother. Reflecting on that time, I wanted to skip over the part of being my own woman and jump into motherhood as the only viable identity after college. Becoming a doula in 2010 put the brakes on that desire. The responsibility and reality of becoming a parent was real to me. I decided that I could wait longer to become a mother.

In the midst of this, I dealt with my own strife with my mother. I began to realize that having children in her early twenties ended my mother’s self-determination and the future she may have dreamed of. She had to do a lot of growing up all on her own because of the disconnection between her and my grandmother due to migration. I learned about what my mother wanted to do with her life – become a nurse – before she fell in love. I heard about the trials, tribulations and joys my mother endured raising 3 children close in age in the Bronx. The idea that her life was over in a certain respect filled me with dread. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be a mother anymore. Not at 20-something years old.

I began to realize somewhere in this process that I didn’t know what it meant to be a mother or be mothered. My mother was an exceptional mother, and cared for her children dearly. She sacrificed a lot for us, stayed home with us in our young age and for these things I am forever grateful. Emotionally, she was unavailable. I have come to understand that she couldn’t be because she wasn’t emotionally available for herself. I know I felt it when I experienced trauma at 6 years old, and shortly afterwards when she asked me if I wanted to be her friend. I felt like I lost my mother at that moment. I was reluctant to say yes but felt like I would hurt her feelings. From then on, I saw myself more like a second mother in the house than a daughter. That became a burden as I got older and became an adult; she began to share things about her life with me that, in retrospect, a mother shouldn’t tell her daughter. I wanted to be there for her though, knowing that the information was traumatizing me. I ended up taking care of my mother emotionally and ignoring myself. She has struggled with being bi-polar, which makes you unbalanced and at times, self-absorbed and self-deprecating. As life became  more mentally and emotionally complex for me, I felt the distance between us grow. I became aware that the respect I had for my mother was rooted in fear of making her angry. I never shared anything personal with her because I thought I’d be in trouble or that she couldn’t handle it. I’ve had a secret world for years that I never felt I could tell her about.

A year ago, I began to realize that I needed to be my own mother. My relationships with women through the years was affected by this need that I never knew how to ask of my mother. I wanted to be her daughter, not her friend. Consequently, I didn’t know how to balance this. Mothering myself was a struggle when I first began. I realized there was a child inside  me who needed a responsible adult to take over. That a 6 year old had been running the show in my life, and my inner wise woman had to step up. It was hard. I wanted to stay a child. Being responsible meant giving up childish things, like being aloof, flaky, unfocused and distracted. Mothering myself demanded that I take care of myself instead of wanting to be taken care of. It was a hard pill to swallow, but the bitterness of this medicine healed me.

The first step to mothering myself was admitting that I was not okay. Taking responsibility of my wounded self was painful but opened the door to rebirth. I had to hold and cradle myself, still slipping up along the way but holding myself accountable. I began to see that mothering myself brought about similar anxieties as those I have seen with pregnant women – of worrying if I was doing everything right, the fear of something happening to me under my care and ultimately, facing death and birth in the same breath. I learned that mothering myself meant I needed to be emotionally available for myself. That taking care of others before doing so for myself was harmful to my mental health. To be a mother to myself meant that my former self had to be put to rest. A chapter of my life had to end for a mother-woman to emerge. Birth  has made me develop a close relationship to death, and death has made birth all the more glorious.

I look forward to becoming a mother to another being in the future. I know it will come with fears, struggles and anxieties. I know that nothing I do will make me completely ready to face that initiation. Yet, giving myself the time to birth the woman I am becoming has shifted my desire to give birth to a child from an escape to an intention. When I stopped escaping from myself, I became intentional with what I did with my life. I thank my mother for everything she taught me. For the stories and things she shared with me. For her bravery in the face of all the pain she carries. Most of all, I thank her for birthing me. Because she had to face her own death. Now I understand the opportunity she was robbed of by a society that teaches women that motherhood is our only way to have status in the world. I am not just my mother’s daughter anymore, and this is the journey in reconciling the bridge between little girl to a self-actualized woman.

A couple of years ago, I took a workshop with this great woman, Molly May, called Writing From the Body. It came at a great time in my life, as I had begun to do healing around my sexual and emotional trauma. I was understanding then that our bodies held the story but was not sure how to access words. As a writer, I find myself writing and rewriting stories about my life constantly. There have been times I have refused to write in my journal because I was sick of writing the same pain over and over. Most of the time, giving the emotions a tangible form helped me heal the wounds.

There was a particular exercise during this workshop, in which we were encouraged to retell a story from a different perspective. We had spoken about how the way one tells their story is linked to what work one have done to shift what they made it mean. I am thinking about what I wrote that day, about experiencing a mixture of sexual and emotional trauma. This weekend I will be going to my alma mater, the State University of New York at New Paltz to an annual event called Take Back The Night. It is part of a larger movement of events around the globe who seek to end sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual abuse and all other forms of sexual violence. Take Back The Night empowers survivors in the healing process. This event was important to me during my undergraduate career because it was the first time I felt a community of women who had similar stories and traumas as my own. I was honored to be invited to talk at the event this year and have been thinking about what message I want to share with the women I will meet.

I’ve thought about how I have come to use words to communicate my experiences. I remember what it has sounded like. At first it had no words. All I had was feelings. Mostly fear, which is what prevented me from even writing it. Then, as I heard other women share their story, I knew I had one too. I used the words around and within me. I found that talking to my close kin and therapists about it helped me understand what I was feeling. That’s when I wrote about the shame and guilt that came from such experiences. I gave it words that felt right and some that felt uncomfortable. Something changed though, when I first began to seek therapy. The word trauma had always felt the most true to me; adding a specification clarified it for me even more.

A friend told me that I could give my experiences whatever vocabulary honored my feelings. I reserve all the intricate details of my experiences in my journal and therapeutic sessions with friends and healers. I learned from one of those sessions that retelling painful details were a way to retraumatize myself and those listening. My story then, is understanding that the emotional and sexual trauma did not define my life; I had felt like it was part of my identity. Using the word “experience” has made me look at my stories with more compassion for myself. I realized in writing about these things that it was what I made myself believe about who I am that did the most damage.

The human psyche is so delicate. I know that whatever thoughts I keep circling within me affected my well-being. The thoughts were of the memories but more than anything, it was negative self-talk. Making myself feel tainted and ashamed because of the internalized messages about sex I received from society. I discovered that it was more about the aftermath, about the wound. I came across a concept that made me examine these traumas from another place.

You are not responsible for having inflicted your wounds, but you are responsible to them. Those words struck me. It called for forgiveness of the experience, for the other person and mainly, for myself. Forgiveness is about making peace with the past. I have learned that forgiving began to lessen the charge around the memories. I was able to understand that these experiences stunted my ability to draw healthy boundaries. In forgiving myself for thinking it was my fault, it was also a way to tend to the wounds so that they could heal.

I used my writing to speak about using these experiences to realize that my ability to choose was taken from me. That surviving and living were two different things. In writing more about how all my life experiences were interconnected, I understood how violence to every person in my life made for the unpleasant and violent encounters, on emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual levels. The biggest thing I have learned is that releasing and being free of the pain and learning lessons from experiences were not mutually exclusive. I recognize that to reach a place of peace with a story, I’ve had to tell it and write it over and over again, so that every feeling inside me had an opportunity to speak. I wish to offer myself and other women ways to release the traumas we face on horrible scales. As we fight to eradicate violence, treating ourselves compassionately is vital. It is important that we also work to heal the wounds so we can remember we are whole. It wasn’t until I began to show compassion to myself that I could help and support others in healing. I have learned I am not anything that has happened to me, good or bad, but rather, I am what I have let those experiences do to who I am becoming.

I was raised to fear spirits. As a Catholic for 16 years of my life, I was indoctrinated with a deep fear of the occult, particularly the devil and anything that resembled it – including Santeria, Palo and other African Diasporic traditions. It’s funny though. My mother would always tell me, “muchacha, tu si eres mistica” (you’re such a mystic) throughout my childhood. And while I feared witchcraft, I was attracted to it.

My first memory of the occult was with my family. Without giving too many details, we dealt with a negative entity that scared the shit out of everyone. I never knew exactly what was happening but I felt something was not okay. It ended with two priests coming to the house, and after that, we all became devoutly Catholic. I began to fall into deep despair around this time.

I feel that the presence of this negative energy contributed to me experiencing sexual trauma at the age of 6, which was in sync with this time in my family’s history. I never told anyone and instead became reserved and quiet, retreating to the escape of my mind, books and writing. I felt like an evil, impure girl. I had dreams of the devil and upon waking, would feel an evil presence in my room. I would begin to pray all the Hail Marys and Our Fathers I could muster until it went away. I asked my mother to take me to a priest because I felt something was not right.

In the 2nd grade, my class produced a Jack & The Beanstalk play. I got a role as one of the witches. I was so overjoyed. My godmother made my outfit: I had a long black skirt and a cape. My teacher, Mrs. Flores, lent me her pointy witch hat, and I had a green turtleneck. I loved my costume so much, I wore it constantly and was a witch for Halloween. My mother disapproved of this, citing that Halloween was an evil holiday, and my witch costume disappeared.

I fed my mind more and more with books in my seclusion growing up, reading Greek mythology and other fantasy books that worked on my imagination. In the 7th grade, I had an experience that both thrilled me and scared me. A classmate came up to me a week before Halloween and asked me if I wanted to be part of a coven. I wanted so badly to say yes, but the fear put in me of the occult made me shy away. At the end of high school, I fell even deeper into my despair and depression. I hated God. I didn’t have the words for it then but I hated myself and my life. I tried to commit suicide in my senior year, to end the pain. My poetry was full of pain and sorrow, and I suffered quietly. I lost my faith in Catholicism.

It wasn’t until college that I felt free to explore my own spirituality. My depression began to lift as I felt myself transform with yoga and exploring witchcraft with peers. I began to understand that it was not evil but a way to connect with the Earth and my inner power. My despair and depression never went away though, and manifested itself in sexual obsession, alcohol and drugs. I was still self-destructive but had begun to find a way out.

I was still scared of Santeria when I met a woman who was very proud to be a bruja. She and I began to speak regularly on the phone. I told her about my budding interest in tarot cards and my exploration of Wicca. She told me about her path in Santeria and how it was changing her life. I was scared but excited. I began to read anything I could about this African tradition that I had been forbidden to explore in my life. The more I read, the more I felt like I had found something that made sense. The Orishas were not aloof like the Catholic god I was made to fear, but very much integrated into daily life. It was through this sister that I finally told my story of what happened to my family when I was 6. It was the first time someone gave me language for what I felt – this despair and feeling that something about that incident was unresolved and still plaguing me.

I experienced a great amount of strife with my mother because of my explorations into the occult, which began with a tarot deck, a glass of water and a candle. Another brother I met on the path told me about bovedas and espiritismo. I felt called. My mother was not amused. She was relentless, telling me I was worshiping the devil several times. I would try to quell my criticism of Catholicism, and bit my tongue, trying not to bring up what had happened so long ago.

My despair came to a head one summer where I was traumatized and was triggered into a deeper depressed; all my past pains came back strong. I ran straight to the Orishas. I couldn’t articulate it back then but I knew my pain needed otherworldly help. It was the first time the dark clouds in my life began to part. My ancestors started to whisper hints for me, opening up paths and making me feel more at ease. During this time, reading “Finding Soul on the Path to Orisha”, by Tobe Melora Correal, made me realize that trauma and pain gets passed from generation to generation. I began to understand from conversations with a priestess of Yemaya that there was healing and elevation our ancestors needed from us as much as we needed it from them. I slowly began to understand. Yet the fear still gripped me. I was unstable and unraveling quickly. My anxiety got so bad that I even walked away from the little relief I had. I was scared of spirits still and Catholicism had done its job in planting suspicion about the occult.

Last year was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was hanging on by a thread and was dealt a painful blow. I applied to nursing school and moved out of the South Bronx. Something inside me told me it was a bad idea to move back with my mother, but I naively believed that we could get past our spiritual war. It took less than 3 weeks for it to erupt. I felt it stewing the minute I stepped in. In a series of conversations, my mother pleaded with me and asked why, after being an altar server and finding me kneeling praying as a little girl, I would abandon Catholicism. I broke down crying and told her about the negative entity I had felt my whole life. We immediately went to my godmother’s house and it was all confirmed. I thought we had gotten somewhere, but boy was I wrong.

One evening, I got home and my mother began screaming at me. She told me everything I was into – Africa, yoga, my sorority, cutting my hair, my lifestyle change – was not of God. That I was going to lose everything and everyone if I didn’t renounce my beliefs and turn to Jesus. I don’t remember crying as hard as I did that night. For a moment, the fear of having to figure out where to go made me renounce. I found out quickly that I couldn’t even form the words. I couldn’t lie. I could never appease her by saying such an awful thing as denial of what I knew to be true.

I moved yet again, but this time I was losing it. The fresh trauma of losing my mother brought up every trauma I could imagine. I had thoughts of killing myself again. I cried every night. I tried to hold it together for nursing school. 5 weeks into the program, I woke up one morning shaking. And when I say shaking, it was uncontrollable. I went straight to my therapist at the time and he got me to agree to stay in the Crisis department of the hospital. I cried and faded in and out of sleep for 8 hours until my close friend came to get me. I felt like my life was over. I had finally gone crazy. I had finally lost my mind, as I had feared would happen my whole life.

From October 2012 until recently, I spent in therapy and getting spiritual help from master healers. I am grateful for the nervous breakdown. It finally allowed me to get to the bottom of so much of my psychological distress. It made me realize how much help I have needed. That my constant moving around was not simply out of irresponsibility or flightiness, as many would assume. I knew death had been chasing me for a long time.

My healing journey was taken to a whole new level one morning when a sister friend called me. She started talking about egun and the Orishas. I felt myself get scared of the practice again, yet something deep down inside tugged at me. Through her intervention, I spoke to a priest of Yemaya, who for the first time in my life, acknowledged that there was a negative energy haunting me, causing me despair, depression and pushing me near suicide. I was put under the protection of my egun and the Orishas, and focused all my energy on opening myself to their blessings.

The power of the Orishas and egun is unmatched. Every day as I poured my heart out and gave up my pain, I began to feel more whole.The spell of the last 20 years broke itself as my ancestors stood around me. It’s not that they weren’t ever there. It was that my eyes and heart were now ready to feel the power of my ache and their love work its wonders. My pain began to be replaced by this indescribable peace that I had never in my life felt. Tears of joy and gratitude were how I began to speak to my ancestors.

The path with Orisha and egun is not easy. Certainly not. There is a lot of work and sacrifice involved. From my experience, the work is deeply personal. It is a removing of all the rotten things that do not serve me on reaching my destiny, the one my Ori picked for me long before I got here. It is still nerve-wracking sometimes, to trust my gut and my spirit. Every day I must work at my self and my path. This time, the light in my life is undeniable. I feel stronger and braver than I have ever been in my life. I have come to understand that it is our separation from our roots and our story that causes our despair as Afro-descendant people. That a negative entity plagues us all in the form of generational trauma and internalized oppression. My life has been transformed by the Orishas. I want to shout it from the rooftops. For now, I will share my story in hopes that anyone listening understands the treasures their ancestors and spiritual life have for them.

Ache.

Entre los corazones que pusieron en mis manos
Reconocí pedazos semejante a los míos;
La diferencia es que yo se como recomponer y construir uno mas fuerte
Callo mis burlas por mi historia de entregar mi corazón también ciegamente
Igual que yo, querían escapar la soledad
Culpa mía las palabras románticas vacías
La mentira que esto era para siempre es un peso insoportable

Este corazón que acabo de hacer añicos fue una ves mi salvación;
Luego tuve que destrozarlo cuando mi rescato quiso mi libertad
Quiso que yo lo salvara, yo su Virgencita piadosa y inmaculada
Una mujer intocable y de sueños
Diosa en un altar de ilusiones
En un momento, caí de mi pedestal
Mis alas batieron mi jaula de oro violentamente
Una paloma que no pudo quedarse en mano

Mujer difícil, caprichosa y irresistible
Que vuela sin rumbo, corriendo con el viento
Lloro por mi alma mística
Arrepentida de prometer algo que nunca puedo dar
Este corazón gobernado por solo las estrellas y el amanecer
Un espíritu rebelde, libre completamente
Ya después de tantos años buscando que alguien me haga suya
Aquí estoy, sola
Como lo quise

No me queda mas nada que recorrer el mundo
Buscando solo momentos de éxtasis erótica
En cual mi cuerpo encendido prenda fuego
Encontrando otras llamas con quien bailar
Conociendo las montanas íntimamente
Desvelándome el los bosques secretos
Persiguió solamente la luna, amada y maestra mía
Creciendo y declinando, una y otra ves
Y de repente un hombre salvaje
Casado a la tierra y su propio corazón
Con quien seguir mi legado:
Una hija que tenga la herencia de su madre en su piel
Ella también silvestre y feliz con su propia compañía
Soy yegua negra despachando por la orilla del mar
Nunca regresando a lo que era

I’ve come a long way with my trials and tribulations associated with sexuality. I went from being completely disgusted by it, to overindulging and now where I am, consciously appreciating sexuality as my life force. Choosing a new name, Ynanna, has been an adventure in teaching people how to pronounce it and explaining where it comes from. One conversation made me laugh and also think more deeply about the goddess Inanna, my namesake, and her sacred sexuality. Ynanna is pronounced E-Na-Na. It rhymes with Ill-Nana.

The Ill-Nana, in the urban vernacular, is a euphemism for a tight, amazing, and overall badass pussy. It was also Foxy Brown’s debut album title. At first, I did not want to be associated with the word. I didn’t want to be sexualized. As I studied Inanna’s story, my feelings changed. Inanna is the goddess of war, sexual love (Eros) and fertility. She is known as the sacred prostitute. Sacred prostitution, temple prostitution, or religious prostitution is a sexual ritual performed in the context of religious worship, often as a form of fertility rite.

In ancient times, rituals were done to ensure the bounty of the land. Among the prayers that the gods would bless the lands, there was one major ritual, the Sacred Marriage. I have come to know it as hiero gamos, a sexual ritual between a king of, in this case, a Sumerian city-state and the High Priestess of Inanna, acting as the symbolic union between Inanna and her consort Dumuzi, the shepherd king. It is the harmonization of opposites.

As an archetype, it would be the facet that encompasses the sexual, romantic, platonic, soul connection, deep friendship, rapport, and empathic understanding type, with a desire to know and be known. The sacred prostitute, or sexual love goddess, is the part of a woman that is passionate, sings ecstatic songs of desire, self-adornment, and the delights of lovemaking.  She claims her needs assertively, celebrating her body.  The shadow side of that is the wounded sexual woman, repressed, ashamed and scared of her body; a woman that uses and is used for sex to gain attention or fulfill needs.

Carrying her name, my memories of how much I used to talk about my vagina in college came flooding back. If there was a conversation about sex happening at any given time, it was usually pinned on me as the one who started it. Though it was from an unhealthy place, I had begun to embrace sex and being proud of female sexuality with my new found college freedom. My shift to a healthy relationship with my yoni was influenced by not only its sexual prowess but also the magic of my menstrual cycle. I began to do research about the female reproductive system and my long-time interest in goddess culture led me to Venus, Inanna, Ochun and various facets of the goddess that were empowered sexually. Still, I carried shame around being sexual even with my indulgence.

Liberating myself from sexual shame came a few years after college in therapy, relationships and working with the Jade Egg. The Jade Egg is a weigh that a woman can use to help strengthen and manipulate the muscles in her pussy by working with the egg. It serves as a tool to cultivate sexual energy, to maintain or create healthy sexual organs, and to enhance your love life with yourself and with your partner(s). It also increases the biochemical health of the yoni and keeps it well lubricated, which is a key for optimal health. This powerful practice originated in ancient China. Ancient China had an immense interest in the relationship between sex, health and longevity. It is also connected to Taoist and Tantric practices of experiencing sex to heighten and enhance spiritual awareness.

Makeda Voletta introduced me to the concept of Sacred Sexuality. I began to break some of my walls down in speaking to her. I was able to take her Sensual Strength Training Class and purchase a Jade Egg. In her class, I learned how my vaginal walls contained trauma. Dancing to African beats in her class, I learned how to control my hips, push my sexual energy up to the crown of my head, use my life force to heal myself and the power of my orgasms.

I thought I had worked out my shame until the Ill-Nana remark came. Working with the Jade Egg has certainly tightened my pussy’s muscles, expanding my capacity for sexual pleasure. It is something I pride myself in. I’ve received compliments on its talent, skills, and dexterity. I have promoted the use of the egg to any woman who would listen to me. The orgasms are intense. I have never felt so in touch with my pussy in my life. I have come to understand how powerful the connection to my sensual feminine energy has grown with cultivation. It is the first time my sexuality has not been for male consumption; it has been worked with to grow and heal myself, my chakras and life.

I’ve thought about writing this post for a long time and forced myself because I knew I was holding back something very integral about my personality. Most of us live repressed and trapped in our bodies due to societal myths about sexuality, particularly for women. Puritan beliefs and a fear of the power of sex have distorted our views on how to approach and experience sex. We also collectively have suffered from many sexual traumas that have paralyzed many of us. I know for myself, that has been a big part of shutting down and not being a woman full of life and vitality in the past. In therapy, I worked through trauma and have realized that the sexual experiences have affected my entire life.

I decided one night to go ahead and lean into my discomfort about the Ill-Nana. I threw on Foxy Brown’s song and loved it, in all its raw praise of it. I began to challenge what was wrong about me being proud of not only my pussy but my sexual power as a woman. I dared myself one weekend with my fam to use it when helping people pronounce Ynanna:

“Ynanna…like the Ill-Nana.”

I remember feeling pangs of shame show up and faced that shame. Exploring that shame, I realized I was still holding onto the limiting belief that talking about my pussy in an empowered, tongue-in-cheek fashion was inappropriate in some way. It was a belief engrained in me over the years of exposure to Catholicism and contemporary society. As I continue to grow in my name, Ynanna, I learn more about the divine and expansion nature of sex as a gateway to a whole new way of life. I have every reason to be proud of my sensuality, sexuality, womanhood and praise my Ill-Nana. I give myself permission to freely celebrated my innate sexual and womanly nature.

Links for More Info:
Saida Desilets, The Succulence Revolution (this is the website I got my Nephrite Jade egg)

Jade Eggs Info