I want to hug you right now! Another thing I’d tell 19 year old Rachel is that if she didn’t enter into some of these situations, today Rachel wouldn’t be able to relate to those who had, and know what is out there to prepare those she loves. Beautiful share! And I totally had an outfit that we could have matched with! Love you!
Oh Carrie... thank you.... "if she didn’t enter into some of these situations, today Rachel wouldn’t be able to relate to those who had." Tears... thank you for this added perspective. It comforts me greatly. Your friendship is so healing to me.
I am hugging 19 year old Rachel and telling her it’s ok. She’s going to be ok. It’s amazing that she has figured out what she does and doesn’t want to do or be at such a young age. And these lessons will help her navigate her future. We all make mistakes and that’s how we grow and figure what we want want to do differently. And I’m hugging you now Rachel. You are an amazing human who continues to give so many people the feeling of love and acceptance. Of peace and calm. Support and understanding. Thank you for always doing that. 💗💗
To heal ourselves, to love ourselves, to trust our inner voices/nudges, to set boundaries, to forgive ourselves, to be kind to ourselves and to allow our light to shine. Never to late!!!!
Thank you for sharing your real time healing and unfolding. Thank you for sharing your tools and ideas. This writing brought me back to dark days, alone in a bedroom, weeping for my broken self....I recall I began to write and listed what my heart needed. I wish I kept it. My heart believes a lot of the items became the beautiful life I am living today.
Sending you a hug, stretching my hand out to yours and telling you that All pieces of you belong and are loveable!
I didn't have the mental energy to respond on Friday, dear Melissa, but I wanted to tell you that your response felt like you had just stepped beside me in the light of authenticity. It can be lonely there at times... and sometimes when I publish something extremely vulnerable, I worry. I worry I said too much. Your comment came in and held me tight and assured. me that the stories we most want to keep to ourselves are the ones that most need to be spoken. These are the stories that connect us. I especially celebrated this part:
"I recall I began to write and listed what my heart needed. I wish I kept it. My heart believes a lot of the items became the beautiful life I am living today."
Look at your younger self knowing how to take care of you... she was so strong and so brave. Thank you for being here.
Dear Rachel❤️thank you once again for supporting me as I read your message🌈i appreciate your lovely teaching as we never stop learning to heal and love and grow from the shame of our youth- I wish I had been braver then…I am grateful to be braver today🙏
I'm smiling as I read this, because I remember this Note you posted. And I remember that I commented something along the lines of how getting a glimpse into your life when you were young is a true testament to who you are as a person, to your character. I'm not surprised at all that you stopped to help Miss Faith when you weren't even twenty. Because that is who you are. You are a rare gem in this world, Rachel. Never stop being you.
It's beautiful that you saw the responses to your Note as an opportunity to re-parent your younger self, too. How healing! It seems to me you are in the springtime of your life in many ways, Rachel. I can see the shift in you, opening up like the daffodil petals open up to the sun.
Just know that I get how scary that level of vulnerability can be, but there are some of us (me) who are in a place where we are ready and able to carry your vulnerability and hold it with you--no judgment, no "fixing," just creating a space for you to be your truest self.
Reaching 100,000 people! Look at how many lights you ignited from your own flame! And I have no doubt each of them is going to go forth and do the same in their own communities.
Never doubt the gifts you bring and their impact. Yes, we live in a dismal world. Yes, there is division and hatred everywhere. It's always been this way since the beginning of humanity. Even so, each of us is in this specific place and time to push against the darkness with the flames of goodness. YOU ARE DOING THAT. :)
I am with you, friend. I'm standing with you and I'm holding everything you do in my heart.
I saw your beautiful response on Friday and knew you would understand if I didn't respond immediately. You are a loving soul in my life who welcomes me to show up as I am and trusts me to know when quiet is needed. In my quiet weekend, I sat with this notion you gifted me:
"It seems to me you are in the springtime of your life in many ways, Rachel. I can see the shift in you, opening up like the daffodil petals open up to the sun."
Articulating (so beautifully) what you SEE in ME as I thrive in this authentic space is SUCH A GIFT. It's like my own personal encourager that uses specific examples of my life and says, "Keep going." Please know I am hugging you through this screen today and giving thanks that we are connected at a soul level.
Oh, Rachel, you are so right—I have zero expectations about how, whether, or when a person responds to my comments. I totally know how important it is to step away and breathe, to take time to go inward and to rest. In fact, I really need to do that myself in the coming days. I just wanted to reply to this and let you know that I’m glad you knew that already, that you felt it or sensed it. It really does seem that there is some sort of unspoken way you and I can communicate, heart to heart, at times. Sending you love right now!
I did some crazy things too when I was a teenager. Sometimes drinking too much, driving crazy at time with friends, and I could go on more. But forgiveness is so important, especially for ourselves. Our Father in heaven is ready to forgive us if we confess things to Him. (And as a Catholic I also confess to my Priest as well.)
I want to hug you as well and let you know that most of us have been there at times. And now we are here for each other now. Take care and thank you for your words that you write.
Thank you for stepping beside me in the light of realness, Brenda. Your hug is felt. Your solidarity is all encompassing. Sending so much love to you today especially.
Lisa, I am so encouraged by this beautiful message. I get so excited when I learn of a thread connecting me to a new loving soul in the world. Please know how grateful I am for your presence and support.
Dear Rachel...thank you for your beauty and vulnerability in sharing this beautiful post. As a recovering drug addict and alcoholic in long term recovery, self forgiveness and reparenting my inner child is a daily practice.
My past behaviors and choices are not at all the woman that I am today. You are so loved which is evident from reading all of the above comments. There is no room in our lives today for shame...only grace. You were blessed to have Miss Faith as one of your angels showing you your true self and beauty. I'm holding space for you in my heart. 💕
Dearest Casey, thank you for sharing these sacred details of your story. To be where you are today, at this moment, makes me rejoice. Thank you for the gift of your presence, hope, healing, and love. You make my world better.
Thank you for this. 🩵 I practice forgiving my 19 year old self as well. I find her. I hold and rock her while tears stream down her cheeks, and I let her release. I stay with her until she she’s ready to try again, reminding her I’m not going anywhere.
I’m hugging your 19 year old self and your present self too. Threw a hug in for me too as I went back to my summer of shame. I still have a little scar tissue that twinges occasionally even though I have worked hard to see that time with a feeling of gratitude rather than only shame.
Thank you for your thoughts and writing today friend.
I am grateful for younger you for getting you to where you are today... and current you for being one of the most compassionate souls I have ever known. My hand in yours always
Rachel, I deeply appreciate your vulnerable share and can relate on so many levels. I have many things I did in my teens and 20’s that I carried around as shame and self-loathing for a long, long time. It took many years to heal and it still surfaces from time to time on a deeper level, only these days I feel better equipped to deal with it.
I can see that you are a beautiful soul and making mistakes doesn’t change that. Sending much love and respect. Thank you again for being willing to share this. Between your share and these wonderful comments I feel less alone… shining a light on shame really does dissolve the feeling. 🙏
This beautiful response brought tears to my eyes. There is so much healing simply in connecting on a soul level. I am so grateful for you, dear Megan, and the members of this community that are an integral part of my own healing and growth. My hand in yours.
Rachel I too had several summers of shame. Raised in a strict Irish Catholic family, I had a Monsignor and a nun as an aunt and uncle. I moved out at 19 and finally felt free to do as I wished. I made terrible choices because I hadn’t learned how to make good ones yet without it being required. Your post brought up memories of those years and the shame I feel about them. I will ask my husband to bring Soul Shift when he travels here in a few weeks. I’m also doing The Shadow Work journal which he bought me for Christmas. Thank you for helping to guide us through these things. I value our friendship. Hugging you and myself as we work on our past shame.
I cherish every word of this heartfelt and vulnerable response, dear Colleen. I am so grateful you recognize that you made choices back then based on what you knew at the time... and I know you have learned a great deal from those missteps. Your compassion for others is part of that. I am so grateful to be a recipient of your love and support. My hand in yours.
"There is still so much good in us...and so much more to come." Isn't this the truth! Within all of us, no matter our choices, we are good at our core... our heart and soul. It is our lived experiences of this lifetime that lead us along a journey of grace and compassion towards fulfilling our purpose for being here...to connect, heal, grow, learn, and expand.
When we look inside, connect with our heart we find all the truths of our tender soul. The guide to moving us all back to ourselves through life. No matter what shows up, I believe it is all leading us back to our heart, purpose, self. Therefore, we must be guided by your words that I quoted as a light to illuminate in the darkness. There is way more good! I believe that to be true!
It's hard sometimes, but I continue to find it everyday in the small things that are noticed when living in the present moment right in front of me, and as my world is expanding all around me.
I love your perspective, Cory. Each time I read your words and see life through your eyes, I feel greater compassion for myself. You are a beautiful guide in this world... I am so grateful for your hand.
Thank you love for lifting the veil and being so incredibly vulnerable in sharing your shame story.
I believe we are all repositories of those things we did that we keep hidden, that if only we brought them into the light we would find kind eyes and open arms to receive us in all our messy memories.
You grant us an invitation to lighten the load we carry, the shame stories we are still telling ourselves, that can be spoken of and laid to rest.
As I re-remember some of the stories that cause me to spiral I also hold myself with compassion for what my sweet self did not know at the time.
My sweet self self did not realize she was making decisions that were detrimental and at times dangerous in search of belonging. When I look back at what I did for love I am astonished I am still here on this earth, but I am and now I can SEE the choices I thought were from love were actually FOR LOVE. I do not share that easily as I am not proud of my path
AND I can hold myself gently, I was learning. I was growing myself to be a grown-up as fast as possible because I believed adulthood held more promise than
my teenage times.
When you so beautifully and bravely Rachel lift the veil you grant us a moment to pause and search ourselves for what might be stuck so we can shift that and create space for more love, more joy, more grace.
Our shame stories are not who we are they are stepping stones for who we are
becoming.
As we grow our capacity to love on our sweet selves we grow our capacity in parallel to love other people, in our becoming we do be come more for one another. This is done through the gossamer thread of authenticity where we meet one another and dare to lift the veil and speak our sacred stories, our most gooiest centers we boldly give to each other.
Thank you for loving yourself enough to extricate the bonds of shame and shift it into a more glorious story of grace and goodness.
"As we grow our capacity to love on our sweet selves we grow our capacity in parallel to love other people, in our becoming we do be come more for one another."
No truer words have been said, my friend. Thank you for living this out in your life and in your relationships. I am beyond grateful for your hand in mine.
I want to hug you right now! Another thing I’d tell 19 year old Rachel is that if she didn’t enter into some of these situations, today Rachel wouldn’t be able to relate to those who had, and know what is out there to prepare those she loves. Beautiful share! And I totally had an outfit that we could have matched with! Love you!
Oh Carrie... thank you.... "if she didn’t enter into some of these situations, today Rachel wouldn’t be able to relate to those who had." Tears... thank you for this added perspective. It comforts me greatly. Your friendship is so healing to me.
I am hugging 19 year old Rachel and telling her it’s ok. She’s going to be ok. It’s amazing that she has figured out what she does and doesn’t want to do or be at such a young age. And these lessons will help her navigate her future. We all make mistakes and that’s how we grow and figure what we want want to do differently. And I’m hugging you now Rachel. You are an amazing human who continues to give so many people the feeling of love and acceptance. Of peace and calm. Support and understanding. Thank you for always doing that. 💗💗
I feel your hug, Andrea. You are love. I’m so lucky to have your support in my life.
It is never to late:
To heal ourselves, to love ourselves, to trust our inner voices/nudges, to set boundaries, to forgive ourselves, to be kind to ourselves and to allow our light to shine. Never to late!!!!
Thank you for sharing your real time healing and unfolding. Thank you for sharing your tools and ideas. This writing brought me back to dark days, alone in a bedroom, weeping for my broken self....I recall I began to write and listed what my heart needed. I wish I kept it. My heart believes a lot of the items became the beautiful life I am living today.
Sending you a hug, stretching my hand out to yours and telling you that All pieces of you belong and are loveable!
I didn't have the mental energy to respond on Friday, dear Melissa, but I wanted to tell you that your response felt like you had just stepped beside me in the light of authenticity. It can be lonely there at times... and sometimes when I publish something extremely vulnerable, I worry. I worry I said too much. Your comment came in and held me tight and assured. me that the stories we most want to keep to ourselves are the ones that most need to be spoken. These are the stories that connect us. I especially celebrated this part:
"I recall I began to write and listed what my heart needed. I wish I kept it. My heart believes a lot of the items became the beautiful life I am living today."
Look at your younger self knowing how to take care of you... she was so strong and so brave. Thank you for being here.
Dear Rachel❤️thank you once again for supporting me as I read your message🌈i appreciate your lovely teaching as we never stop learning to heal and love and grow from the shame of our youth- I wish I had been braver then…I am grateful to be braver today🙏
I am grateful for your bravery, MaryEllen. I am grateful for your younger self to have worked so hard to get you where you are today.
Rachel,
I'm smiling as I read this, because I remember this Note you posted. And I remember that I commented something along the lines of how getting a glimpse into your life when you were young is a true testament to who you are as a person, to your character. I'm not surprised at all that you stopped to help Miss Faith when you weren't even twenty. Because that is who you are. You are a rare gem in this world, Rachel. Never stop being you.
It's beautiful that you saw the responses to your Note as an opportunity to re-parent your younger self, too. How healing! It seems to me you are in the springtime of your life in many ways, Rachel. I can see the shift in you, opening up like the daffodil petals open up to the sun.
Just know that I get how scary that level of vulnerability can be, but there are some of us (me) who are in a place where we are ready and able to carry your vulnerability and hold it with you--no judgment, no "fixing," just creating a space for you to be your truest self.
Reaching 100,000 people! Look at how many lights you ignited from your own flame! And I have no doubt each of them is going to go forth and do the same in their own communities.
Never doubt the gifts you bring and their impact. Yes, we live in a dismal world. Yes, there is division and hatred everywhere. It's always been this way since the beginning of humanity. Even so, each of us is in this specific place and time to push against the darkness with the flames of goodness. YOU ARE DOING THAT. :)
I am with you, friend. I'm standing with you and I'm holding everything you do in my heart.
I saw your beautiful response on Friday and knew you would understand if I didn't respond immediately. You are a loving soul in my life who welcomes me to show up as I am and trusts me to know when quiet is needed. In my quiet weekend, I sat with this notion you gifted me:
"It seems to me you are in the springtime of your life in many ways, Rachel. I can see the shift in you, opening up like the daffodil petals open up to the sun."
Articulating (so beautifully) what you SEE in ME as I thrive in this authentic space is SUCH A GIFT. It's like my own personal encourager that uses specific examples of my life and says, "Keep going." Please know I am hugging you through this screen today and giving thanks that we are connected at a soul level.
Oh, Rachel, you are so right—I have zero expectations about how, whether, or when a person responds to my comments. I totally know how important it is to step away and breathe, to take time to go inward and to rest. In fact, I really need to do that myself in the coming days. I just wanted to reply to this and let you know that I’m glad you knew that already, that you felt it or sensed it. It really does seem that there is some sort of unspoken way you and I can communicate, heart to heart, at times. Sending you love right now!
I did some crazy things too when I was a teenager. Sometimes drinking too much, driving crazy at time with friends, and I could go on more. But forgiveness is so important, especially for ourselves. Our Father in heaven is ready to forgive us if we confess things to Him. (And as a Catholic I also confess to my Priest as well.)
I want to hug you as well and let you know that most of us have been there at times. And now we are here for each other now. Take care and thank you for your words that you write.
Thank you for stepping beside me in the light of realness, Brenda. Your hug is felt. Your solidarity is all encompassing. Sending so much love to you today especially.
I am Catholic and I went to my Priest about 2 months ago and confession in that. But sometime we can meet! You are so good.
Rachel, I’ve just recently found your work and so appreciate your honest vulnerability. Thank you for reminding all of us it’s ok to be human 💝
Lisa, I am so encouraged by this beautiful message. I get so excited when I learn of a thread connecting me to a new loving soul in the world. Please know how grateful I am for your presence and support.
Dear Rachel...thank you for your beauty and vulnerability in sharing this beautiful post. As a recovering drug addict and alcoholic in long term recovery, self forgiveness and reparenting my inner child is a daily practice.
My past behaviors and choices are not at all the woman that I am today. You are so loved which is evident from reading all of the above comments. There is no room in our lives today for shame...only grace. You were blessed to have Miss Faith as one of your angels showing you your true self and beauty. I'm holding space for you in my heart. 💕
Dearest Casey, thank you for sharing these sacred details of your story. To be where you are today, at this moment, makes me rejoice. Thank you for the gift of your presence, hope, healing, and love. You make my world better.
Dear Rachel...thank you for your kindness and acceptance of myself and my story. 💕
Thank you for this. 🩵 I practice forgiving my 19 year old self as well. I find her. I hold and rock her while tears stream down her cheeks, and I let her release. I stay with her until she she’s ready to try again, reminding her I’m not going anywhere.
This moved me. Thank you for sharing. I shall try this self-compassionate exercise.
I can so relate (again)!! Thank you for reminding me to strive for self-compassion
My hand in yours, Amanda
I’m hugging your 19 year old self and your present self too. Threw a hug in for me too as I went back to my summer of shame. I still have a little scar tissue that twinges occasionally even though I have worked hard to see that time with a feeling of gratitude rather than only shame.
Thank you for your thoughts and writing today friend.
I am grateful for younger you for getting you to where you are today... and current you for being one of the most compassionate souls I have ever known. My hand in yours always
Often times it’s when someone asks something of you that you see the greatest return for saying yes.
Chills. Yes, my friend. I know this to be so true. How beautifully you’ve articulated this experience. Thank you.
Rachel, I deeply appreciate your vulnerable share and can relate on so many levels. I have many things I did in my teens and 20’s that I carried around as shame and self-loathing for a long, long time. It took many years to heal and it still surfaces from time to time on a deeper level, only these days I feel better equipped to deal with it.
I can see that you are a beautiful soul and making mistakes doesn’t change that. Sending much love and respect. Thank you again for being willing to share this. Between your share and these wonderful comments I feel less alone… shining a light on shame really does dissolve the feeling. 🙏
This beautiful response brought tears to my eyes. There is so much healing simply in connecting on a soul level. I am so grateful for you, dear Megan, and the members of this community that are an integral part of my own healing and growth. My hand in yours.
Thank you Rachel… community feels like the path forward. I’m grateful to have found this one. 💕
I’m so glad you’re here.
Rachel I too had several summers of shame. Raised in a strict Irish Catholic family, I had a Monsignor and a nun as an aunt and uncle. I moved out at 19 and finally felt free to do as I wished. I made terrible choices because I hadn’t learned how to make good ones yet without it being required. Your post brought up memories of those years and the shame I feel about them. I will ask my husband to bring Soul Shift when he travels here in a few weeks. I’m also doing The Shadow Work journal which he bought me for Christmas. Thank you for helping to guide us through these things. I value our friendship. Hugging you and myself as we work on our past shame.
I cherish every word of this heartfelt and vulnerable response, dear Colleen. I am so grateful you recognize that you made choices back then based on what you knew at the time... and I know you have learned a great deal from those missteps. Your compassion for others is part of that. I am so grateful to be a recipient of your love and support. My hand in yours.
"There is still so much good in us...and so much more to come." Isn't this the truth! Within all of us, no matter our choices, we are good at our core... our heart and soul. It is our lived experiences of this lifetime that lead us along a journey of grace and compassion towards fulfilling our purpose for being here...to connect, heal, grow, learn, and expand.
When we look inside, connect with our heart we find all the truths of our tender soul. The guide to moving us all back to ourselves through life. No matter what shows up, I believe it is all leading us back to our heart, purpose, self. Therefore, we must be guided by your words that I quoted as a light to illuminate in the darkness. There is way more good! I believe that to be true!
It's hard sometimes, but I continue to find it everyday in the small things that are noticed when living in the present moment right in front of me, and as my world is expanding all around me.
I love your perspective, Cory. Each time I read your words and see life through your eyes, I feel greater compassion for myself. You are a beautiful guide in this world... I am so grateful for your hand.
As I am I for your! 🙏💓
Thank you love for lifting the veil and being so incredibly vulnerable in sharing your shame story.
I believe we are all repositories of those things we did that we keep hidden, that if only we brought them into the light we would find kind eyes and open arms to receive us in all our messy memories.
You grant us an invitation to lighten the load we carry, the shame stories we are still telling ourselves, that can be spoken of and laid to rest.
As I re-remember some of the stories that cause me to spiral I also hold myself with compassion for what my sweet self did not know at the time.
My sweet self self did not realize she was making decisions that were detrimental and at times dangerous in search of belonging. When I look back at what I did for love I am astonished I am still here on this earth, but I am and now I can SEE the choices I thought were from love were actually FOR LOVE. I do not share that easily as I am not proud of my path
AND I can hold myself gently, I was learning. I was growing myself to be a grown-up as fast as possible because I believed adulthood held more promise than
my teenage times.
When you so beautifully and bravely Rachel lift the veil you grant us a moment to pause and search ourselves for what might be stuck so we can shift that and create space for more love, more joy, more grace.
Our shame stories are not who we are they are stepping stones for who we are
becoming.
As we grow our capacity to love on our sweet selves we grow our capacity in parallel to love other people, in our becoming we do be come more for one another. This is done through the gossamer thread of authenticity where we meet one another and dare to lift the veil and speak our sacred stories, our most gooiest centers we boldly give to each other.
Thank you for loving yourself enough to extricate the bonds of shame and shift it into a more glorious story of grace and goodness.
Your shift sparkles far***
"As we grow our capacity to love on our sweet selves we grow our capacity in parallel to love other people, in our becoming we do be come more for one another."
No truer words have been said, my friend. Thank you for living this out in your life and in your relationships. I am beyond grateful for your hand in mine.