Breaking Free From The Good Girl Image: Part Two
Hi friend,
Thank you for your patience with me in getting this newsletter to you.
I went away to the most profound training for a week where we were learning to reconnect with our sensuality and sexuality and how that is a holy and spiritual act. I'll be sharing more as this work unfolds for me, but I know it will be a part of the healing work for myself and for all the beautiful women I have the honor of working with. I also caught Covid for the first time while I was there. It was pretty intense to go from such a deep level of connection to complete isolation the week after while integrating everything I learned.
All that to say, I am grateful to get back to this conversation with you. It feels a bit overwhelming to try and wrap it up in a newsletter. I am sure this will be an ongoing talk because it is so near and dear to my heart.
To say the last 10 years have been a roller coaster for me would be the understatement of the century. I feel like I have lived at least 5 different lives during that span of time. Each one of these became an invitation to the next truer, less masked version of me, so I love and honor each and every version even if they don't fit anymore.
I would say the biggest shifts happened when I was writing my book. I had an idea of what that book was meant to be in the world, the attention it would give me (oh my sweet ego), and how it could help people. I sold a book to Simon and Schuster called “Salvaged: Building A Beautiful Life With Broken Parts.” Writing the book brought me to my knees. I was retraumatizing myself as I wrote it, living in my story over and over again. That sent me on the deepest healing journey I had been on so far because I was so unwell while writing it.
I felt like I was breaking. My pain was out of control. I was white-knuckling. I still knew how to show up with the biggest smile on my face though. I could turn on my extroverted self, travel and do all the fun things I got to do for work with people the world considered famous. I was drinking more because I was in so much physical pain. If I wanted to be social and not in bed on my heating pad, I felt like I need that 3rd or 4th drink. I was completely disassociated from my body and so she just got louder and louder–all while I ignored her, stuffed her with food, drink, tv, and anything else to try to avoid what she was saying. On the outside, everything appeared so fun and beautiful but on the inside, I felt like I was falling apart. I had that “good girl/have everything together” mask secured on so tight.
They say that plant medicine calls you. It was not the world I grew up in at all nor did I know anyone in that world but I got the call. 2018 was another huge shift for me. I did Ayahuasca and mushrooms for the first time. (This is not me promoting or suggesting these things to you; plant medicine is not for everyone. I also do not believe that it is the only path to awakening. It is just one of SO many. It just happened to be the path for me. I also would not recommend doing any of these things without doing tons of research and with a trusted guide.)
I will never forget my first mushroom journey. It was a night and day shift. I remember coming out of it saying,
“That's not the title of my book. I am not broken! Broken, fucked up things have happened to me, but I AM NOT BROKEN!”
That was a conditioned story I had absorbed, adopted, and believed with every part of me, but I knew then that it wasn't true. The church I had been a part of constantly talked about us being broken, depraved souls in need of a savior outside of us to make us whole and I believed it with every part of me. I knew after my journey with mushrooms that I was created to heal. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and seeing the divinity in me and how loved and worthy and deserving I was simply because I existed.
This awakening sent me on such a journey of unlearning so many of the stories I had been taught. I believe I will be on this unlearning journey for the rest of my days, until I am back in the in-between. I began to learn about shadow work and how to fall in love with the parts of me I was taught were sinful or bad, the parts of me that, of course, didn't go away when I tried to “give them to Jesus” or cut them off. They just moved to the basement and would constantly come out sideways and take over. I began learning to commune with my jealousy, insecurity, sexuality, perfectionism, the part of me that had used people unconsciously, the part of me that has lied, stolen, cheated, and hated. I learned to begin loving my disordered eating and seeing it as something that helped save my life! It helped me still be here when life felt way too traumatizing and painful, and it gave me an escape to stuff it all down!
I have also begun a deep dive into coming back into my body since then. This body that I hated and believed, with every part of me, hated me. But oh, she has just been calling me back home to her all along. She is so wise and has everything to teach me. I truly believe she is my gateway to actual healing, I couldn't talk therapy my way into healing because, as we know, the body keeps the score and all of our trauma lives in our bodies. The only way to heal it is to feel it. This is daily work for me because I learned to leave my body so early, most likely pre-verbally. This is slow work. I can get so impatient but I know I can't rush this healing. This is lifetime work and my body is so worth it. You are so worth it
The more I began to see how only love could bring healing to these parts of me (as shame can never ever heal us), the more I started feeling myself feel free. Free to be my witchy, woo woo, sexual, irreverent self. I get to be ALL OF ME!
And let me tell you, it is so scary at times. As I said in my last email, I still care greatly about what you think, what my family thinks (this is not their world at all). I have lost followers as my message has drastically changed and I have lost friends. My higher self knows so deeply that it is actually really loving to activate people when it comes from love (I like this word more than triggered). There are women in my life that were so activating to me, and I turned away from them as they started being more and more free. It scared me. They were mirroring parts of me that had been exiled and I wasn't ready to look at, but my journey and timing were perfect.
I will not be for everyone and I so honor that. But I am not willing to cut pieces of myself off anymore for approval or belonging. That means I get to be ALL OF ME. and the more I do this work the more I get to offer that to every human I encounter.
Every part of you gets to be here and loved on and communed with. This is the work. This is love. This is freedom.
I recently had a girl reach out to me and share that she had stolen from me. It was so beautiful because I too have stolen from people in the past, and I got to share that with her, love on her, thank her for her honesty, and commune with that part of her. I could only do that because I do this work for myself. This is life-changing work.
I get to love on that good little girl part of me that wants all of you to love me and accept me, but I also get to remind myself that what you think is absolutely none of my business. I love on that little girl part of me who was asked every day when I came home from school, “What did they say about you today? Did they say how pretty you are? What did they say about your outfit?” When that very conditioned part of me comes up I say, “Oh, my sweet Ruthie, what do YOU say about you today? What does the divine say about you today?” and I speak so much love and TRUTH over myself.
I get to be freaky and witchy and sexual and human and divine and alien. Oh, what freedom that is.
My deepest hope is to give myself this gift over and over each day and then to mirror that sort of deep acceptance and love to everyone I encounter, in person or on the internet. I know this is our birthright. FUCK being a good girl. I choose freedom.
This song sums it all up…
With love for ALL of YOU,
Ruthie
Let’s Do This Work Together: Love Reflection Sessions
You may have seen my previous email, but I am now offering a Love Reflection Session Series. I have only a few spots still available. I want to offer these to you first since you’re on my newsletter list before I open it up to everyone on Instagram later. As another special gift to you as a dear reader, you can sign up to do this with me at $2100 instead of $2222.
You can learn all about this intimate. one-on-one offering and book a discovery call here. It will be a 6-week container with weekly calls and special Voxer support all in between our sessions. This will give us so much space to dive into things like
Your healing journey
Loss, pain, deconstruction
Reconnecting to your body through practices
Being a highly sensitive person on this planet
Shadow and parts work
Sexuality and desire
Meditation, ritual, and working with your guides
You can also get on the waiting list for the next round of sessions this summer!
Episode 2 of the Love’s Invitation Podcast is here!
I am beyond thrilled to share with you my interview with Carlos Whitaker. He calls himself a hope dealer and I couldn't agree more with that statement. He is able to connect with every type of human from every walk of life and they feel so very seen and loved by him. People have fundamentally different beliefs from him and yet they know he sees them and loves them. He makes my heart swell about 10 times its normal size. I couldn't love this man more. Here is just a tiny taste of the magic he brings to every single place he goes.
Enjoy this clip of our talk!
If you’re a paid member of the Love’s Invitation community you can watch the whole episode here.
All paying members have access to all of the full conversations with each guest for $6 a month (or $60 a year).
I also have monthly live group offerings for these members. This last week we had a night for movement medicine. It’s hard to describe how beautiful this night was. It was the anniversary of my last spinal cord fusion, my body was in so much pain, I was in the thick of Covid, and I danced with all of it. The group was so profound, and together we danced with the parts of us that longed to be communed with. I could cry thinking about the energy and beauty of that night. What an honor it was to witness these profound souls.
A Card For You
I drew this card yesterday from my Kim Krans Archetype book and it felt so applicable to this conversation. So I’ll leave you with this friend.
Here’s to breaking out of the box.
