top of page
aterahmeclawrence

Chasing the Sun: A message for the Chain Breakers and Change Makers

Updated: Jul 23, 2023

In today's blog, I'll be addressing one of the many faces of generational trauma and overcoming toxic family dynamics.

I hope this message reaches out and touches you in ways you've never imagined. I hope it reignites the fire that has dwindled and broken down over the years and generations. So I'll start this heavy topic with some uplift & inspiration.



For as I can remember I've been chasing my sun. I knew the life I survived and existed in was only the tip of the iceberg of what the life I could be living actually has waiting for me, as long as I attract it. Now this isn't going to be a bashing blog, nor an "eff you" to those who have hurt me; this isn't an olive branch either, it just is. And there are some things that need to be addressed.


I've been actively challenging the dysfunction that has been happening in my family for decades. Being one of the first to recognize this toxicity and abuse I am often the one who is most ostracized and problematic. For this reason, I began stepping away, I labeled myself the black sheep and wore that name with shame and regret instead of what this evolution deserved and really was, a transformation. I am not a black sheep, I am a black butterfly. Butterfly. A name my mother calls me from her cocoon; I know in my heart and with utmost faith, she will soon understand why she calls me this.

I only ask to be free. Because butterflies are free.

The black butterfly is often labeled as a misfortunate and unwelcome sign to see, but it carries so many hidden messages of guidance, hope, and optimism beneath its wings. Black Butterflies are symbols of potent transformation. They are often a sign that something in your life is up for review and that you would benefit from letting it die and fade away. After all, if nothing ever changed there'd be no such thing as butterflies. I aim to embrace, evolve and experience change without fear and doubt.


I must admit this transformation has been detoxifying, isolating & lonely in its darkest, and liberating & freeing at its best; all these emotions of which are intertwined with aligning myself and my purpose. I've had to embrace the negative feelings and how I express them and learn from my hubristic flaws on how I allow myself to run rackets on my family for the sake of being right, shaming, and judgmental. I have and recognize them for what they are, choosing to abandon these false notions of being higher and mighty in my convictions. And I can say wholeheartedly is, the fact that I can call myself out is GROWTH no matter how imperfect I am or others perceive me to be.


I am consciously choosing to let this part of my ego die because I can't live a life stuck in this form of transformation as this black butterfly. This is one of the most uncomfortable and challenging human experiences I can name, other than childbirth of course.

While on the topic of birth, rebirth & transformation, I've had to understand that while tragic it is freeing to accept that my parents are not always capable of being the parents I've always needed them to be. I've had to let go of this idea for my own sanity & sake and am still healing as I type. And I can sit here and acknowledge that there is no right or wrong in this, it just is. That was their best.


Of course, we all want to uplift the ones we love most from the sunken place they exist in, but that is just what it is a place, not a destination. My sunken place was built on generations of family shame and secrets, monsters we stuffed in our closets as a survival mechanism, and toxicity that has festered and brewed into a lovely mix of addictions, pain, grief, and abuse of all forms. These chains were foraged in a fire for as long as I can look back on both sides of my DNA. And yet here I am, a victim, a survivor, and an aspiring thriver despite these circumstances that were beyond my control, my mothers, fathers, and their kin before them.


We often speak of generational traumas like these, as if they're curses as if we have no choice but to circumnavigate these inevitable mountains, but the conscious truth is we choose to take part in every day because we've seen them in our pasts, in our blood and bones. And in how we treat and love ourselves and others, without accountability, with denial, and with no intentions to change the realities we've conjured up in the sunken places we come from.

I was taught growing up that love is not unconditional from the people it should have been. When I behave in accordance with the expectations and whims set forth for me can I receive this unconditional love. This led to me having difficulty overcoming my feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, emotional emptiness, and sadness. It has led me into the arms of unhealthy men, on a path of unrelenting perfectionism, self-criticism, sabotage, and frustration; I clenched these vices in my jaw and held them in my throat, chest, and womb.

It made me feel like people had the right to hurt and mistreat me. Despite being an adult able to interpret and heal healthily, I still feel I have no right reserved to stand up for myself and those I see falling under the same attacks I survived off sheer will and hope. All because I knew I wanted different for my family, my future, my life. We constantly undermine ourselves and fight without resolutions, but to what end? At the detriment of ourselves and the ones, we claim to love and cherish, our health, wealth, well-being, and vitality.


I will not be part of the problem, but part of the solution. It ends here for me, on this blog, in my prayers and the life I am attracting.


Be the person who breaks the chains, the cycle and makes a change.





xo The Warrior Queen






Comments


Post: Blog2_Post
bottom of page