Interviewed in Victoria, BC. November, 2016
Born: 1987 in Vancouver, British Columbia
“Beliefs are physical. A thought held long enough and repeated enough becomes a belief. The belief then becomes biology.” ― Marilyn Van Derbur
“If you are here today... you are a survivor. But those of us who have made it thru hell and are still standing? We bare a different name: warriors.” ― Lori Goodwin
LB: My entire life I had an emotionally abusive father, physically abusive to my brothers, so I had a very low sense of self-worth, so I always felt like I never fit in anywhere, like the outsider. I built a persona that I fit into what I thought was needed. I was the quiet, introverted type, never free to express my real self. I always felt like I was pretending, so inside I was, like, very frustrated and lost. I was always trying to please everybody so they would like me.
LS: At what age did you recognize this about yourself?
LB: I would say it was about grade 4, when I was 9 or 10. I was overweight, so I felt like that made me stick out. In middle school I tried really hard to excel, which I did, and that gave me a sense of accomplishment, but I never felt like I belonged. I had no direction, really. I was a perfectionist, but I was hurting my self, not sleeping, things like that.
It wasn't until after high school that I started to have issues with my whole identity (laughs)! I was being a perfectionist in order to please everyone. I felt like everyone was always judging me, being critical. I had an inner voice that was analyzing everything I did, and always observing everyone else. I would read the group's emotions in order to blend in. I had lots of friends because I was a chameleon, able to fit into every group.
Later on I learned that was completely in my head. Inside I felt unlikeable. I wasn't good enough. I didn't have anything to offer. I was quite popular, but I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Does that make sense? I graduated in 2008, and shortly after that I had, I guess, what you would call a nervous breakdown.
LS: Were you living at home?
LB: Yeah, I was living at home. My parents were going through a nasty divorce. I was in college, but I didn't know what classes to take. All my friends moved to Vancouver and Alberta, so I lost my support group and felt alone. I suffered with depression for a few years.
When I was 24 my best friend, who I'd known since kindergarten, passed away to a brain tumor. So I lost my longest friend and the only other person who could validate my childhood memories, that was really hard. Shortly after that my grandmother passed as well.
I was feeling really trapped. I wasn't doing well at school. I was procrastinating and I had major anxiety. My grades were dropping really low, and I was getting more and more depressed...
LS: Let me just tell you, you don't have to go back there, emotionally, in case you feel yourself getting drawn back there.
LB: No, it's OK. It feels good to talk about it. It's only been the last few months that I realized how sick I was.
When I was 24 I started to do self harm. I went to different therapists and they'd always ask me what was wrong, and I didn't know. I thought that was their job to help me, right (laughs)? I always felt like I was talking to a brick wall because there was nothing coming back at me. I found therapy quite pointless. The questions they asked were like, “How are you feeling today?” You know, I could do that on my own. They never really offered advice.
I also became bulimic. I guess that was a sense of control, because I was quite overweight. I'm not exactly sure how it developed, but I had that for 7 years, from around age 20 to 27. That was a long time. It became almost normal because it was, like, an activity I did (laughs). It got so habitual.
I'm going to fast forward now to this year.
The divorce was finished and I was staying at home with my mom. She's good, I love my mom, it's my dad that was the major issue. He's not emotionally available. He's judgmental of everything and everyone. Everyone's wrong and he's always right. To grow up in that environment was really hard because there's no way to ever please him. You felt like you could never be anything. You were always wrong, no matter what. That was really frustrating, so I isolated myself, in the house, in my room. They always sent me to my room, so I went there on my own, to escape.
So, this year I had a concussion from falling off a horse. I had to withdraw from school that semester, and spend 3 or 4 months recovering. It was quite severe. I could barely write, barely talk. It was quite scary.
I started going through my “dark night of the soul,” or whatever (laughs). I went to another therapist, and they were starting to help me through my depression, but they put me on medicine again. Western medicine cures the symptom but not the cause, so my depression kept popping up because I never dealt with the internal issue, which was a sense of identity.
Then, in July, a deer hit my car. It was a big crash, and the car was written off. After that I had very bad vertigo.
LS: You were hurt in that collision too?
LB: Not as bad, but I had whiplash, and it's not fun, That lasted for 3 weeks, and I could barely walk. Everything was really dizzy, and I had a lot of weird experiences. Everything was shaky because my eyes, and everything would be moving, constantly, everything spinning around. Not fun (laughs).
In July I decided I was done being depressed, I was done being bulimic. I was suicidal.
LS: So when you say you were “done,” do you mean you became suicidal?
LB: I was suicidal when I was 22. It's called suicidal ideation: I was thinking about it. I had that for about a year and a half, and I researched ways to do it.
LS: And that passed?
LB: Yeah, I got over that, but this year it came back really bad. I needed to find something to cure me because Western medicine wasn't working. I had to find the root cause of what was going on.
I should go back 2 years, sorry. I was studying psychology and I wanted to practice the stuff I was learning, to experiment, so I decided to practice on losing weight. I cut out dairy, and I cut out carbs and wheat, and gluten. I ate a lot of veggies and protein, and started exercising. I lost 100 pounds in 9 months. It came off quite easily. I leveled out to 130 within a year and a half, and I maintained it.
LS: So that started 2 years ago, so now we're up to 6 months ago, so your current body type is fairly recent!
LB: Yes, my aunts didn't recognize me. They thought I was my sister. Also, I legally changed my name, about 4 years ago, when I was 24. My old name, Jenny, was very common and there were so many Jenny's, and my last name was way too long. I kind of wanted to distance myself from my father's name.
I changed my name, and I changed my body. I was basically like a new person, except I still didn't know who I was. I felt very confused, like my soul was fractured. I felt like I had multiple personality disorder. I behaved different ways to different people, and I never felt congruent. I was always, like, limited in my behavior and stuff. I would always think before I spoke, and I was always critical of myself. It's almost like my father's voice was ingrained in my head.
After the weight loss, I tried to understand why was depressed, what are the core reasons. I had a note pad and a piece of paper, and I wrote down all the feelings of what depression was. So I wrote loneliness, worthlessness, low self-esteem, failure, and all that stuff.
Then, from each emotion, I would link what thoughts led to it, and from those thoughts I would draw an arrow to the beliefs that supported it: “I'm a failure... because I'm stupid.” Then I would write why I believed that in the first place, say because I never received any rewards, or praise, or recognition for anything.
I had a very backward way of looking at myself. I was thinking this negative stuff about myself, and that was making all this negative stuff happen. After I realized I was validating all these negative beliefs, things that were instilled in me, making them real, I started to make peace with them, or find ways to stop them.
Like, I would write them down... (writes) like this is one: self abuse. I self-abused because I thought I deserved punishment, because I was worthless. This was the self-hatred part. I was self abusing by cutting, being bulimic, and self-sabotaging, getting into debt, a lot of stuff (laughs). I would write “self-abuse... not seeing your higher good.” When I was ready, I would let go of the belief that I deserved punishment, and I deserved to suffer, and that I didn't deserve happiness or to be loved. I would work on beliefs such as deserving.
I'd stop thinking about how the past could have been different, and going into the guilt about what I'd done to myself. I started to apologize to myself for behaving the way I did. The past made me who I am today, and even though there was a lot of turmoil when I was growing up, it created a strong woman. I don't want to change that.
I started watching YouTube videos about meditation and self-hypnosis for calming and relaxing. That led to understanding and self-awareness, and that's where spirituality started coming in. I started being aware of why I behaved this way. I realized I was behaving because of false beliefs, which were only in my head. I thought certain things were true, so I would feel these emotions, and the emotions created behaviors, and the behaviors created the reality. It was circular, and kept going on and on.
Once I realized that I could stop, that I could just stop believing in those thoughts, it was like, “I can just stop this right now!” It was a huge epiphany. That's basically what I did. I started practicing self-love. I kept uncovering each layer, each belief, and I'd go through them all, like co-dependency with my Mom. It was quite freeing because, at the end, I was able to understand why I behaved the way I did.
I started automatic writing. It was almost as if there was a different person that was with me, that's what they call your higher self, or whatever. I felt I was becoming my authentic person (laughs). It was really cool.
LS: Did you feel you were getting in touch with some kind of guidance?
LB: Yes. It was definitely a kind of experience... um... you know, it was a spiritual experience, something more than yourself, right? However you want to say that (laughs).
LS:
Were
you surprised with what you were writing?
LB: Yeah, definitely. It wasn't me at all, so that was really cool.
LS:
Who
was it?
LB: I started getting synchronicities with angel signs. One of them was Archangel Zadkiel, who is related to higher learning and guidance. Because of the vertigo, I was seeing blue auras everywhere, which was also kind of weird because I don't know if it was part of the spiritual thing, or a remnant of what happened before, but it was definitely a different feeling. I felt at one with the world. I actually felt true bliss.
LS: Did this come out of automatic writing, or did you start to experience this at other times?
LB: Yeah, in my whole life. There were times when I felt my consciousness was outside of my body, which was really odd, but it only lasted about an hour or so. I felt different. I just couldn't explain it to anyone. I still don't know anything about how to go about spirituality, or the systems.
The thing that came to me on my own was oneness, and togetherness in one. I was able to levitate, to have an out of body experience, just above my body. When I did a meditation, I was able to do a lot of... kind of weird... like you're dreaming, but you can go into your dream, and all these different visions of like dolphins and, like, weird things. I can't explain it.
I was able to do this deep meditation on my own. I put on Jason Stephenson's guided meditations and self-hypnosis. I just liked the tone of his voice. I was able to listen to him for 20 minutes, and then turn him off and do my own thing. I was able, and I'm still able, to go into this very peaceful, relaxed state, being totally at one with myself. I just push out all the noise, and that's really nice. It's like sometimes you forget you can do these things (laughs).
That lasted for about 2 months, and then life started to pick up again because of school and stuff. The vertigo passed around mid-August, so I was able to drive, and I went back to school.
During this time I was able to manifest a lot of things that I really wanted in my life, which was really awesome, like I wanted things like a new car, and even though I didn't want a car crash per se, I did want to get a new car, you know... I got my horses, I got two horses. I got a lot of things, and goals in my life just worked out on their own. I kept having synchronicities, and all kinds of interesting stuff. I can still manifest things that I want, and it's fun (laughs).
It's kind of like you want something, you dream of it, you have a vision of it, and you kind of feel it out, and then those opportunities in life you're probably more perceptive to... whereas you wouldn't be otherwise. Like college courses are expensive, and I've been able to work out payment plans, and things like that, and everything just falls into place. I just had to surrender to the process. I was always trying to control everything, and I just had to let go.
I lost the weight and I started modeling, which was something that I thought I'd never do. I met a lot of neat people. I felt free. I knew it was OK to be me. I'm lovable, I'm approachable, I'm smart, I have potential, and I realized I have all these gifts . My past was not me at all.
I guess you call it a rebirth. I felt like a whole new person because I'm now able to speak out and not hold back, not criticize myself. I know who I am now, but at the same time learning who I can become. I'm learning new interests and hobbies, because I never put myself out there before. Do you want to ask me any more questions (laughs)?
LS: No, I just want to know how you got to what sounded like completion, because... I could see you thinking about it.
LB: Yeah, like one of these things I wrote was, “I accept the thoughts and emotions of self-hatred. I take responsibility, I accept this as reality, which became my reality. This is an irrational belief. I actually love myself, all of myself. These old thoughts are no longer valid. I release them now, and I no longer recognize self-hatred as my reality. They served a purpose when I was a child, but they're no longer needed.”
I understand a lot about how the family dynamic worked. I have two brothers and a sister, so it's a fairly large family. I was so rolled up in it... I was not even existing. Everything seemed repetitive, it was the same every day. I felt it was never going to change, and I didn't want to get a 9 to 5 job and have a family, it just felt so... pointless. This was one of the reasons I became suicidal.
I couldn't find happiness anywhere, but really it was because I was hating myself so much that I couldn't realize the beauty in life, you know? There is so much out there which I never picked up on. Part of me still feels regretful because I wasted so much of my life, at the same time I know that's not true. I'm still working on that.
The last time I talked to my higher self I asked her for guidance on how to heal that part of me. I asked her a lot of why questions (laughs). I'm going to read to you a little writing I have because I like how it's phrased.
“I can only recover from depression through action. I want to understand why I behaved in certain ways, why did this to myself. I discovered I was self-sabotaging because I was afraid to succeed. Success would mean I had grown into my father's vision of me, that he won over me, or something. But I realized that he never wanted any of this for me, he actually loved me, and I let all that anger and frustration go.”
You don't take the time to look deep inside yourself because of everyday happenings. You never bring it to the forefront, but if you just lie down, relax, go deep within yourself, and ask some of these hard questions, the answers come up, they do. And they guide you to the truth of why you do these things. With that you can start taking steps to let go of these emotions through acceptance and forgiveness. Forgiveness for the people who you think hurt you, and just let it go. It's in the past, and it no longer has control over you.
Once you're ready to let go, that's all you have to do. Cut the cords of the past, those pains don't serve you, they're only causing you pain. You're causing your own suffering, so forgive them, and forgive yourself for carrying these behaviors, and for hurting yourself. You don't have to hurt anymore. There's no point to it. Don't think about the future, that just creates anxiety. Live in the moment and experience life.
LS: Did these insights come first, enabling you to change yourself? Or do you think you were ready to change, and then found the insights that made sense of your new awareness?
LB: I used a technique where I went back in time and talked to my inner child. My inner child knew who I was all the time. I told her she would always be comforted and safe, so she could let go of these feelings. When I came back out from that I felt I could let her go. I no longer had to hold on to my past in order to protect her.
Feelings of pain and fearfulness. I felt like I was fractured, right? The hurt and abused child who couldn't get attention or validation, the me that I presented to everyone. I felt like I was holding on to all these parts of me, and I let those go. There was this integration of all of them coming together. She's integrated into me now. The guidance came to me because I was ready for it. If I wasn't ready, I don't think the answers would have come.
LS: Is there anything you could say to people who aren't ready? That's almost a contradiction in terms, because if they're not ready, then they're not going to hear it.
LB: Yeah really. Like my mom. I did write something like that, so let me find it... I did automatic writing. It comes to me at night, and it's kind of mumbled. I would have this different voice in my head telling me all these fun things. It got some interesting stuff into the light.
This is what I wrote to my future self, in case this would happen again, “Face your fears,” that's the first thing I would say. “Fears only grow larger if you ignore them. Fear is actually your ally because it's helping you recognize your weaknesses. Recognize that vulnerabilities create the place you are at. Awareness of your vulnerabilities leads to higher self-knowledge.”
With my weight loss, one of the big things I decided was everyday I'm going to be working on weight loss, because time's passing, right? If I didn't do that, I could look back two years from now and regret never taking action, and I'd be the same weight I was then. Do it for yourself, don't do it for anyone else, that's the most important thing. You need to be tired of being in pain. For me it was death, or get better. I really had no choice. I had no where else to go.
For someone who's not ready, just tell them this pain is not necessary. Usually we are the cause, and the creator of our own pain, and it's because of unlooked-at situations, triggers, and identifying with a past that no longer exists. We carry those thoughts and beliefs with us.
I was the creator of my own pain. It took a lot of digging to realize that. I didn't realize that I hated myself. I had no clue. Once I realized I had self-hatred, it was like... it was hard.
LS: When you realized it, how did it appear?
LB: Sadness and guilt. I was just depressed and helpless. I had no idea of what was causing my suffering, and it was these false beliefs which I was validating through my own behaviors.
Shame almost. Like, as an intelligent being I was doing that to myself, but I had no idea. I was doing all those behaviors: procrastination, self-sabotage, cutting, bulimia, suicidal ideation... all this stuff to hurt myself because I hated myself. I had no clue.
LS: What's your main interest now? If you had to pick a major, what would you do?
LB: (laughs) I've been trying to figure that out myself, actually! It's really hard because I feel like psychology is no longer… it's finished.
I've been thinking of, not a life coach per se, but helping people lose weight, help people with their behaviors, and understand their behaviors, and why they create their behaviors. Why they have these emotions to begin with. I don't know exactly what I want to do. I want to help people awaken in the sense of understanding why they are who they are.
I was overweight for 25 years of my life. My mom was overweight, my parents were overweight, it was going to be this way, I couldn't change it. I thought I was going to be overweight forever. I felt really bad. And then I realized that I could, and I did. It's partly recognizing what to do, but also taking the action to do it. It's the action stuff that's often missing.
I wrote the other day... I was playing with the idea of light and dark, and how we perceive things. But what if there are totally different realities that we can't understand because we've never perceived them? Like there's North and South, but there are also East and West, other realities. Does that make sense? If we only know light and dark, then we're living in a 2-dimensional consciousness.
There's so much I'm interested in. Some of it's more 'out there,' but I don't really care because it's interesting. I'm always learning now. I'm trying to make sense of it, and it's still kind of happening... you know? I don't know. I've rediscovered a passion for learning, and I'm just having fun with it (laughs).
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© 2018, Lincoln Stoller. All rights reserved.