Deep Waters Blog

You know, I never considered myself a writer. I’ve always liked to write, did creative writing classes and things like that in school, but I never pursued it. Now here I am with this blog. Go figure.

I’ve been sitting with a blog post for a few days now. My writing process is more like downloads. I start getting the idea for a post a few days before I actually sit down and write it. I write whatever comes and then I go back and edit. Most times, it turns out a bit different then what I thought it would look like but still with the same message. I’ve felt this one brewing for a bit now… and as I sit at my computer at 6:30 in the morning, I’m curious to see what the end result looks like.

Authenticity. What does that mean to you when you hear that word? The definition of authentic is this: of undisputed origin; genuine. Made or done in the traditional or original way. Based on facts; accurate or reliable.

How about Healing? What comes to mind when you hear that word? Websters definition is: the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again.

So, why do I heal? What am I looking for? Why do I write these blog posts and why am I doing what I’m doing?

This journey has brought me back to my authentic self. The real me. The core of who I am. I could say it a thousand different ways I’m sure and they all mean the same thing. I was brought home to ME. We wear masks every single day when we walk out of our doors to face the real world. I mentioned this in one of my earlier blog posts. Whether it’s the way you style yourself (hair, clothes, make up and accessories) your attitude, your demeanor. We act accordingly for whatever that day brings us.  I got so tired of faking the funk that I put it all down and looked hard at myself. Who am I? Maybe more importantly: who did I become while hiding away? Deeper still: What caused me to hide away?

You know what’s crazy? The realization I’ve had that hit like a freight train? There will always be people who don’t like me. They won’t like parts of me, what I represent to them, what I trigger in them. My ego wants me to flip out over this. Instead, I’m finally saying that’s okay and meaning it. There is no judgment and insecurity. Sometimes things just don’t fit. In a healing session the other day, when I said my big 3: Aquarius, Aries, Aries I was met with a laugh and told I am meant to trigger people. Yay! Lucky me! So I’m going to deal with this for the rest of my life too. I am not for everyone. My content is not for everyone. And that’s … okay.

You know how I know this healing path is working for me? I’m no longer internalizing what I did wrong if I’m not accepted. I’m no longer becoming a chameleon to change into something that pleases other people. There’s no need to overexplain myself to justify what I am doing. While I sit up some nights thinking some things over, my ego no longer runs the show. I have learned techniques to help quiet my mind and I am more centered and sure of myself then I have ever been. I was reminded in the same healing session I mentioned above – that is doing the actual work. The journaling, meditating, walking in nature, salt baths, hell creating content for my business; these are a few things that bring me peace and keep me out of my head.

Shadow work isn’t about ripping open an old wound and dwelling in it. It’s about recognizing your toxic patterns and triggers, figuring out where that came from and healing that broken piece of you so your trigger doesn’t run you anymore. The end goal is to stop bleeding your traumas all over other people and stop projecting your wounds. That takes a serious amount of accountability, patience and grace.

Am I completely healed right now? No.  Will I continue to face certain triggers for the rest of my life? Yes.

I could stop my business tomorrow and would still be doing this work.

No healer has it all together. No person is completely healed in this lifetime. We’re all here to live out the lives we chose when we wanted to come on this earth. Some people will ascend. Some will stand still and some will descend (also another earlier blog post) Healers are a part of that too. We are not an elite group of people better than everyone else. It’s the exact opposite actually. We are just like everyone else. The point of a healer is to give you a safe space and trust that they will help guide you in the right direction. A true healer is not actually healing you. We don’t have a magic potion to fix all your problems for you. We give you the space and teach you how to heal yourself… most times through the experiences we’ve had healing ourselves. Sure, we can be trained and certified in different modalities of healing, but how many times have you met someone with a ton of certifications who has no real value to give you? You can read books on your own. Train yourself. Most times what we’re looking for are people who understand. Who are doing the work. Who have gone through things similar to us and gotten through it. 

If you’re looking for someone who has all their shit together – let me know when you find them. I’d love to ask them a few questions. Until then, I’ll be sitting here in my human self. Making mistakes, learning from them and giving myself the grace to understand and then pivot. Pivot into a different way of reacting. Pivot into loving myself more.

I’m excited to see what the coming years bring. I will always evolve and so will the work I do. For others and for myself. Right now, I feel like a Phoenix rising from her ashes. I spent a lot of time over the past years healing and burning away some parts of me that weren’t on solid ground. It’s not that I didn’t like that person at her core. I still AM that person. I just healed certain parts that no longer serve me. I don’t need this shell to protect me anymore – I can protect myself just fine. Now I’m rising into this beautiful version of myself who is free from the matrix/society. Free from the shoulds, supposed tos and expectations.

2023, I RISE.

I wish you all a happy and healthy new year. I appreciate every single one of you for reading my words. I hope that when you read them, you leave feeling good about yourself and you see a peer among you who’s finding her way just like you.

There will always be a safe space here. Free of judgements, free of charge.

Always love,

T

I was sick last week. Like, in the hospital needed an IV for fluids type of sick. I’m feeling better now, but during that week I went through the craziest purge I’ve had in, well, maybe EVER. Anxiety is a bitch, man. It’s hard enough to get out of your own head as it is. Throwing in anxiety is like adding rocket fuel to an already out of control dumpster fire.

You might be asking, T, what does being sick have to do with anxiety? Well, when I get sick, I worry that something is wrong. It’s such an irrational fear, but it’s something I’ve carried with me for a long time. By the time I was 25 (and within a span of a few short years) I had lost my mother, her twin brother and grandmother – 3 very influential people in my life. My mom was everything I wanted to be; she loved people for exactly who they were and made them feel good for it. My grandmother built her career from the ground up and by the time she died, was one of the best in her business. And my uncle? He was a major rebel who did exactly what he wanted, when he wanted and he was cool while doing it. They were all young: my mother and uncle in their 40s; my grandmother in her early 60’s. All I could think was – why? Why are they gone already? At the time I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t want to try either. I also don’t know that I ever really grieved them. I avoided those emotions and threw myself into becoming a mom and having my own family instead. I buried the grief, fear, anxiety – all of those shadow emotions that come with death and did what I could to keep childhood traditions alive with my own kids. My fear & anxiety never went away though, it was just under lock and key. Anyone who suffers from anxiety knows how things can snowball, and fast. One fear becomes the next and before you know it, you’re talking yourself into walking off a ledge because you’re drowning in your shadow. For those of you who suffer daily: I see you.  Do not walk off that ledge! It took me being really sick to face my own shit. I’ve been sick before of course, but there was something about this last week were I really had to face myself and my anxiety and fear.

If you’re not into energy work, a quick lesson. Fear, anxiety & hopelessness all block your heart chakra located right in the middle of your chest. So to me, it makes sense that I ended up with a nasty respiratory virus. My fear and anxiety had built up so much over the years; from everything to dying young and leaving my babies behind like my mom, to not being enough for my family and friends, to fear of expressing who I really am and being seen… yikes. It’s been like a boulder sitting in my chest and I had no idea how big it had become. And even though I’ve been studying reiki for about a year now and I’ve been doing all of this self-healing, my fear still froze me right where I was and I had no idea how to get out of it.

You can literally make yourself sick by holding onto things, fam. A virus that normally wouldn’t last long took up residence in my body and told me it wasn’t going anywhere until I finally got this shit off my chest. I finally broke down and confided in my husband. Imagine being married for almost 15 years and he had no idea I’ve been so in my head about things for so long. After crying and talking for a while, I noticed my chest started to feel a little lighter. It was time. Time to purge that fear that I had been carrying for so long. I took some time and sat with my mom, uncle, and grandmother and grieved them properly for the first time in a long time. I carry them with me every day – in a lot of the things that I do. From mannerisms, music, style, you name it. I am not mother, but I sure am her daughter.

Do I think that I just magically got rid of these hard emotions I’ve been carrying for what seems like forever? No. I’m sure I’m going to have to deal with them again in another form. Such is the spiral of life. But I’m glad I got over the shame, embarrassment and self-loathing enough to finally get it out. To talk about it and add reason to it so it can’t run away with my brain anymore. That’s what’s going to help me the next time I face it.  

If you’re suffering from intrusive thoughts, anxiety and fear, I encourage you to talk to someone. It can be a friend, a family member, anyone you trust. Just get it out. Storing that shit inside is only going to make you sick – both physically and mentally. Then come up with a plan for how to deal once the thoughts start. It could be as simple as chanting “I am safe, I am healthy, I am loved” or throwing on your favorite song until you get your feet back on the ground. Know that it may take several attempts before something works – and that’s okay too. You’re doing the work by battling through it and it will get easier to fight with time. Just keep fighting.

I had a mantra for this year: 2022 is ending patterns that no longer serve me. Enter The Purge as I’m now calling it. 2023 is going to be a brand new year with new beginnings and I’m so excited for it. Fuck fear. We’re done with it.

Always love,

T

I have something I want to get off my chest: I am a recovering people pleaser.

I used to have to be the one to want to swoop in and fix the problem. Why? Because if I do that, then I am somehow worthy of praise and love and my existence matters. Ew, gross. But it used to be true.

Sigh.

My healing journey has taken me through a tour of why that version of me came into existence. I’ve spent many hours over the last few years dismantling false narratives in my brain.  Knowing what I do now, I can see one of the major core events that helped me create this avatar: At a young age I was betrayed by my first best friend. We’re talking like 10 years old, fam. We literally went from being inseparable to hating each other over the span of one night during summer vacation. Of course, there’s a story there. Can we all agree there are three sides to every story? There’s your version, their version, and then the actual story which is usually a mix of both. Well, in my version, I was blindsided by her. Her actions and the events that followed emotionally destroyed me. It created this untrue & unfair narrative that followed and alienated me for a long time. I had no idea how to cope with something of that magnitude at that age, so my trigger response was to build this impenetrable armor around my authentic self. Instead, I would project this pseudo-version of what I thought people would want to see so that I would never be hurt like that again. If people find me useful, they’ll like me and want to keep me. If they want to keep me, that means I’m worthy of their love.

Once this kicked off, I would spend the next 6-7 years trying to reinvent myself without letting anyone get too close. I would get brave and show bits and pieces of myself on the rare occasion, but those years are where I had begun to try on all these different masks. I would switch from one to another waiting to see which would be the right fit. Empathetic friend? Check. Party girl? Check. Understanding girlfriend? Check. Being a people pleaser as a teenager is a dangerous slope, right?  Especially when it comes to friendships, relationships and in my case, boys. Check off another unfair & untrue narrative that followed me for a long time too. Insert eyeroll. Looking back, my teenage years had all been a trial-and-error period. As time went on, I started to pay attention and learn which masks were needed and when. Enter the real mental fuckery. Now I’m in my early 20’s, playing house and pretending to be a grown up but I have no idea who the hell I really am or what I really want anymore. Throw in another series of major life events – My mother died when I was 21; my grandmother a handful of years later. Both women were major influences in my life and I had lost them both. From there, I lost myself in those I chose to be around focusing on their wants, worries, hopes and dreams instead of my own. Looking for family. Looking to belong somewhere. It’s wild when I think about it now. I gave so much of my power away at such a young age and then continued to do so throughout a good chunk of my life. All because I had placed my worth in the hands of someone else when I am what I needed all along. There’s no judgment here either. That version of me did exactly what she felt she needed to survive and feel loved.  She was misguided, traumatized, and wounded for a long time.

Wearing masks became exhausting though.  Jim Carrey said it best, Depression is your body saying, ‘I don’t want to be this character anymore. I don’t want to hold up this avatar that you’ve created in the world.’  Eventually, I got tired of my avatars too. I spent all this time investing in whether or not other people liked me, but did I like me? Was I living the life I wanted to live or was I living the life I thought I should be living? My spiritual awakening had me thinking for the first time about myself. The authentic me. What do I want? What are my passions? What am I so scared of? Why can’t I go get what I want? It’s been incredibly scary and empowering at the same time. I feel like these last few years have been shedding layers of avatars I built. I’ve even named some of them – My Ego, My Inner Child, My Corporate Side, The Perfectionist. There’s more, but you get the point. This spiritual journey has been therapeutic in helping me put them to the side. It’s felt like a beautiful free fall – FREEDOM!

If I could go back, I would give that little girl the love she needed. Encourage her to be herself and walk with her head high. I’d tell her not to dim her light just because a few people thought she shined too bright. But the past is gone, and the future isn’t here yet. All I have is this present moment. I tell myself those things now. I breathe those mantras into my daughter and son. And I’m telling you: BE YOURSELF. Just be you. You are beautiful just the way you are in my Christina Aguilera voice. The world needs your weird. It needs your voice, your light. It’s something so individual only YOU can give it. I invite you to lay your masks down and let it all hang out. After all, your tribe can’t find you if you hide, right?

Always love,

T

You know, just when I think I’ve learned something and I know how it works, I’m shown what an illusion that really is. I posted the other day on my IG account about how you need to experience both sides to a story before you can truly exit a cycle. Full transparency, that was one of those downloads where I got the message, thought I knew exactly how to relate it to my life and so I also shared it with the world. The universe then stepped in with a very blunt – You know nothing, Jon Snow. (Game of Thrones reference for my fellow nerds) and I got knocked firmly on my ass.

Ego.

You’re such a bitch sometimes.

The current part of my healing journey has me working on really hearing other people. Listening to understand and not to respond. Thought process being: how am I going to help the collective if I can’t really hear what’s going on? Nothing is ever as it seems. From a young age, we’re all taught to wear a variety of masks making it rare to meet a true authentic soul. Zero judgment here – I have many masks I’ve been working on taking off. Deeper still – I never felt understood myself. A social outcast from a young age, I went through a period where I had not one friend. I want to make sure I give back to our collective and hold the space needed for others to feel understood. Our community needs more of this space. So I’m working on my listening… I’m also working on my own healing… and exploring a whole new world with this blog… and starting my business… and every day that is my life. Whoa. Just typing that out, I’m realizing just how much that is. Things have started to mesh in certain places and separate in others and I’m so focused on myself and what I have going on that I’m not realizing how that’s affecting those around me. Now that I’m picking my head back up, I’ve got to reassess what’s really going on.

You ever hurt someone close to you without meaning to? To me, that’s a special kind of kick in the ass. You think you’re doing all the right things but find out you’ve been very wrong in other important areas. I know that once it was brought to my attention, I felt a whole array of emotions but the ones that stood out the most were embarrassment and shame. Here I am trying to create safe space for the collective and some of the people that I hold the nearest and dearest to me feel like I’ve become unreachable. Well, that blows. Way to go, T. Enter guilt… then some good old fashioned low self-esteem… I’m a horrible person for doing this to someone I love! and so continues a descension – a spiral down into the shadow and all things dark.

Here’s where you and I sigh loudly to get some of that dense energy out.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

So how do you respond? I could have argued and gotten into this toxic back and forth. You know what I’m talking about – you get embarrassed, so you want to put the spotlight anywhere but on you and make a million and one excuses for your behavior. I sat with that shadow for a minute. I let her try to come up with an excuse on how I could be so remiss. But how can I understand if I don’t really listen? I don’t know about you, but I hate being wrong or making mistakes. I battle my own insecurities that make my shadow want to stand even taller.  It triggers old trauma of “you don’t measure up and you’re a shitty friend and this is why no one ever really likes you”

That energy feels like shit though. And I aim to ascend, not descend.

It was time for me to step into the other character role here. I sat my shadow back in the corner and grown-up Taryn stepped in. This isn’t about how I feel right now. This is about how I’m making someone else feel.  

I’m proud of me. Of us. I sat with someone very important to me and had a real grown conversation. She held me accountable while also expressing some tough emotions and I was able to speak my side while also acknowledging where I’ve been blind. We both held space for each other and listened to understand. It was fucking beautiful.

That. That’s what I’m doing this for. These are the cycles I’m breaking. Most people refuse to acknowledge they are living in their shadow. That reptilian side of our brain has our ego focused on envy, comparison, jealousy, lack. We feel like we can’t compete because insert whatever your insecurity is here and so we project those emotions onto the people around us. Your shadow can have you locked in a never-ending karmic cycle if you have no self-accountability. Let’s continue to remove the armor that is self-judgment and be more vulnerable with our self-accountability. Healing is not linear. I don’t think that’s said enough. We screw up. We have setbacks.  We’re HUMAN. We are here to live the human experience and feel all of the feels. Think about plants – they need both sunshine AND rain to survive. We are much the same way. We can’t appreciate the beautiful without really seeing and experiencing the ugly.   Do you SEE, now? This is why we have to go through a cycle twice and through these different point of views to truly ascend it. You need to really SEE in order to release judgement & heal. And that, I discovered, is how you are truly able to let things go.

I invite you to SEE, soul family. Really look at your surroundings. Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you bored? Are you ascending? Descending? Stagnant? No judgment in this space – just acknowledgment of your present moment. Now deeper still, how does that make you feel?

As I leave you with that, I’m going to drop some unsolicited advice: When someone important to you pulls you aside to show you a blind spot, hug that person tightly. Don’t let your shadow have you running away. I promise, you won’t regret it.

I heard you, sis.

Always love, T

Who thinks healing is easy?

Right now, in a world where social media runs supreme, spirituality has become a fad. Look through IG, Facebook or TikTok and you see an array of aesthetics that probably make you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. Cheat code – None of us do. All the smoke and mirrors with the bullshit quotes & memes. Be love and light and all the things. I’ve scrolled myself to sleep like many reading this, so zero judgment here. My point with this is, most people focus on the light and not on the shadow. But how can you heal and be your brightest light if you’re not looking deep within yourself at your own traumas? Where is the self-accountability? Where’s the social media content on that? Now, I know there are social media accounts that DO point out the shadow. My opinion is they aren’t popular, and the algorithms prevent you from seeing anything that’s not society’s hot spot.

Can we talk about real healing? I’m talking about the snot inducing ugly cry you have when you just can’t take your shit anymore and you want to know: WHY? WHY DO I FEEL THIS WAY? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? WHY… fill in your why here. Where is the community gathering to talk about hard topics like losing someone close to you? Whether it be death, betrayal or outgrowing your current environment. Better yet – Does anyone have a definitive way on how to let go?

Let me introduce myself. I’m Taryn. I started on my spiritual awakening in earnest about 5 years ago. I think I started to wake up a year or two before that, but I was so afraid of what I was seeing, I kept my head down for a little bit longer. I’ll start by saying I am a neglected child, byproduct of having a mentally ill mother and a father with addictions. I have a younger sister and for a long time the trauma separated us instead of binding us together. I now have 2 children of my own: 14 year old girl and 12 year old boy. I’m raising these children while I’m healing the child in me. Isn’t that mind blowing? I’ve come to the point in my journey where I can say this and mean it – my parents did the best they could. They came from even worse settings. In my opinion, they triumphed because they gave my sister and I more than they ever had. But that doesn’t mean my childhood didn’t suck. That my inner child doesn’t have feelings about what she had to endure. I have unresolved traumas that I continue to work through. All of these cycles we’re being told to break – it can take generations. You can’t break everything by yourself. You’re not meant to. The last 5 years have been eye opening. Brutal at times. While the things that happened when I was younger were not within my control, I had to take responsibility for where I went with it all as an adult. The relationships I developed because of it; the codependency, insecurities, jealousy were hard pills to swallow. These were all direct mirrors of myself. All these nasty feelings no one ever admits to having. I had no one giving me a safe space for my feelings – we’re automatically taught to shame ourselves for feeling this way. That shame helped me develop some addictions of my own to escape the shitty reality I lived in and to determine talking about feelings was bad. I put up this massive shield to protect myself from the world of hurt I was living in. What I’ve learned on my healing journey is that shield is my shadow.

Welcome to my blog/forum (Deep Waters). My goal here is to create a safe space for those in the community who are ready to face their shadow, heal and love themselves. I’m honored to serve my community in this space and I’m looking forward to hearing your voice. When the download hits, I’ll be writing about a topic I’m dealing with myself. Let’s get into the hard feelings we need help processing through but feel like we can’t talk to anyone about because they’ll look at us different. Open throat chakra anyone? If we can bring this darkness out and give it the sacred space it needs and deserves, we can appreciate our light more and live in a balance of both. Imagine how much lighter that feels.

Have you sat with your shadow? Really looked at how they look and feel?  If not, are you ready to? Are you willing to acknowledge the dark parts of yourself so you can determine where they come from to heal and let go? That’s what healing REALLY IS. Integration. Pulling together all these pieces of yourself and loving every single part of you. The dark and the light. And that shit – that is NOT easy. Healing is NOT easy. Nor is it linear. There are days where we want to give up, days we want to fight instead of make peace and days we want to cry. This is a non-judgment, safe community space for you to talk about those days.

That shadow Taryn? She protected me when I was too weak to protect and speak up for myself. She’s a big part of why I’m sitting in this chair right now typing this. I love her so much and I’m grateful for her getting us so far. My goal is for you to feel the same about yours.

Always love, Taryn