My Story

A two-part short story of my undulating journey to coming back to self-love and finding meaning through the turbulence of trauma, despair, mental and physical dis-ease.

PART 1. Before My Journey Back To Self.

I was born on a chilly October night in 1996, in post-soviet Latvia. 12 days later, my father, who struggled with depression and possibly some other severe forms of mental health conditions, died from falling over the edge of a balcony after drinking too much. My mum, my 6 year old sister and a new-born me, with no financial security or support, move in with my grandma. My grandma isn’t happy about that - after being born in a concentration camp, growing up in poverty, escaping her own abusive marriage with an alcoholic and raising 2 children whilst working multiple jobs, she now had to raise her own grandchildren whilst my mum was earning us all a living. There was never a man in our family since - so as I grew up I observed women working themselves to the bone, deeply unhappy, angry, anxious and scared. Almost every single night of the first 15 years of my life (before I moved to England) I was hearing mum and gran fighting, and not a single day went by without me feeling like a burden to my whole family.

Between that and often feeling like a ghost or someone who doesn’t have a choice or say in anything, I soon “learned” that the only way to get “love and affection” was through being ill. And so my body was ill all the time. Soon, it became a source of frustration for everyone, “there is always something wrong with you”, “you are always moaning”... Slowly, their words turned into my beliefs of “I’m broken”, “I don’t deserve love”, “I am a nuisance if I ask for anything”, which then turned into my identity. My body kept the score. I started getting chronic pain, I stayed in hospitals, and at 13 I was finally diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Steroids, anti-inflammatories, immunosuppressants… My body was changing, my life changed, people’s behaviour around me changed. Doctor also prescribed a “stress-free life”, which allowed me to be home-educated for the next 6 months, so I didn’t have to go to the place that was, to more or less the same degree, as bad for me as home.

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At 15, my mum and I moved to the UK. I hated it at first, I missed my gran and sister, but as I managed to attain another identity of “being strong”, I started finding my friendships in school and I felt happy for a while. But many things happened between my mum and I in that time before I moved away, most of which did the opposite of bonding us.

At 16, I experienced my first heartbreak from a cheating boyfriend. At 18, I entered an abusive relationship. I lost friends, I lost the little fragile sense of self that I had, I lost my strength. At 19, I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety after my first episodes of self-harm and was put on meds. “Something is deeply wrong with me, my body and my brain”.

At 20, I went to university. Generally speaking, my life at uni seemed the best life I’ve ever had up to that point - I had friends, a decent relationship, I had money and my own space, I travelled around Europe often, I did lots of sports and I was rarely unwell - even my depression went away for the most part. Even though I now recognise that I simply managed to suppress a lot of my issues (and in hindsight developed new issues, like BPD and an eating disorder), I still remember thinking, “if my life was to end in 6 months, I wouldn’t change a single plan I have between now and then. My life is pretty perfect.” But then, it wasn’t.

Uni finished, and with that, again, my fragile sense of identity disappeared. My friends all moved apart, my purpose (education) was gone and I didn’t have a plan for a post-grad job, I no longer had the financial security of student loans and a part time job, I was very confused, I also ended my 3 year relationship that felt fragile and unstable too. My whole identity slipped right through my fingers.

PART 2. Where The Journey to Self Began

I believed that my life sucked, and there was some evidence to that on the outside - but mostly it was an internal state of being that drove this belief. Who the heck was I? What do I ACTUALLY want? Where am I going? What even is this life and why am I still bothering living it? At this point my first ever “spiritual mentor” came along. And this mentor was my bridge from the material, practical world around me where nothing made sense anymore, to the world of self-improvement, spirituality, meditation and mindset shifting. I started taking EVERYTHING in like a sponge - I felt so empty, I just wanted to be something. I did Ayahuasca (very traumatic) and a month later I did Vipassana (also traumatic), both about 4 months into the whole "journey". I was desperate for a change. I read dozens of books, watched hundreds of videos online, did courses and programmes over the next 4 years. I felt like I had to break myself in half and start anew, essentially creating a different person. Because Marija_01 was broken to the point of no return. Her lineage was damaged. Scarcity ran in her blood.

I either really hated myself, or I believed I was cursed. Probably both.

Autumn 2021. I live in Edinburgh, I love my life there, but I know it will soon end because the short-term security I had there was running out of time. Neurographica pops up on my Instagram feed. It says I can apparently rewrite my future with it. I’m intrigued, I take this teacher’s class. And another. And another. I love the process, I start seeing some changes in my life, but more importantly, I have a newly-found hope and a tool that I can use to help myself whenever I need help, and potentially be a real creator of my destiny.

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Autumn 2022. I am in another hole of depression, working in a soul-destroying, back breaking job. I live in a place I can’t stand. My relationship (another) is not satisfying me and I feel lonely. I decided that I can’t live like this anymore, and I need to DO something. I need to create consistency, stability, and security for myself. I was so tired of not having that, and knowing that no woman in my family ever had that. So I quit my job with an aim to go self-employed, creating a form of online income. There is some relief, but then depression hits even harder. I am frozen by it, and all I can do is sit on my sofa and watch the days go by. It didn’t help living on what was essentially a renovation site - everything around me was a mess, and my head was also a mess. I sit and sit and wish for the next morning to come before I even get through this one. So I think to myself, as I’m sitting here and not doing anything, maybe I can at least start watching this programme I bought some time ago now - something about somatic therapy…

Ah, the divine timing. It all made so much sense. My nervous system… The freeze state I am in… My family… My past… My body… I FINALLY had answers for what was REALLY going on in my whole existence. I was so unbelievably grateful for being put in the right place at the right time to find this programme. I started receiving sessions from practitioners. One session at a time, it felt like I was trudging through a deep swamp and beginning to feel okay to be in that swamp. Soon the swamp started to clear - I was standing in water, and that water was holding me. For the first time in my life, I felt something much more profound than hope - I felt LOVE. For myself. For all those parts of my fragmented self that I hated, repressed, pushed away and shamed all my life. I understood what it means to be with all of myself, at last. And I understood why Neurographica and other powerful modalities that I’ve used before weren’t sticking. Because I was rejecting EVERYTHING in my life. I couldn’t take anything new in. Rejection and pushing away was my default, because nothing felt safe, including being in my body.

Experiencing this most profound healing of my entire life, I started to gain myself back, and I found new meaning and purpose - to bring hope and love to people like my old self, who believe they are unable to find lasting healing because there is something inherently wrong and broken about them.

I certified as an Embodied Processing somatic practitioner, I certified as a Neurographica specialist, and with these two of the most powerful tools that I have gained in the soon to be 5 long years of deep work that I’ve done on myself, I had the keys to live a life of true and profound physical and spiritual self-love and acceptance. To not only be able to enjoy what this absolutely gorgeous and full life has to offer, but to create a healthier legacy for my future children and children yet to come in my lineage to this life on Earth.

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