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Transforming Self-Harm: My Journey of Healing and Growth

Writer's picture: Danielle BakerDanielle Baker

Updated: Apr 21, 2023

It's time for me to get vulnerable. I'm going to share a little about my own self-harm journey, and it may not look how you expected.


When I was in my early teens, I started to self-harm through cutting my skin. It was a short relief for the pain I was feeling inside. I didn't fully understand my reasons, but I looked forward to the peace it brought me. This was coupled with bulimia, which I didn't fully admit to myself until my mid-20s.


A few other tricks I didn't recognize until later down the line were binge drinking, unsafe sex, over spending and excessive physical training, which were accepted and even encouraged in the army. But all of these actions harmed me and distracted me from my mind and the suffering within.


One day, I woke up and started going to meditation / yoga classes and listening to spiritual speakers, but I was stuck with guilt and shame, and no one was talking about this.


I craved my old coping mechanisms and I came off the wagon a number of times, but I was determined. I knew there was now another way, and I just needed to find an anchor that was no longer harmful.


My new practices helped me so much, but the true work was integrating them into my whole being and finding my community. To my surprise my self-harming mechanism changed as I evolved, and they were sneaky. I would work myself to exhaustion, spending every minute volunteering or fundraising or doing ultra-endurance events. I left no time to feel everything that was within, no time to rest.


In 2019, I stepped up my practices and my boundaries with my environment and thoughts that would entice me back into old patterns. My new habits were healthier, and I felt myself transform. I was working in the dream world, witnessing my thoughts and questioning my intentions. It was tiring at times, but I knew this was the way.


This took me down a path of deep inward reflection, and I saw things that I couldn't unsee. I saw the world (the man-made construct) in a way I had never witnessed it before. The myths, the manipulation, all of which had seeped into every layer of my being. It was hard, and is hard to unpack the threads made by society, but I keep going because truth guides me, and now I can see the earth in color.


I am alive, I am here, ready to feel it all. And I would not change anything. It is me.




I'd love to sit with you to hear about your story, use the code: womb to get 25% discount on the membership.


Blessings,


Danielle




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