Rachel Rae Halder - Erotic Earth Embodiment

Someone just wrote on one of my Facebook posts, “All your posts sound like you really need someone to talk to. Facebook isn’t real you know. Go find real people.” 🙄

It’s interesting how a person’s perception, which comes from their personal location, can be so out of touch what is actually going on. Apparently my posts made him uncomfortable, so he projected an idea that they were a cry for help. When in actuality, just this past month I feel like I’ve found a comfort in my voice again after years of feeling like I lost it and longing for it to return.

I used to share vulnerably and openly online. It was my platform where I advertised my work, but I also had no holds on what I offered to the world. Ever since 2012 when I began a blog about s*xualized abuse in the Mennonite church, I was one who spoke about controversial things online, as well as my own healing process.

But then through both recognizing how much my worth was tied up in my different work and “public persona,” and through landing myself in multiple abusive relationships with mentors or partners where those I looked up to used shame tactics to silence me (which in a round about way led me to deep diving into my worth issues, so thank you 🙃), I stopped writing online.

Not only did I stop, but I became scared to use my voice. I would have panic attacks after posting things. I would question and worry. My stomach would feel like it was scrambled. I’d have to call friends to tell me I wasn’t insane or wrong and bad for something I said. And half the time I’d delete whatever it was that I posted in the first place. Fear, anxiety and worry became my regular companions on my journey.

But I also remembered the version of me who had no fear. Who said whatever she said, whenever she wanted to say it. And I missed her! I longed for her! I grieved her!

Even though a part of her was exchanging her worth for her words, she was also brave, courageous and empowered in her voice - qualities I no longer felt like I had. She felt comfortable sharing her healing process. She felt okay with being seen. She felt like her words were important, and helpful to those who needed and resonated with them.

For three years I’ve been praying for healing around utilizing my voice. I’ve been patiently working with my nervous system, expanding my capacity to speak again about things that are important to me. I’ve been asking what right relationship is, for me, with online spaces. I’ve been questioning what the balance is for my work of offering somatic trauma resolution skills to others + sharing my own personal healing journey.

What I do know is that the leaders and practitioners I respect are the leaders who stand both in their vulnerability and authenticity, AND in their skill. I do not have any interest in learning or studying with someone who claims to have it all “figured out.” Who’s teaching from a pedestal.

That doesn’t mean they have to be sharing every aspect of their personal life on the internet. But I do need to know that they still see themselves as a student as well as a teacher or leader.

And that’s the kind of teacher I am. I do not lead a space from a position of, “I’ve got it all figured out, see, let me teach you.” No, I lead from a place of, “Here is what I’ve found that works for me, and look, I’m still a work in progress.”

In my last round of Slow Burn, this was the number one thing that the participants praised me for in the evaluations at the end. How I had an amazing balance of vulnerability and honesty about my experience, without it detracting from my expertise or teaching. Rather, it enhanced it, and offered safety and permission and understanding to all those sitting in the room.

It’s funny, because back in the day when I was sharing way more openly than I do these days, comments like that one would have taken me OUT. I would have agonized about it for hours.

Today, when I saw it I deleted it, blocked the dude, and then wrote this post… not because I was upset or triggered by it, but because I honestly found it interesting how…

1) it had very little impact on me, and

2) how it came at me at a time when my voice is finally feeling safer to come online, and I’ve been posting things with far less thought or fear around them in the last month than I have over the past 3 years.

I could have allowed that comment to make me small and to shrink again. But instead I’m using it as proof that I am healing and really coming back into my voice.

Those who don’t like my voice can continue on their way. Those who get it will stay.

And if you want to learn about seggsual healing from someone who has done 10 years of study + 15 years of personal work on the topic + is still in her own process around intimacy, I welcome you to join Slow Burn. It’s a space that welcomes you exactly where you are, and helps establish safety and self-trust from that location, as opposed to expecting yourself to be somewhere on the journey that you are not. We start October 25.