When we have a disorganized attachment style, we can find ourselves quickly ping-ponging between desperately seeking connection and avoiding it at all costs. This can be frustrating, and it is also telling.
Opening up to someone and sharing vulnerable parts of ourselves, including times of insecurity and having a desire for reassurance, can be terrifying to the point of falling into a freeze and or avoidant response. The more we are able to slow ourselves down and share small bits of our experience with another, the more natural this type of intimacy begins to feel.
Psychedelics enhance our sense of connection with our environment and other living beings (human and otherwise). However, there has to be a connection to begin with , the psychedelics (not so) simply open up pathways for us to see and feel those already existing connections in ways that open us up instead of shutting us down.
It’s so funny to me how I always know. I have been learning how to trust it more and more and putting my energy where it needs to be. This has not been easy, but it is so freeing.
Trust is something that is both earned and freely given. However once lost it is extremely challenging to regain.
Having a connection/relationship that isn’t wrought with anxiety can feel de-stabilizing in its own way.
As the genocides across the globe rage on, you may want to ask yourself what are you doing to create change within your own microcosm? How are you growing your own networks of mutual aid? How are you creating refuge within yourself and your home/environment for yourself and others (human and non-human alike)?
Live music gives us so much life. After every show I go to I feel so alive and energized. Support your local and “smaller following” musicians and artists, we need each other to survive.
Writing time has been limited. Meaning both literal time, but and also motivation/inspiration. Hopefully I will find more space soon. This is the ebb and flow of creative life - it can’t be forced, ever; it has its own time and timing.
I’ve been attempting to shrink my online footprint. The other day I went to my YouTube (which I haven’t posted to in six years) and started deleting old content. There is still a bunch up there for me to go through. Also it is somewhat painful to watch some of those videos, knowing what was going in behind the scenes in my actual life.
Taking accountability for our lives, and utilizing our accountability and agency, instead of blaming others for our own poor choices and actions is an important part of finding our own peace and cultivating deeply enriching and nourishing relationships.
The more I study and understamd the intricacies and nuances of astrology, the more I find a calm within my storms. For example the other day I was in an absolute snit, I was pissed off and my anxiety was through the roof. I looked to see what was happening up in the sky and what aspects it was having to my own natal placements and I was able to breathe a bit easier, slow down, and look further at the root of my pain and reaction, instead of staying focused on what was happening at the surface.
Following and studying astrology is not to say that we then sit on the sidelines and or “blame” the stars for what is happening in our life. It does mean we can see the influences and interconnections as well as the opportunities for our own growth and healing, and utilize our own autonomy and agency to move in the direction(s) we want and need.
Shifting into more relationships that provide steady sources of serotonin and moving away from relationships that only provide massive dopamine spikes (and then lows) is a practice, and also not as challenging as one may think.
Being able to see people clearly, to actually see who they ARE, not who they could or who we want them to be, gives us opportunities for intimacy beyond our comprehension. It can also be terrifying for others to be seen so clearly and they may shy away from this depth of intimacy; those people are not projects for us, and likely aren’t “our people”.
The Venus cazimi that happened on last week was directly conjunct my Venus Star Point, which is in my 7th house of Relationships. I’m seeing this as a new beginning/cycle that was initiated by the Mars-Venus conjunction earlier this year. Relationships are an integral part of my work in this world, both professionally and personally, and being in the flow of evolution, expansions, and contractions, both philosophically and in “physical form” is a practice that has served me well in life.
Stressing about our survival (which includes our ability to pay rent, buy food, pay bills, etc) is a reality under the trifecta of capitalism-white supremacy-patriarchy and is meant to keep us complicit and compliant to these systems of harm, abuse, and trauma. Finding our ways towards each other in collaboration and sharing of resources is the way to help alleviate this stress (and to chip away at the oppressive systems), not further isolating, competing, and hoarding.
As the genocides across the globe continue (including the one here in North America on Indigenous peoples) I invite us all to consider the ways we can divest from our complicity and compliance to these atrocities locally in our own homes and communities, which requires a great amount of deep inner work as well as actual work out in the world. (If you want some simple, practical ideas for this, stay tuned for a new piece coming out in the next few weeks).
When our non/pre-verbal parts are activated, we can feel frustrated because we can’t “make sense” of what is going on. Learning to trust our body, its knowing, and the process of unearthing and processing older wounds is a practice and the more we are able to practice, the more ease we find to settle into what is trying to be expressed and allowing it to flow.
Embodiment/somatic work is not meant to be individual work. We are in constant co-regulation with every thing around us. Practicing grounding, soothing, care-giving in relationship is where we find the healing and growth. These relationships are not limited to human-human relationships, but includes human-plant, human-air, human-non-human animal, and so much more.
This is the first and only publication of this RLoT in its entirety.
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Ways for us to connect
Embodied Relating/Trauma Informed Embodiment on Insta*
Gwynn Raimondi Writes on Insta*
Soothe Your Nervous System Card Deck
Individual Sessions (I currently have three bi-weekly and one weekly spots available. If you are interested in working with me, please click the link and use the email shown to request a free 30-minute consultation to see if we are a good fit.)
Tarot Readings Every month I offer four readings and they are given on a first come, first served basis.
Ancestral Healing & Journeying Work - (Re)Connecting to who we were before whiteness. Individual sessions to find reconnection with your ancesters, healing ancestral curses/processing ancestral trauma, and nourishing our ancestral strength and wisdom.
*Please note I am slowly moving away from social media. The best way to connect with me and my work is right here.
Recent essays on Embodied Relating:
Ebb, flow, beginnings, endings : An essay written in 2020, edited and revised for today
EWP 08 : This discomfort of nakedness - Embodied Writing Pleasure series
What is time, what is life anyways? : A random list o tings
More memes, images, poems, quotes