Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Plant medicine cracked the door to authenticity open. Parts Work showed me the wounded voices whispering, “Don’t go.” Dance helped me to fully step through.
For years, I moved through life like a chameleon. Adjusting, blending in, becoming whatever I needed to be to maintain connection. It wasn’t conscious at first. It was a survival mechanism, a deeply ingrained response to a world that had taught me, early on, that love was conditional. That being too much, too messy, too me… could lead to rejection. And guess what – it did!
And so, I learned to read the room, to anticipate what people wanted from me. I molded myself into whatever shape would keep me safe, loved, and accepted.
But the problem with living like this is that over time, you start to disappear.
Somewhere along the way, I forgot what my voice sounded like. I forgot the rhythm of my body, the depth of my truth, the rawness of my longing. I became an expert at keeping the peace, at avoiding conflict, at making others comfortable. Even when it meant betraying myself.
And when relationships ended, when people left despite my best efforts to hold everything together, I was left with an unbearable question:
“If I gave everything I had, why wasn’t I enough?”
The truth is, whether someone stays or leaves is never a measure of our worth.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was asking the wrong question.
People who abandon us when things get hard are often running from their own wounds. They may lack the tools or the willingness to navigate relational challenges. They may be avoiding intimacy in favor of comfort, or mistaking avoidance for peace.
A healthy relationship isn’t about keeping things smooth at all costs. It’s about having the courage to face difficulties, to sit in discomfort, to work through misalignment. And when incompatibilities arise, it’s about transitioning the relationship into a form that allows for kindness and respect, rather than walking away without care.
But no one ever taught me that. And so, for the longest time, I took every loss personally. I internalized it. I made it proof that something was wrong with me.
Until I began to heal.
The journey back to myself was not a single moment of awakening, but a series of unravelings. It wasn’t a straight path but a spiral. One that brought me face to face with the parts of me I had long buried
In my training as a Parts Work practitioner, through Internal Family Systems (IFS), Voice Dialogue, and Inner Relationship Focusing, I began to understand what was really happening beneath the surface. These therapeutic modalities recognize that we are not just one singular self but a collection of different “parts,” each trying to protect us in its own way.
I wasn’t just “people-pleasing.” I had parts of me that believed my survival depended on it.
There was the Pleaser, who had learned that love had to be earned. The protector, who kept me small to avoid conflict. The Inner Critic, who punished me internally anytime I stepped out of line.
These modalities also introduced me to something deeper beneath all these layers. The concept of the Self & The Aware Ego. The essence of me that was never broken, never unworthy, never too much or too little. The essence of me that had been waiting all along for permission to lead. It knew I was more than just someone’s projection.
Healing wasn’t about forcing these parts to disappear. It was about listening to them. Understanding them. Letting them know they didn’t have to work so hard to keep me safe.
Slowly, I started unmasking myself. I started making space for my true voice, my true feelings, my true desires. And I started asking a different question:
“What if I didn’t have to earn my place in the world? What if just being me was enough?”
Understanding these patterns mentally was one thing. But healing them in my body was something else entirely.
All these approaches, combined with somatic attachment therapy helped me see that my fear of abandonment wasn’t just a thought, it was a deep, physical imprint. My nervous system had been wired for survival, constantly scanning for threats, bracing for rejection.
Every time I held back my truth, I felt it in my chest. Every time I ignored my needs, I felt it in my gut. My body had been carrying the weight of my unspoken fears for years. The way my breath would shallow when I sensed conflict, the instinct to freeze or fawn instead of speaking my truth. These weren’t just thoughts. They were physical imprints, patterns my body had learned as survival strategies.
Through somatic work, dance & breathwork I learned to regulate my nervous system, to breathe through discomfort, to feel emotions without suppressing them, to release tension instead of holding it in. I learned how to be with my emotions instead of suppressing them, how to trust that I could hold my own boundaries with the fear of losing love and doing it anyways, and how to exist fully in my body without needing to escape.
And then there was plant medicine…. a mirror so powerful that it has a way of stripping away the illusions we cling to. During my deepest journeys, I saw with painful clarity the ways I had abandoned myself in exchange for conditional love. I relived the moments when I learned to shrink, to suppress, to make myself more palatable to avoid rejection.
I also saw something else. Something more beautiful and terrifying.
I saw what was possible if I stopped running. If I stopped filtering myself, stopped shaping my existence around the comfort of others, stopped believing that I had to be anything other than what I truly was.
Plant medicine didn’t fix me. It showed me what had always been there, waiting. It reminded me that the love I was chasing externally was something I had the power to give myself. As well as find people that are genuinely interested in authentic connection!
And that was where the real work began.
I saw something I had never fully recognized before:
💡 I was never meant to be everything for everyone. I was only ever meant to be me.
That’s why I dance. Moving without masks
Ecstatic Dance, which is a conscious movement I’ve been privileged to host for hundreds of people since 2018. This is where I practice what healing feels like, not just in my mind, but in my body.
It is where I practice to move without apology, without performance, without fear. It is where I listen to my instincts, let go of control, and surrender to the rhythm of something greater than myself.
There is no choreography. No steps to memorize. No expectation of what movement should look like. There is just the music, the movement, and the raw truth of whatever is alive in the body.
I don’t have to be the version of me that is easy to love. I don’t have to suppress the wildness, the grief, the rage, the softness. I don’t have to be anything other than what I am in that moment.
I learned how to trust myself again. How to take up space. How to move freely without the fear of judgment. I realized that the body knows how to heal if we let it express itself. If we give it room to shake, to release, to remember what it feels like to be fully alive.
And somewhere between the beats, between the sweat and the breath and the unfiltered movement, I feel it.
The essence of me I had been searching for.
The part that never left.
The part that was always waiting for me to come home.
And in those moments, something shifts.
The chameleon fades away.
The weight of old fears lifts.
And I remember.
✨ I don’t have to be anything other than myself.
✨ I don’t have to shrink to keep love.
✨ I don’t have to fear being seen.
Because the right people, the right connections, the right love… will never ask me to be less of who I am.
Healing from the chameleon pattern isn’t about proving our worth to others. It’s about choosing ourselves and at the same time with discernment choosing others who are committed to mastering relationships. Again and again and again.
It’s about stepping back into our true rhythm. Whether through movement, through breath, through deep inner work.
It’s about knowing that our authenticity is not a liability. It’s our greatest strength.
So if you find yourself shapeshifting, performing, trying to hold things together at the cost of your own truth… pause. Breathe. Remember:
🔥 You were never meant to disappear.
🔥 You were always meant to be seen.
🔥 And you are already enough.
Just as you are.
Together, we return to the wholeness that was always there.
💫 Unmasked. Unchained. Unscripted. Unapologetically free. 💫
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
Joseph Campbell
Feel free to drop me a message with any insights if something in you resonates with my journey!
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March 2025
Blue Lotus, Medicine Songs & Soundbath ◬ Descending Into The Mud ◬ Rising Into The Sun
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A Good Day To Die – Skovsbo Oddyssey [FULL]
Ecstatic Dance, Soundbath & Cacao/Blue Lotus ◬ April 2025
June 2025
