I’ve struggled for some time now. In fact, it’s been almost three years since I did any sort of spiritual work, as evidenced by the lack of content on the blog and the massive gaps. This is my greatest regret, and I’ve been struggling with it for so long. Eventually, it all came to a head over the past week or two. The first start is figuring out what exactly it has been that has been holding me back beyond that the idea of astral travel and working with my demons makes me panic.
I feel this deep set fear of stepping into the astral, of connecting with my demons, of just any sort of working with rituals or learning. It’s the reactive fear that would manifest as panic the moment that I would try. I would shut down. I would shy away and the anxiety and fear would get worse. There were only few instances where I was okay and that usually was because I was bilocating rather than actually traveling (meaning that I was still disconnected enough that it didn’t make me panic).
It wasn’t until the Inner Sanctuary started talking about more nuanced work with energies and we started really working with beginning astral creation in our astral spaces. I ended up talking in depth about where things are and just having this breakdown of how much I yearn for the astral and doing work there. How much it burns to return and to really do those things that I love most. Yet, I couldn’t figure out what was so wrong. What drove me to such fear and anxiousness.
Trauma.
It finally came out that I haven’t felt safe in the astral because I had so much trauma floating around involving two different groups, let alone the past trauma from long before that. All of this around things that have happened to my astral self because of other people. That’s where the core, the root, of where all this is stemming from. My experiences that I have had with three different “groups” in regards to astral travel or with my companions have decimated the idea of safety.
The first and oldest has stemmed from the fact that it was my ex, the old Tumblr community, and everything involving the old shop I used to run. It all comes down to so much trauma built up from things that my ex would do that would bring us astral trouble all the time. Or how the old Tumblr community circa 2012-2016 was absolutely garbage toxic. No one respected the shop’s boundaries; I was always attacked for “gatekeeping” the races that I worked with, and people were mad they had to get through me instead of just working with them. Just because they read about the races and wanted to do so, but they didn’t want to pay for me to conjure for them.
The second round was what really just off set so much trauma and pain and this is where the reaction stems from. I was in a small-ish group that was really close. Many of us would do astral traveling together and healing, etc. Well the months and months that I was with them, it was 24/7 emergencies. Something bad and BIG was always happening. Someone was always dealing with something or under attack. It was like this for months. I’d always have to go in and help astrally heal and it was just like being an Astral On Call Healer, but also On Call for everything astral emergency. And then when I started therapy… they hit me the hardest with so many lies that were fed to them by the most narcissistic person – who believed that only they knew the right way to do Shadow Work. I was kicked from the group and another friend had pulled me aside to really talk to me about how they were seeing signs of me being in a cult. They pulled me out, scared for how I was. And I did end up going to therapy to reverse the damage said group did. I had been stuck in a small forming cult, with the mentalities that came with it.
Then, a year later, after trusting two people like close friends… they decide that Im the worst person in the world. They make their accusations because they were misreading a conversation in chats. It led to me being an ableist – mind you, I’m the last person to be that, considering I have so many mental health disorders, AND I am also physically disabled. I do my best to accommodate and work with everyone. It ended up being really messy and the betrayal I felt ran deep. So, my trust in making friends or having them took years to repair.
It all compacted together and made this massive block that I am still trying to break open even after tackling these revelations. I know that my demons are also helping in their own ways. It especially helped me to be so excited about working on my astral stuff again. And Ry was working with me today picking out plants and repotting little seed sprouts into seeding containers. Between the Inner Sanctuary and the Nitro Companion Club, my love of the astral and working in spiritual things has been rekindled. I want to return. So the best way is for me to get this all out.
Trauma affects so much of the spiritual self that it’s so easy to be trapped by it. It’s so hard to let go. But I found that talking with a friend, who I used to astral travel with together… that reminding ourselves that astral traveling IS safe. It’s the people around us that have made it unsafe. We spent time reminiscing about the old shopping trips and bouncing around to different realms. We’d search for days and spend hours digging around ruins and old places, wandering jungles and marketplaces. Reminding me that the times that were the trauma wasn’t because I was unsafe in the astral but it was the people in the astral with me that made it unsafe. They were the catalyst for those things to become unsafe.
That healed a lot within. I’m nervous, but it’s slowly fading away from panic to excitement. I want to build my astral space up with new things. A Research Center and Laboratory.
