He was just like my mom...

He was just like my mom… 

In my early twenties I had a dumpster fire of a relationship filled with chaos and codependency. 

I was the savior and the good girl who was going to rescue my addict boyfriend and make him unbroken.

Have you ever been there?

Turns out it was me that was sick and twisted up from a childhood of abuse and stranger-than-fiction family dysfunction. 

My mother - the paranoid schizophrenic, violent, manic depressive tyrant. And my father, ever loyal to my mother and unable to get himself or me out of the situation.

When I was spat out into the world, I was driven, ambitious, high-performing and talented. I was also extremely unaware of just how much my childhood had marked me. 

I didn’t know I had brain damage from growing up in abuse and neglect. 

I didn’t know I was in the chronic freeze and had been my entire life.
I was a MESS - but I had no sweet clue about that. 

In reality, my relationship with my very own Jack from A Star is Born - the talented addicted, tortured artist was not about me saving him. 

It was about me losing myself in the toxic dance I knew oh-so-well and had danced with mommy and daddy so many times before. 

And now I was dancing it again with bells on. All the while thinking I knew what he needed - the broken boyfriend. After all - he needed me most of all! How flattering!!!

Until my moment of clarity - it was my firm belief that I Was going to save and change my boyfriend and we would live happily ever after because him and his addiction was OBVIOUSLY the problem.

One year, on my birthday, I paid for his train ticket to see me and he didn’t even have as much as a card for me. But he did tell me he loved me so much in the car… so there’s that.

My mom uttered under her breath “he treats you like I do.”

A rare insight and a true one that only hit me years later on a therapist’s couch. 

I was delusional, in denial and completely enraptured in the unhealthy soup. Oblivious to the fact that It was my saviour behaviour that fueled the fires of chaos in that dance we did.

I might as well have been saying “I will save you mommy, I will make you stop abusing me with my love and make you all better and we’ll be a happy family”
 
I danced and danced and danced…

Until I ran into Melody Beattie’s book codependent no more. It was perfect timing. Right after I realized on a late night drive that he was LYING (again for the millionth time) and that yes - of course he had been using drugs again! 

And that, in fact, I was completely tuned out and in denial in a fairy tale world (taking a page out of daddy’s book there). This was going to be my life if I didn’t do somethin! 

Melody Beattie served me a cold hard dose of reality. I listened to her sweet voice read her audio book on the disgusting carpet floor of my apartment and cried like a baby.

And then? 

And then I got it.

I got up. And I called my boyfriend.

I put a sweet tone on and invited him to come and meet me for dinner. 

And when he got there, we had dinner and then in the car I gave him an ultimatum.

I said - you stop using drugs or I am leaving you.

Except this time: I actually meant it.

He was mad. He felt tricked.

Too bad - the game was up. I wanted out of the dance. And he could feel it.

I learned how to be codependent from the masterclass my father gave me in absolutely never ever ever standing his ground up to my mother no matter what she did. I learned it well. 

But that moment in the car - I was unlearning it.

And it felt SO SO Good.

The relationship ended soon after.

And I was on my way to a completely different life. 

That moment was a catalyst that I remember often. 

I was learning how to value myself.
I was learning that if dysfunction was a part of my life - I was playing a big role in it and I had way more control over that than I even realized. 

I learned that boundaries are first felt in the body. They are a primal energetic thing (nervous system thing) more than anything else.

And I was clearing out the toxic sludge of my childhood moment by moment, hour by hour, year by year.

I still had a long way to go. But I was well on my way. 

I look back on that moment over a decade ago and marvel at the girl I was - she was becoming a woman and just learning how to navigate the world.

And then she went on to build a brand new nervous system. Overcome the generational legacy of paranoid schizophrenia that plagued her family. 

Hea the brain and nerve damage that caused involuntary leg movements, severe ADHD symptoms and reactive attachment disorder. 

Leave her mother behind. 

Form a boundaried relationship with her dad and even lead an intervention for him.

I can honestly say - I love that girl - that girl laying on the gross apartment carpet.

She’s the reason I am who I am today.

Much Love, 

Shyla


PS…

What I bring to my work is not just head-knowledge or a little 2 month somatic course. 

I bring the intensity of spiritual transformation, formal training, scientific study, and EMBODIMENT. 

The work I do saved my life. But I didn’t stop at my personal experience and make a little program. 

I learned about how trauma impacts EVERY human system, and what to do about it at every level from spirit to cells to nervous system to brain to emotions. 

I received formal training and studied under some of the heavy hitters of this field of trauma resolution.

And what I’m offering inside Jumpstart is a chance to distill and accelerate your personal healing journey to the MAX. 

This is about going right to the source of it all - your body’s mainframe so you can explode with intuition, creativity, LIFE FORCE energy, personal power and ABSOLUTE regeneration. 

I’ve done the 14 years worth of work for you and simplified it so you can get all the benefits of this and run with it for the rest of your life. 

Book your jumpstart call here: https://calendly.com/growhealchange1/8weekjumpstart