Sunday, September 7, 2008

Claiming Your Crown

I just went through the excruciating and exhilarating experience of becoming a Queen. For those who have followed my journey of recovery and healing, you have seen and heard me about the process of moving from self-hatred to self-love. I talk about the healing process at length in Finding Angela Shelton (that is required reading in more schools now!). But much like the peeling of an onion, there are always layers to move through when you continue to get better, stronger, and more resilient. I have been entrenched in the trauma world for over 7 years now and have heard thousands of stories of abuse and violence and watched many transformations from victim to warrior occur. By warrior I do not mean fighting for vengeance but rather being the whole human who stands for love, courage, and strength. I now know many warriors and am blessed to see more people shifting their lives into wholeness instead of falling back into victim-hood with repeated patterns.

I just went through another birthing process myself where I coveted and claimed my crown as Queen! Coming from someone who was a self-hater, that is one amazing transition! I have talked a lot about the process of changing the pathways in your brain from the negative thoughts to positive thoughts like replacing "I am worthless and stupid" with "I am a Goddess Warrior." It may sound far too simple and childish to simply catch and switch your thoughts but it works. I went from a self-mutilator to a Goddess and it was all due to changing my thought patterns.

IMG_0073.JPGAt one of my springtime speaking engagements a woman told me that she thought that I was Queen and not just a Goddess. On stage I am always encouraging audiences to find new and powerful words to use to replace negative thought patterns. I had not thought about the term Queen for myself before though. So over the summer I processed that word and began to use it and guess what - I am a Queen. I claimed my crown. I moved past my fear of moving to new levels of courage and strength and I biked for 25 miles a day, learned to spin fire, became a climber, took up guitar, and produced an online cooking show to boot! At 35 years old I am in better shape than I have ever been in my life, I look and feel great, and those old negative self-hatred thoughts are so far away that they do not fit anywhere in my life now. The negative thoughts are unrecognizable just like the positive ones used to be when I was stuck in the old patterns.

JoeFor those of you who still have the bits of self-hatred lingering, I promise you that when you work on your thought patterns that it really does change your life. I never thought I would transform into the person I am today when I began this journey of Searching for and Finding Angela Shelton - but I am a living example that it works.

This fall I will be going into much more detail about Removing the Sword of Trauma and using it with Love. I'm excited to see many of you again and to watch more Kings and Queens emerge like Joe in the picture!


Contact events@angelashelton.com to book me in your area.

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