Gratitude through trauma, with Melissa Binkley

Gratitude through trauma, with Melissa Binkley

Create a masterpiece from the mess of your life

After trauma, do you sink into the darkness of shame, self-hate, and self-destruction? Or do you reclaim your gifts, start a movement, and become a channel for healing and empowerment? Melissa has traveled both paths. May her story of transformation empower  your journey.

 

Breakdown before the breakthrough

How did your journey begin?

In 2009 everything started to fall apart.

The big breakdown before the breakthrough.

I lost my home, my partner, and my job.

All within a six month time period.

I ended up homeless.

I would live in my car or stay at people’s places and not really explain what was going on.  

I was melting on the inside.

Things were falling apart.

I was dealing with former eating disorders and drug issues.

My body was in this place of complete and utter shutdown.

My health was going. I didn’t have a place to live. I didn’t have a job.

I dropped to my knees and I was like, “What’s the answer here? What am I missing?”

Everybody talks about that moment, that quietness, that peace that happens to them. That happened to me in 2009.

I had a friend who came and picked me up from a night of excessive drinking and took me to her house.

I woke up the next morning and I had this level peace.

I went from being distraught and mind blown and crying.

To two days of absolute nothingness.

At the time I asked her “What the hell did you do to me?”

She was like, “I just did some work on you to take you out of that space.”

She was my first spiritual guide.

 

Pulling down the veil of the mirror to stand tall

I started in on this journey of healing and transforming my life and working on loving my body.

I first went to heal my body physically.

But as I started getting healthy in my body I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror.

I had spent years being really thin.

I had been judging myself so much on my outer appearance and found out it was really connected to my inner soul.

There has been such a war on the female body. We were sanctioned from showing skin and wearing certain kinds of clothes. Can you talk a little more of how you transformed your relationship with your body? What was your journey of becoming friends and lovers with your body, as opposed to being at war with yourself?

I was raped in 1994.

I believe that we are allowed to show our skin but it is not giving us any more freedom than the women who are completely covered, at all.

That was a piece of my reclamation and being asked, “What were you wearing?”

It was a brutal rape.

I was locked in a garage.  

And had to fight for my right to say: “I was doing nothing wrong."

I was wearing a basketball jersey and jeans.

I had to reclaim it for myself and say “my body, my vagina, everything is okay with me."

I have a right to be empowered with that.

I love to be naked but it was for a long time that I just wanted to cover up.

I literally had to pull down the veil of the mirror.

I had to look at myself in the mirror everyday and say, “I love you."

And touch my body and caress it.

Even the pieces of me that weren’t ‘beautiful’ as what I thought society thought was ‘beautiful’, saying “I love that piece of you."

The stretch marks from having my baby.

I used to hide in the corner. I didn’t want to be seen. I wanted to be small.

To learning to take that power pose, and throwing my shoulders back and being proud of the height that I was.

It started with self-love.

It started with looking myself in the mirror and saying “I love you."

And then it started working on the soul piece, that I am just not my body.

My body is a tool that I am using in this lifetime to learn things, but it is not who I am.

I was a dissociator. I would literally escape my body to get out of situations. If I thought I was going to get hurt or emotions started to come up I would checkout.

I had to learn to ground into it and take care of it on a health level that honors it.

 

Rebelling as a means to heal

How did you go from slouching and wanting to disappear to showing up and standing tall?

For me it started out as a rebellion.

I was like, “You told me I have to be this way, you told me that this is the way it is going to be, and I refuse to accept this anymore."

And that’s where the tattoos came from, and the piercings, and the hair.

It was me stepping out and rebelling against society, saying “I am tired of being told I have to do things your way… I’m not afraid to use my voice and if you don’t like me I don’t care, I have enough friends anyway… I don’t need you to like me, for me to stand true to who I am.”

I used that hard exterior as a way to work on healing the inside.

 

Brain bliss

Would you talk about your process and how this healing comes through you?

Some of the things that you really want to be focused on when you’re working on healing yourself is what my client has termed “Brain Bliss."

Meditation. Three minutes of peace.

Understanding the duality, the disconnect from where we at right now.

Not just about silencing the brain but connecting to a higher source and something deeper.

The only way to do that is to work on deepening our connection to spirit.

One of the processes that I use with my clients when it comes to healing is if you have somebody in your life that you have not forgiven writing a letter to that person.

Then you take it and burn it, or you rip it up.

And you keep doing that day in and day out.

I’ve seen it can take at the most 12 days to really transform the way that you experience that person and everything that is connected to them.

It works in such a powerful way.

 

The journey to gratitude

You would not be who you are today had you not experienced what you experienced and had you not done the healing that you have done.

It was definitely a journey.

I call it Gratitude Through Trauma.

In March of last year I went back to my hometown for the first time in 13 years.

Thirteen years prior to that I drove into my hometown and I drove past the place where I had been raped. I was a drug dealer at the time, I was unhealthy, I was in a really bad mindset. I drove past the place and I was like “F*** this."

Fast forward thirteen years later, my daughter is running track at my old high school.

I drive to this town. I drive past the exact same spot again. I stopped the car in the middle of the road and I turned off the engine. I literally got tears in my eyes and I said “Thank you."

I would not be where I am today if that had not happened to me.

It changed everything for me.

My basketball coach back in the day, who was the only person that stood for me, now 20 years later he’s at this meet.

I walk up and give him a hug and I get the opportunity to tell him how much I love him.

Gratitude I had for him. Gratitude for that situation. Gratitude for all of it.

You may not find the gratitude right now, but when you get to that point, you know that you have transformed your life.

 

The blessings in disguise of the synchronicities of the universe

When you start paying attention, all the things you think are coincidences are the divine order of blessings stepping in, so you can find your path, so you can step into your truth.

The past summer I went to Europe with my daughter.

The day we got to this spiritual Eco society, my credit card was stolen.

I was only supposed to stay at this spiritual Eco society for five days.

It forced me to stay at this society.

In that, a book fell off the shelf that ended up changing my life.

I got readings and healings that completely transformed everything.

That is synchronicity and the way the universe works.

When you think something is a failure or something is bad, it is really not.

Look for the blessing and the bigger picture story of what is really happening in your life.

 

Using wisdom and intuition to heal

You took my quiz, Your True Selfie. [www.yourtrueselfie.com] I am dying to know what your result is and if it fits into your story of your life.   

Wisdom. [www.yourtrueselfie.com]

What I have been told by my guides and what I am here to do, I am supposed to be a teacher.

They call me the “Great awakener."

I am here to shake things up and snap people out of their shit.

Wisdom for me is connecting and bringing in the wisdom from other dimensions and bringing it into this lifetime.

I am here to bridge the gap. Be the bridge to people who are on the other side. Bring in signs of spirituality and show that it is all connected.

 

Links and Resources:

**Mention that you heard her interview on Valerie’s podcast to receive a complimentary session from Melissa** (limited availability)

Visit her website: www.melissabinkley.com for a complimentary session, and to find out about the Intuitive Intelligence Academy or to schedule into virtual latte with Melissa

 

Follow her on Facebook and Instagram (@melissabinkley)

 

Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.

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Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:

www.yourtrueselfie.com

www.inchargequiz.com

In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.

I look forward to connecting with you soon!

Until then,

Stay in your heart.

xx

Valerie

 

In this episode, we talk about: trauma, sexual, assault, rape, transformation, healing, drug, addiction, self-love, self-acceptance, body image, healthy, gratitude, confidence, business, success, empowerment, women

 

Quotes

“The big breakdown before the breakthrough.”

“I had been judging myself so much on my outer appearance and found out it was really connected to my inner soul.”

“I literally had to pull down the veil of the mirror. I had to look at myself in the mirror everyday and say I love you’.”

“My body is a tool that I am using in this lifetime to learn things, but it is not who I am.”

“I don’t need you to like me for me to stand true to who I am.”

“You may not find the gratitude right now, but when you get to that point you know that you have transformed your life.”

“When you start paying attention, all the things you think are coincidences are the divine order of blessings stepping in so you can find your path, so you can step into your truth.”

“When you think something is a failure or something is bad, it is really not. Look for the blessing and the bigger picture story of what is really happening in your life.”