Phoenix Moon and the Kindness Warriors Collective

Tracy Dudak: Listen to this episode from Peers Like Me on Spotify. Maura welcomes Tracy Dudak, a Certified Peer Advocate from Buffalo

This poem by Dale Wimbrow means so much to me within my recovery journey--it truly motivates me to continue to build a matrimony between myself and my deities.

I spent so much time bottom feeding for affection from unhealthy sources and casting myself aside that ultimately left me feeling like I abandoned myself--which is true--and got me more trauma than I already had.

It's why I state on some of my social media that I have been in a relationship since 1992 because throughout my whole life I have been with myself and my God(s) and consistently cheated on myself every chance I got because I didn't know how to look inside and build a committed relationship with myself and truly learn to love me as I am.

So I got into the habit of employing the High-Five Mentality but took it up a notch to practice truly loving myself and kiss the girl in the mirror to build a love for myself that I never truly had because I was so desperate to find it in someone else.

I tell myself, "I can do it, I am doing it, I will do it! You can do it, you are doing it, we will do it! We can do it, we are doing it, we will do it! I love you!" And cup my own cheek and kiss myself in the mirror.

I don't think I'm the center of all things and Narcissus, just to clarify that this is not the impression trying to make. . .
What I'm trying to say is, I spent so long on abusive toxic relationships BEGGING people to love me the way I needed to that I got so hurt and so abused enough that I finally figured out that I HAVE to build that love within myself for myself with my deities because I will never find another human to fill the void within me that I have to put the work into for myself.

Juxtaposition from a year ago, I was throwing me away and almost died--today I recognize I'm with myself 100% of my days, I better love the woman I'm with, and I share a toilet with myself, so you can't get anymore intimate than that!

I hope I helped someone find the willingness and courage to love themselves today, from someone who hated herself so bad she almost took permanent solutions to the self hatred.

You are worth loving yourself NO MATTER WHAT! I LOVE YOU!

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Art isn't supposed to be perfect, just supposed to express what's truly in your heart. 💖

Some days it takes a lot of mindfulness work, praying, and extra energy to shift from negative and staying in the moment then shifting towards being positive and hopeful.

It's a process but a beautiful one nonetheless.

I love you! 💖🙏🥰🤩✨🎶

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

"If you're grateful, you can't be hateful!" -Nameless Beautiful Spirit

I'm done obsessing over hyper-perfection which is never going to be possible.

Some days being alive, not in a wasted state of oblivion, and having a roof over my head are literally the gold medal of existence depending on what's on my plate that day.

And that's okay.

And maybe if I can just do quick inspired art to help somebody else relate and help them feel not alone, then I can at least accomplish something positive and not self-centered that day

If anything the art and recovery community has taught me. . . don't just not make the art because it isn't "perfect", it's never meant to be perfect, it's just meant to be a beautiful piece of you shared to the world to connect with other kindred souls on this shared journey through the cosmos.
💖✨🤩🥰

Keep on being your beautiful beguiling self, you gorgeous piece of stardust, you!
💖💋🧿🥰✨

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Being addicted to a romantic daydream is beyond crippling but well worth the effort to put in the extensive hard work in identifying those inner wounds and tending to them healthily.

No other human on this planet will fill the void of unmet childhood needs.
At least not in my experience.
Other people are not emotional Swiss Army Knives that can perform for you what you have to be willing to do and commit to yourself--heal.

You owe it to yourself to do the work.
Love you, my beautiful friend!
You deserve to love you, too!!
You're worth working on your fine AF self!
💋💖🙏🧿🥰

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Don't give into the gaslight and tear out your insides over the guilt trip.

Don't give into the abuse.
You're not crazy.
They know what they're doing and you don't deserve to hurt yourself because they're hurting you.

I love you, you deserve so much better!

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Just because you can forgive somebody for being sick doesn't mean they have the entitlement or right to be in your life.

Yes it is cliche but forgiveness really truly helps you, not them.
It is NOT a foot in the door for the sick harmful person to come back into your life.

It's acceptance that somebody is severely sick and they need help but they are still nowhere near excused for their sick behavior,

Forgiveness is not the same as excusing someone, it's laying down the burden of carrying the weight of the pain they caused you.
That pain is never eradicated, it's acknowledged and set down so YOU can move forward whether they want to admit their acts or not.

Excusal creates the capacity for enabling an abusive sick person to continue their sick behavior without anyone acknowledging the behaviors exist in the first place, thus perpetuating the pain via event erasure

Forgiveness really is for YOU and not them because you do not EXCUSE the behavior, you acknowledge and understand where it comes from and disallow that person to have control of you any further.

I love you, thank you for being here today!
🙏🫂💖🧿

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Reread that as many times as you need, make it a part of your daily affirmations if need be.
I know it's easier said than done but I BELIEVE IN YOU!
I LOVE YOU! 🙏🫂🧿💖

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Comment is you relate! 👇👇👇
I don't have a "type" I have a trauma.

My inner very traumatized child seeks the same pattern and situation over and over and over again within different individuals to try to rewrite the past but instead I end up repeating it time and time again--getting even MORE traumatized in the process!
🙏😔

No more. I was built for more than this. The generational cycle ends with me.
💪🥹🙏🧿💖

I am the 3rd generation of Women that has gone into this cyclical spiral and I understand my purpose, it's to break the chain and not pass it onto my baby.
🥹🙏🧿💖💪🥰

If you're like me, regardless of your gender, if you've been chasing a trauma, not a "type" so to speak, you are not alone and you are not a failure and I BELIEVE ON YOU TO BREAK THE CYCLE! 💪🤩💖🧿🥹🫂

I LOVE YOU! 🫂💖🧿🥰🤩✨🎉

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

"Try your Best and let God do the Rest!" 🥰🙏

Just a little motivational doodle I made to help pep myself up because I feel a bit down today but that's okay because I'm grateful to process grief and big feelings. 🙏💖🧿

Life is ultimately good but it's okay to have fluctuations in emotions! Humans are not emotionless automatons! The key is mindfulness and recognizing the abundance that IS there that can help pull you from those big overbearing feelings and most importantly. . . NOT SHAMING YOURSELF FOR THEM! 🤩✨🙏🥰💖🧿

Everyone has feelings and everyone is allowed to have feelings without needing to prove to the world that there is a "valid" reason for having them!
You exist therefore you are innately validated to have them!
Just remember to not allow the big feelings to define life and remember they don't define who you are! 💪🥹🫂💖🧿

I love you! Stay blessed, beautiful, and boundless!🥰💖🙏🧿

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Literally took making this post for it to sync back to being my activism account!
🤣😂💖🙏

I will call myself out too! Rigorous honesty! I'm not perfect, nor do I ever want to be because nothing in this universe is without flaws, that is the perfection! 🧿💖🥰
But I will be up front with you on my journey because that's what I'm here to do! 💪💋

I sure as hell did let my big feelings get the best of me when I felt betrayed and straight up deactivated my whole account for a total of 30 seconds! 🫠

And all that did was make a problem for me for a little over a week but that's okay because I had learned something that I'm able to impart with somebody else. . .

CALL SOMEONE BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING AND I MEAN ANYTHING!
(Which I did. . . AFTER THE FACT! 🤣😂🙏💖)

I'm really grateful that the self-destructive behavior that I participated in and it didn't involve substances but it's still an eye opener of how much progress I still have to make but I'm very grateful of how far I've come!
🙏🥹🥰💖🧿🧚‍♀️

I'm very grateful to be shown exactly what I need to work on and where and just getting there at the pace I'm supposed to be at! 💪

I love you, beautiful spirits! May you stay forever blessed, beautiful, and boundless!
🙏💋🥰💖🧿

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Anahata Machina: Cleric of the Niagara Baptism Day! 💚🙏😇🌊

I am officially labeling today as my official Baptism Day as being the(a) Cleric of the Niagara! 🥰🙏😇🌊💚💖🧜‍♀️

I want to commit my life to being one of Her Vessel Healers as is my greater purpose to this world! 🥹🙏💖✨

I am so grateful for this privilege and blessing to be one of Her many children and to right in the world by Her honor! 🥹🙏💖💚😇🌊

I also vow to protect her as she is the Sacred Mother to All Life within the greater Buffalo/Niagara Region as well as that of our kin in Canada! 🙏💖💚😇🌊✨💪🛡️⚔️

From a very low point today I have reached yet another higher purpose within the greater grand scheme bestowed upon me in the will of the Spirit! 🙏😇🌊✨💖💚

Stay blessed, beautiful, and boundless, my loves! 💋💖✨🙏😇🌊💚

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Anahata Machina: the Heart of the River!
💚🌊

I had a supremely spiritual moment down at the Niagara River whirlpools!
The rapids at the Niagara River are a class 6 rapids, the highest class of rapids!
🌊🌊🌊

My heart swelled being next to Her intense curiosity at such an intimate level! 🥹🙏💖

Her heart is mighty and it is so thunderously strong and I could swear I heard the beat of Her heart as the water furiously cascaded onward! 💚🌊🙏

I prayed, chanted, and meditated among Her glory! I had a sound bath with the sound of Her heart and meditated, being transported elsewhere, even drifting away to sleep until She sent a tiny little splash on my head to gently wake me up and remind me that it's time for me to return to my nest within the land of the people! 🥹🙏💚🌊

I love Her so much, She is truly one of a kind, I do not own Her but I belong to She! 💖🙏🥰
And I want to protect Her like I would myself and my daughter, She is truly The giver of Life to all who are blessed to be born within Her grace! 💚🙏

From this day forward, I am her Cleric!
💚🙏🌊🥹😇

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

You don't know how far down the rabbit hole somebody is in their Mental Health and how hard they're struggling to even keep breathing that day.

So if I can impart any advice to any being(s) on this planet, don't shame somebody for circling the drain more than they are already shaming themselves for it innately.

You can't shame somebody with cancer into being cured so shaming somebody with PTSD into being better is like pouring gasoline on a forest fire.

Telling somebody with PTSD that they are not trying hard enough is like telling a paraplegic that if they tried hard enough to walk up those stairs they could.

My mental wheelchair is different from your mental wheelchair.

To my fellow survivors, I see you, you are beautiful as you are, there is nothing wrong with you for trying your best and your best doesn't have to be to anybody's standards.
I love you. 🫂💖

That's all I got. 🙏💖

988: national su***de prevention hotline
988 option 1: National Veterans Crisis Services line
741-741: National crisis Services texting line
716.834.3131: Erie County/Buffalo NY Crisis Services hotline

🌈🦄💖👽✌️


***deprevention

"Check your privilege."
I don't have to elaborate, it explains itself.
Stay mindful.

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

The worst thing I ever done was Abandon Myself because that's all I ever knew and now I never have to leave Her again
💖🥹🙏

Always remember to love yourself first. You're the most important person to have a relationship with in your life.
You're with yourself 100% of your days:
You go to sleep with yourself, you wake up with yourself, you even go to the bathroom with yourself, you are with yourself when you eat meals and watch movies, you're even with yourself when you take a shower so please. . .
If you're going to have the most intimate relationship that you could with any human on this planet, make sure it's with yourself first! 🥰💖

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Woodland Ballerina; Giggling with Gratitude!🌳🍁🩰💚
So I went over to the Canadian side of the river to do some recording and photo shoots for my Anahata Machina Project.

Brought my wings in my tripod and everything and I wanted to wear what if my favorite tutus.

The area had a lot of people in spots where the ground was level for me to place my tripod and to have enough room to dance so I decided to collect some rocks while I was scouting For a location outside of my normal Zone.

As I was collecting some rocks, out of nowhere about a good 220 ft away from where the rest of the humans were rolls a half smoked joint 2/3 the size of my pinky that was dry at a beach next to a river of all places.
I jumped away from it like I had just seen an alligator and called somebody immediately!

As many of my followers know, at least by this point, I am in substance use and mental health recovery.
In this point of my sobriety, I'm in a very crucial transitional phase.
I'm really grateful to be the person that I am today as opposed to the person I was a year ago.

Actively Using Tracy of Last Year would have seen that joint as a freebie not even caring what it could have been laced with.
Sober Tracy of Today, and by the Grace of the Creator for the Rest of My Life, seen that and felt like I was being tormented by demonic forces.

So I booked right back up the trail on my phone call and decided to take these pictures instead, laughing about the whole situation in gratitude because today I have a choice to protect myself and my sobriety and strive for a better life.

The stairs going back to the Land of the People are really steep so I stopped to catch my breath, rehydrated, and took these pictures plus stretch!

Sobriety and mental health recovery are not easy but it is so worth it! You have a choice and you are worth working that choice!

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

So this happened yesterday.
I went to do some recording and have a photo shoot for my Anahata Machina Project at the beach outside of the woods next to the whirlpools in Canada and it was very peopley at the spots where I could set up my tripod so I collected rocks instead until l got a little triggered and scrapped the entire project attempt all together which I will elaborate in another post!

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

It was a simple but beautiful day.
And that's all I ever need, simple and beautiful.
💖🙏

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

As a survivor of many types of abuse, this message is one of the strongest points that I could ever try to give somebody else.

I suffered in silence for a very long time in a lot of situations and I wasn't willing to believe my gut feeling that screamed loud on a daily basis that things were wrong.
I was afraid of seeming "crazy" and being abandoned.

Until one day I decided I deserve to not abandon myself and tolerate mistreatment and cut ties necessary to stop being stuck in a desolate mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual tar pit.

You know it in your heart of hearts when things are wrong, you know in your heart of hearts what you deserve and what you should never tolerate.
You know in your heart of hearts when you are being lied to and when somebody is manipulating you and others around you.

You are not crazy.
Your perceptions and feelings are valid, your gut instinct is right.
I love you. 🙏💖

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Anahata Machina: Mythical Bird Yoga Edition 💚🌊

The Niagara River is such a healing beautiful source, I gave Her my tears and She transmuted the negative energy into positivity and healing.

I do insane amounts of yoga when I adventure over here, this is only a fraction of what I do when I'm here engaging in Her healing intense energy and power.

My heart belongs to She, I belong to the sea.
💚🌊

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

I intended to be functional today. I intended to do functional things.

By this point I've already redid my makeup twice because all I can muster to do is sit here and listen to the birds and watch the water and cry in PTSD paralysis.

In my recovery journey, I'm facing things that I swept under the rug that have jagged teeth and last night I got bit by something I have pushed down for the past 3 years and today I'm feeling The recoil.

In my activism and advocacy, I've always wanted to keep it 100% and real to increase mental health visibility Because social media has a propensity to give people cognitive distortions due to fake highlight reels and pretend curated happiness.

It is okay to not be okay, it is okay to have trauma paralysis.
I love you, stay blessed, beautiful, and boundless!

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Whenever I hear the heinous little alcoholism voice in my head, I have to remember that I would be literally listening to this actual clown. 🤡😂🤮

I personified the little heinous voice that says obnoxious things like, "Life is going good, wanna ruin it?" Or "Hey, things are rough, wanna make it worse?"
Like no, no I don't. 💖😂🙏

Just remember, when that little obnoxious voice crops up, this is the literal actual clown you'd be giving into! 🤡😂🙏💖🤮

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Tiny creature has a heckin' precious! 💖
Respect the creatures, they're precious and also important! 🙏💖
Also protect the nature, incredibly important!
🐛🌹

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Phoenix Rising; Anahata Machina
New project I'm working on. 💖🙏💋

Much love and prayers to you.
Stay blessed, beautiful, and boundless my loves. 🥹🙏💖

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

⚠️⚠️ Trigger Warning ⚠️⚠️
CSA, childhood mental and physical abuse, sexual assault, mental and physical abuse

I was not put on this Earth to keep my mouth shut.
In doing my recovery work and taking a break to reflect a little before delving back into the nitty gritty, I have come to remember my roots that I'm not put on this Earth to keep my mouth shut.
I didn't choose to live just to not speak up against what I had gone through--even holding institutions and politicians accountable, looking them straight in the face, for their institutional negligence and ethics violations.

I didn't choose to live just to keep living in a lie contrary to all the times that I was beaten, almost to death as a child, broken bones from past relationships, and all the times I've been violated, all the times I've been begged not to say anything, told I deserved it, gaslit, invalidated, or threatened...

God didn't put me here to keep my mouth shut.

I know what it's like to feel isolated, I know what it's like to feel less than with the shame and guilt, I know what it's like to feel alone, I know what it's like to try to tranquilize all of that pain just so it can keep hurting you more and traumatizing you more, I know what it's like to feel like a burden and I'm here to tell you that you're not a burden, you deserve to speak up, if addicted then you deserve to get sober, there is a community of people who have gone through the exact same thing as you and you are worth love, you are worth healing, when you are ready, you deserve to put in the effort to stop carrying that coffin full of lead around.

You deserve to give yourself the gift of seeking help.

I Love You, You Are Not Alone, You Are Not a Burden, Forgive Yourself, and Speak Up!
You don't have to suffer in silence anymore!
It's also okay to not be perfect. Nobody is.

Thank you for being here on Earth with me another day. 🙏💖
I love you, you beautiful shining star. 🌟✨

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

***deprevention

It isn't like someone chooses to be bipolar or have crippling addiction the same way nobody chooses to be a paraplegic or have n auto immune disease.
Out of sight, out of mind. People don't get to see the wheelchair in someone's head, they just get to see how it manifests with someone's body and behavior.

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

Art is everywhere.
It's all in how you see the world. 💖🙏🥰
ADHD has some cool super powers. ✨🌟🤩

🌈🦄💖👽✌️

You don't know the impact you leave on this Earth! YOU MATTER AND YOU BELONG!!!
💖🙏

Something pretty profound happened, it compelled me to share with others who may be going through a really rough patch like I've been going through. . .

I have been delving into some repressed childhood trauma and trying to unpack some things that I've been carrying with me from some pretty awful events that happened without my consent.
I've also been managing facing being possibly evicted and trying to hold things together and be manageable and not dwell on how existentially terrified I feel.
I've been dealing with some pretty severe codependency which comes from the CSA trauma and the unstable home life that I had experienced as a child and being placed in the role of being the Baby Fixer-Upper of the family and being made responsible to fix everybody else's dilemmas while not being allowed to have my own thoughts and feelings otherwise I'd get screamed at or beaten.
I was running on 4 days worth of little sleep and I got triggered in some respects in many different ways in many different occurrences
The only way I could sleep was calling my local crisis services line at 716-834-3131 because I had a pretty severe intrusive thought.

Today I woke up trying to put away some of the heavy feelings that were still being carried over from yesterday when I got a call letting me know that a piece of art that I just did on a dry erase board 9 years ago was still remembered by somebody who didn't know me and they thought it was one of the coolest things they'd ever seen.

I never would have known I made such an impact nine years later for something so simple like making a piece of art on dry erase board had I not been told.

You don't know the impact that you leave on this world, you matter!
You're not a burden, you're not a screw up, you have purpose in this world!

Being sober for 8 months and 7 Days doesn't mean that I'm perfect and fixed and awesome all the time, some days are really great in other days I'm reminded that I'm really mentally unstable but that was definitely a sign from the Divine and a time that I really needed it the most.

Keep going! I love you! 💖🙏