Alicia Fike

“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”⁣
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- Robin Wall Kimmerer⁣
from my new favorite book, Braiding Sweetgrass

There is nothing in the world that infuses life into me more than helping people begin to acknowledge the beauty in the parts of themselves that our culture says are broken, shameful and should be hidden. This quote so eloquently defines the heart behind the name of my counseling practice. 🤍

I still scribble I🤍CC on my notebooks.

Baby Leesh & CC, 2019.

One thing I’ve learned from life is that you can’t be a light for others if you are determined to keep your own light hidden.

No one thing can bring us healing.

No one counselor, no one ayahuasca trip, no one self reflection journal, no move, no job change, and certainly no one relationship.

That breakup may bring you to your knees and cause you to lean back into all of the relationships the remind you who you are and the things you do to connect to yourself, but the breakup didn’t heal you.

That new job may challenge you to be your best self, to workout every morning & take that course you’ve been procrastinating on. It may take you away from the sh*tty coworkers at your old job and connect you with people whose values are aligned with yours, but the job change didn’t heal you.

Our healing is made up of all of all of these big things and not so big things that we do to find ourselves again. So if you’re struggling with your next step, do the small thing that you know connects you with your soul, the one thing that makes you feel just a little safer, and trust that it’s a imperative piece of the whole big puzzle.

Circa 2019

I have lived my life catching glimpses of my father. Moments where I can feel him, and hear his words unslurred by alcohol, speaking wisdom that only someone who has been through as much as he has could ever speak.

But most of the time I felt like there were so many layers of... I don’t know what, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, addiction, in between us. Like plexiglass. I want so badly to feel him, to hear him, to see him, but most of the time the glass is fogged and thick, yet even then I never doubt that he loves me. Somehow his love for me has always been able to pe*****te any layer of whatever exists between us.

I think it is because of my father that I see people for who they are created to be, not who they are currently showing the world that they are or even who they believe themself to be. I look at everyone as a culmination of all they have been through. I’ve had an awareness since I was a child that addiction isnt something people choose simply because they love a substance, it’s something they choose because they can’t bear the weight of their reality.

I realize now that my obsession with understanding anxiety, addiction, PTSD, and depression is because I have believed that one day I would find the “answer” that would bring my dad back to fully experiencing life before he loses the chance to live again. And everyday is bittersweet as I help others reconnect to their lives yet so ominously feel that the sand in the hour glass of time is always moving and I still haven’t found a way to help my dad.

My dad has taught me that those of us with the roughest edges are the ones with the most beautiful souls. Addiction, depression, anxiety are all defenses that we have to protect what we inherently know is so precious within us.

Fuel ☕️

There are some things that stay with us throughout our lives. Like our families, that scar on your knee that tells a story of your reckless youth, the memory of your first kiss.

There are other things that we always knew we wouldn’t hold on to. Like that boyfriend that you knew was bad for you or those drunken nights with people that you knew you wouldn’t know a year later.

And then there are those things that we thought would stay with us forever, until that moment when one day you realize that you have to let them go, or maybe they’re already gone. These are the things that we have to console our hearts through, the things that we have to grieve.

Like the dog you lost too early, or the friendship that ended that you never got answers for, the love that left that you thought never would, a loved ones health that doctors say won’t return, or the version of yourself that you no longer are because of it all.

I’ve recently had to let go of some of these things. Things that I thought would always be with me. But as we grow sometimes we have to realize when we’re fighting too hard to keep things that are no longer meant to be ours, and then sometimes we have to take the difficult step of surrendering them.

I used to think that strength was only seen in our fight, now I’m realizing just how much more is required in our surrender.

When you forget who you are you end up chasing the desires that you have been told by your culture, family, friends, ect. that you should chase
And when you stand there exhausted from running a race you were never meant to run, after you’ve accomplished all the goals you are “supposed” to accomplish, you will still be unsatisfied
You’ll stand there holding what you thought you always wanted, and yet still feel empty
I’ve been there- and honestly it was when I thought that I had everything that I wanted when I first experienced true depression. Backwards, huh? But not really.
I had forgotten who I was and chased the dreams others had given me. But then I remembered… and I left all that “should have” made me happy behind for the messy, bumpy, winding road back home to myself.

Who are you under the layers of programming and acculturation?
What did you want, dream of, fear, and love when you still had the belief that you could do and be anything that you desired?

It’s when we meet ourselves in this place that we can learn what it really is that we are here to embody- not chase.

It’s also here that we can learn what desires were never ours to begin with and find the courage put them down

You didn’t come here to do things you don’t want to do all day
You came here to experience life
You came here to let this world experience you- the real you.

So in order for you to live a life full of the miracles that are here for you to experience you first have to know yourself
And then you have to remember yourself

And then you’ll forget again, and remember

And forget again, and remember

Until eventually you remember not to forget.

BFF 🤍

Letter to CC from 2019

Last night you sat with me while I struggled with a mountain of fear that I couldn’t see past. My shoulders high, my body tense, arms crossed... you held me, and your love for me didn’t change. And somewhere in the midst of all of it I realized that I love you.

I already knew that I loved you, I already knew that I loved you more than I have ever loved anyone before you, but last night my love for you shifted. It felt like finding an answer to a question that you’ve been searching for... like an epiphany.

I knew we were different than anything I’ve experienced, but last night I finally allowed my soul to rest in that truth
The love that I realized I had for you last night made me question if I’ve ever truely loved anyone before you.

As I feel safe to be broken, I’m finding wholeness
As I allow my defences down, I’m finding safety

Love you most

Depression comes and goes in waves
For the last few months I have been free of it
But today I woke up with that all too familiar heavy weight on my chest
I think it wants to suffocate me
Or is it that I want to be suffocated by it?
Either way. Here I am.
Moving slower, speaking slower, tears in my eyes for reasons I can’t even identify
Yes I know what can make me feel better... and no I don’t want to do it
I have no motivation
That is the catch with depression
You can know all you need to know to move through it and know that life will be better if you do those things
But the motivation to do them... I don’t have it
And weirdly enough in this moment I don’t want it
I want to sit here in this heaviness
I want to drown in my own emotions
I want to feel and numb out at the same time
But after I write this I will take one step in the right direction
Just one tiny step
And maybe after that step I’ll come back to bed
Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll take another tiny step after that first one

Words from 2 years ago today
Photo from 2 days ago
It’s amazing how much time can heal

Over a decade later I am just learning how much you really stole from me
My voice
My dreams
My confidence
As I return to myself I am discovering the lost pieces that I forgot were missing
I am both sad for the lost time with myself
And thankful that I am back

Morning view 😍

Fresh blooms + Californian sage 🤍✨

Healers 🤍

Who has the better smile? 😬

This mirror has watched me grow up, or maybe I’ve watched myself grow up in it. It used to hang on the wall in my grandmas living room when I was too young to even recognize my own reflection. It hung in the retirement home after my grandparents moved out of my dads childhood home and witnessed the last moments of their lives. It hung in the small home my mom and I shared after my parents divorce, and on my childhood bedroom wall where I cried over boys and contemplated who I wanted to become. It hung on the wall in my first apartment, the one that was way out of my budget that I painted all of the walls ridiculously bright colors and filled with hand-me-down furniture. It followed me all over the country as I moved around trying to find where I thought home might be and it now hangs in the first space that I have really ever felt was home since I was a child.

Corey and I have been more intentional this last month about making our home a home. We took the TV off the wall and replaced it with art. Our nights are now filled with the scratching of records, the smell of Copal and candle light rather than the flashing lights and noises of the television.

Love takes intention. Truly loving your life takes intention. Just because something isn’t broken doesn’t mean you don’t have to fix it.

😍✨🤍

A handful of pics from last month. Life’s been pretty good. 🥰

What I use to be
A peace keeper, saying yes to all the things that didn’t serve me and staying small to appease other people

What I am becoming
A path maker for my own life

Inherent in making paths comes disruption

I need to be okay with making noise
I need to be okay with clearing space, which means removing the things that are obstacles to my path, and that process may not always be peaceful

I may leave some debris on the path behind me
And I may need to be okay with not spending my energy mending everything that shatters
And trust that the shattering is beneficial to clearing the way

The shattering of myself
The shattering of relationships
The shattering of contractual agreements I’ve conciously or unconsciously made
It isn’t always my job to figure out how the pieces are supposed to fit together
Sometimes it is just my job to trust that they will
To not let shame make me feel that it’s always my responsibility to limit the shattering and if shattering occurs that it’s my job to fix it
Things are supposed to crack
Things are supposed to break
Things morph and change and shift
And that is life
Nothing stays the same
And that’s okay
Not everything is peaceful
And that’s okay
Sometimes growth takes becoming okay with not always taking the most peaceful path

I feel weak right now as my life has shifted so much in just one week. I have a deep reverence of how fragile life is and how things always move and people move and time moves and everything moves moves moves. Everything is always moving.

Movement makes me want to freeze
I feel disempowered as I try so hard to hold everything still
I mourn the movement before it even happens and then I mourn it more once it arrives

Im learning that I need to move with the movement of life rather than try resist it
“Try” being the key word
Resistance just makes me feel powerless because it doesn’t work

Leaning in reminds me that movement and change allow me to step into this next season of myself, maybe even if I don’t want to
We lean in by feeling all of the emotions that come along with change, by being willing to making new memories with new people, by being open to making new memories with the the people that are leaving rather than preemptively mourning their departure, by asking life what we are supposed to learn from the pain of it all, by allowing joy

We are here to experience life, all of life, not just one phase of it

I’m so grateful that my last season of life was one that is worthy of mourning

Kintsugi- the Japanese art form where artists intentionally break pottery just to put it back together with gold, making it more beautiful and strong, the flaws highlighted instead of hidden.

A PICTURE OF MY SAFE PLACE (bondi beach) IN MY SAFE PLACE ( ) 🌊