Alicia Fike

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.

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.

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.