Votive Candles

My Soul Healing Journey by Nikki Navarro

My Soul Healing Journey

I was stripped of everything in 2015 – a devastating deadly tornado destroyed our home. Earlier that year after having lived a horrible abusive past life filled with physical as well as verbal violence, mental abuse, rape , near death all caught up with me no more running, I came face to face with my pain. I had to deal with my deep emotional soul wounds. There was no more running. I had attempted suicide, had a brush with death. My earlier childhood and younger years were filled with Trauma

That very same year earlier in May 2015, I’d spent 2 weeks as an inpatient at a rehabilitation center to deal with my pain. We had a routine there to meet groups of women each morning. Each did gather and speak their stories under the deep pain, shame, guilt and anger. I saw Women who had just had their wrists slit and had received stitches, sutured, some with visible battered faces, cut lips, open cuts to their flesh. Others had come off the streets where they worked in prostitution and their partners had beat them in jealous drunk rages. Some were dealing with multiple illicit drugs addictions. All these women masked deep buried pain. All were transferred from the emergency hospital rooms to this mental rehabilitation center. Women of all cultures became family. I noticed that I touched many lives by just being compassionate, listening, without judgment. I wanted to hear their stories. I was sought after and became popular not knowing this would grow to be a calling in my life. I had a great gift that I could speak to women without judgment. I could validate their feelings because I had lived in multiple fits of abuse. I could resonate with them at a deeper level of understanding.

Then an amazing intervention came one sunny day while in the facility garden a sweet inner calmness overcame me. We were allowed 15 minute walks in the lush green garden. I was trying to understand all that was happening when suddenly I felt a warmth thru my body caressed me as if when somebody hugs you and loves you. And a thought whispered to my mind and my heart I heard this inner voice saying “this journey has ended. I will lift you and I will heal you so that you can go out and heal others.” It was divine intervention. That day I embarked on my initial journey one of deep transformation from brokenness to breakthrough! 

Restoration had begun, it would be then that my therapist Renee Austin would later introduce me thru therapy sessions to greater faith, I began to have new hope and perspective. I could connect with the women at the Center on a deep level. Women at the treatment center were all there to deal with pain as I was. We all felt connected thru group therapy and then psychologists. We met with doctors of psychiatry and psychology to deal with all our deep dark soul wounds. We became family. Broken women coming together bonding thru hope. After I was released I would never be the same, I had been touched by a divine source.

Looking back another hard blow our real estate careers took a deep dive in 2008. We would eventually file for bankruptcy. We lost nearly all finances during the 2008 great real estate recession. As a part of my Real Estate Career was wiped out since 2002, we had a life that revolved around material things, Money, Trips, Wild Shopping Sprees, parties and alcohol addiction. I had attempted to mask my pain buried deep underneath with material possessions, yet those deep dark soul wounds festered and were deeply infected, with anger, bitterness, rage, hatred towards my perpetrators etc.  All the negative emotions that I had buried well deep in my soul. I had been hurting others, I had passed on a price tag too high because my family, my sons, as well as my husband, dealt with my inner demons thru my anger, rage, etc. I felt an emptiness and void. I had passed on a debt with a high price tag to the ones I loved to my family and society. I was a woman filled with anger and fury which impeded me to live a life of joy, peace and happiness. 

That was until 2016, my husband and I began to seek a Church. It was after visiting several Churches that I came to one that received me. It was a Pastoral family of 3 generations with a traditional loving family. They had women’s prayer groups and meetings where I was invited. They made me feel like a family I had never had. One became a Mother to me. We would fellowship each Sunday and go to eat. I had been taken under their wing. The elder women parishioners who built me up with unconditional love in its purest form, prayers and hugs. Each Sunday, I wanted to be present to receive this newfound faith with a newfound family. I was empowered by many spiritual Mothers. My life began a process of change deep transformation and healing, redemption and restoration. 

It is why today I am more empowered than ever. I rose from ashes to beauty to pursue my higher calling to help women living under oppression to meet them and walk them thru their pain as if when you hold their hand to cross a bridge that somehow they had lost their path and I helped transition them and walk them to another bright side of healing, redemption and restoration. My husband and I continue to work towards an equal partnership. My husband is learning to heal from his own inner wounds and unhealthy learned behaviors. 

 

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This is my calling Nikki is a Mother to all the oppressed Women, together we can make a difference.

Join Me Nikki in my journey to fight for Women’s Rights.

Author Nikki Navarro 

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Mariana Lima Buendia Mother’s Interview

Maria Lima Buendia, a femicide case that has gone to Mexico’s Supreme Court , this is an interview with Irinea Buendia her Mother, at the 6th year anniversary of her daughter’s death in 2010, 6 years later the fight for justice for her daughters femicide murder by her husband, a high ranking Mexico Police officer.

An interview held by a journalist to express the aftermath of this femicide case.

video link

 

 

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Healing & Empowering Yourself after Physical & Emotional Trauma

It can be difficult to heal and empower yourself again after and any kind of physical and emotional trauma, including domestic violence or a messy divorce.

The process is different for everyone, and there is no manual that can expertly prepare you and guide you through it, since feelings are complex and wounds and scars take time to heal.

But you don’t have to feel tied to your history with domestic violence and sexual abuse. You can escape your feelings of low self-esteem and low self-worth that keep you trapped in the cycle. You learn to think of yourself as less than, because that’s how your abuser or abusers treat you; and they may have isolated you from those who might support you.

So think of what happened as then, and this is now. You may have physically escaped or you are seeking to do so. Now you have to know you can do it, and you can stop the self-blame and feelings of “I’m not good enough.” Instead, you can rise to the challenge and break away from your fears that you aren’t up to the task or that you can’t change. Instead, by learning to heal and working towards your recovery, you can channel your trauma into powerful transformation. That’s what I did for myself, and now my mission in life is to help others experiencing such traumas break free and empower themselves.

In fact, you can gain strength by knowing you are part of a community of women who are survivors and are using their past to build themselves into better women. They are collectively overcoming their fears, and they are using their voices to raise awareness and potentially save the lives of women and children who are trapped in relationships and families that have become the source of their abuse.

I know this change is possible, because I almost lost my home, accumulated over $200,000 in credit card debt, became dependent on alcohol, and even made an attempt on my own life.

But I made it through. I retook my career working in real estate and insurance, and what helped me make it is finding a renewed faith and a supportive community. It was a long journey of several years, but I gained so much knowledge of what we need to do to grow and empower ourselves along the way. I also realized what we need to do to get help and resources along the way.

As a result, I decided to share my story through my book, blogs, videos, and this website, and use any funds to build my Ministry for Women. I have created this ministry because I feel empowered and want to show the love, mercy, and grace I have gained by giving back to other women and communities. A key inspiration for this ministry is a group of elder woman parishioners at my church who showed me the power of selfless love by becoming my spiritual mothers and adopting me as a daughter. As a result, I developed a love towards the ministry, my pastor, and their families, and most importantly, I developed a personal relationship with my Creator, so I gained this new sense of purpose and mission in my life to help other women.

So I invite you to join with me and the community of women who are united to achieve this goal of breaking free of the past and empowering oneself in the present for a brighter and more fulfilling future. I will let you know about my book when it comes out. Now I invite you to help spread love and justice for women who have been abused. Sign the email link below and follow our community at #NikkiHealed

Now let me tell you my story, so you know that if I can do it, so can you.

In 2015, I survived my first suicide attempt. I did so because my body was riddled with pain, shame, anger, and rage, from all of the traumas I had experienced in my life. After my attempt, I spent two weeks as an inpatient at a psychiatric hospital, with dozens of other women who had sadly fallen down the same path. Surrounded by slit wrists and overdoses, I was distressed to see the number of survivors with me in that ward. This two weeks I spent there also gave me a chance to think about my life to better understand why I was there.

At this point, before I subsequently found a new faith in God and Christianity, I had hit rock bottom. When the real estate market crash hit in 2008, I lost everything. I owed over $200,000 in credit card debt, suffered a tornado that destroyed our uninsured home, and had to file for bankruptcy, because I had lost all my assets. On top of this, I was battling an addiction to alcohol, opioids, and painkillers.

I lost my home because an EF-4 tornado ripped through our house and my hometown, killing 43 people. It threw cars off the overpass into the traffic below and destroyed the freeway. Hundreds were left without shelter, because their homes were damaged beyond repair, and none of us could return home until the authorities gave us the green light. In fact, I almost lost my life in this natural disaster.

After all of these losses, for years I harbored bitterness, rage, and anger, not only towards these events, but towards all of the perpetrators who had caused me so much pain from sexual and domestic abuse, including perpetrators who abused me sexually when I was a child, my husband who subjected me regularly to domestic violence, and my mother who rejected me from birth, deeply wounding my soul. So substance abuse was my way of dealing with the emotional pain I carried with me everywhere.

But finally I found a way to cope with all the hurt, heartache, and exhaustion through surrendering my pain to a higher power after my faith was restored in God through the church I attended. This happened in 2015, which was a year of transformation and a full rebirth of my life. I felt blessed to find a caring community of like-minded women who built me up through empowerment, education, and dedication to a cause greater than myself. They taught me how to heal and use my past to forge a new future.

This transformation occurred because during my recovery, I was in close contact with multiple ministries that donated food, clothes, blankets, housing expenses, shelter expenses, and even payment for my damaged roof repair. I had never seen nor witnessed selflessness like this before. The members of these ministries demonstrated an unwavering commitment to me and my recovery through the purest form of love.

After I recovered physically, I and my husband, a devout Catholic, learned to value the importance of showing love and caring for others. As a result, that same year, we found our church and converted to the Christian Faith after we visited several churches and found the one which took us under its wing. We began attending regularly each Sunday, and I met a group of long-time women parishioners who became my spiritual mothers and helped me feel uplifted in prayer each Sunday.

I desperately needed to embrace this faith, so I could have something to cling to after my husband and I lost everything over the previous decade. But after a few years, when our faith was tested by some struggles to find our way economically, personally, and spiritually, ultimately our faith sustained us, so I felt we were blessed with grace and mercy.

So now, besides finding empowerment in my revised business career, I want to share all of the understandings and blessings I have gained to help other women similarly become empowered and overcome past experiences of abuse and lowered self-worth to feel fully free and equal in whatever they want to do. For this is the path to true fulfillment in life.

Accordingly, I invite you to the #Nikkihealed fight for equality and empowerment no matter your ethnic background. The goal is to fight for this empowerment and against any barriers that stand in the way. So we’ll be helping women with everything from employment rights to entrepreneurship, and we’ll be looking at the ways that women are undermined and exploited, such as through femicide and female slavery, which has become an often overlooked but world-wide problem. Together we can do it, because together we are stronger than one. Together, we can become champions, as warriors, businesswomen, educators, and whatever we want to do.

Thus, I invite you to join with us at #Nikkihealed to become the person you truly want to be and were made to believe you never were.

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