Beyond and Before the Snakes

 

Chapter One: Before the Snakes

My fascination with Medusa didn't begin with trauma. It began with my mother. My mother introduced me to Greek Gods and Goddesses when I was young, and from there, a fascination was born. I became fascinated with the Gods, the Goddesses, the mortals, the monsters—the power, betrayal, love, jealousy, protection, punishment, beauty, and destruction woven throughout their stories. I didn't just want to know who they were. I wanted to understand: Why did they become who they became? Somewhere in those stories was Medusa. At that age, she was mythology to me. I couldn't have known that years later I would return to her story and recognize pieces of myself. As a child, I saw the snakes. As a grown woman, I started asking: What happened before they grew? There is something almost poetic about the fact that my mother introduced me to the very story that would eventually help me understand parts of myself. Because my mother is part of my roots too.

My Mother Was a Beautiful Soul—and Trauma Was Real

My mother was a beautiful soul. That is my truth. But another truth exists beside it: Trauma was real. Healing taught me that I don't have to make someone a villain in order to tell the truth about how their actions affected me. My mother could love me. She could introduce me to beautiful things that would remain with me for the rest of my life. She could spark my imagination and create a fascination with mythology that followed me into adulthood. And she could also be carrying pain of her own. She had her lashes. And some of those lashes landed on me. Both things can be true. As a child, I didn't have the emotional language I have today. I couldn't look at an adult and say, Maybe this is your trauma showing up. I only knew what I felt. And I was already learning how to respond to pain before I understood what pain was doing to me. That's important because when people tell my story, it would be easy to place a marker at my mother's death and say: That's where the trauma began. It didn't. My struggles and trauma existed before the death of my mother. Her death didn't create every wound. It ripped open wounds that were already there and added wounds of its own. And when she died, I was ten years old. Ten.

A Ten-Year-Old Was Supposed to Move On

As an adult, I understand how strange that expectation really was. I've watched grown people lose a parent and struggle for years. Sometimes decades. We understand when an adult says losing their mother changed them. We give adults permission to grieve. We understand anniversaries. We understand depression. We understand anger. We understand withdrawal. We understand that grief can change the way someone moves through the world. Yet somehow a ten-year-old girl was supposed to lose her mother and keep moving. I wasn't simply grieving. I was trying to make sense of what existed before her death, the enormous reality of losing her, and everything that came afterward. And afterward, the trauma didn't stop. It intensified. I was vulnerable. I was grieving. I was still developing. And ultimately, I was being exploited while trying to navigate a world I wasn't emotionally equipped to understand. But people could still look at my behavior and decide what kind of child I was becoming. When you're ten, you don't say: I'm experiencing unresolved grief. You don't say: My nervous system is operating in survival mode. You don't say: I'm having a trauma response. You don't say: I don't feel safe. Sometimes you scream. Sometimes you fight. Sometimes you shut down. Sometimes you lash out. Sometimes you become angry. Sometimes you become whatever you believe you need to become to make it through another day. And then the adults look at the behavior and ask: What's wrong with her? Instead of asking: What happened to her?

Then I Met Medusa Again

Years later, I returned to Medusa with different eyes. In one of the most well-known later versions of her story, told by the Roman poet Ovid, Medusa was known for her beauty before experiencing sexual violence in a sacred temple. Afterward, she was transformed. The world came to remember the snakes. The stare. The danger. The monster. But I became interested in something else: What happened to her? That's when mythology became personal. Because I knew what it felt like for people to see your reaction without investigating your wound. During my struggle years, people saw me lash out. They heard my mouth. They saw my anger. They experienced my defensiveness. They saw the version of me who knew how to fight. And some people may have walked away from encounters with me believing they understood exactly who I was. But they met me at the snakes. They didn't know the little girl before them.

When Family Love Felt Like Politics

Looking back, the family's ability to love could sometimes be compared to politics. There were alliances. There were sides. There were favorites. There were people whose behavior was defended because of who they were connected to. There were versions of events that depended heavily on who was telling the story. Sometimes loyalty mattered more than truth. Sometimes one person's pain received immediate compassion while somebody else's pain became inconvenient. Sometimes accountability depended on who you were. And sometimes the person reacting to everything happening around them became easier to identify as the problem than the environment producing the reaction. You learn politics without anybody calling it politics. Who are you aligned with? Who gets protected? Whose version gets believed? Whose behavior gets excused? Whose pain receives compassion? And whose pain are we expecting them to simply get over? As a child, I couldn't articulate any of that. I just knew when something hurt. I knew when something didn't feel fair. I knew when I didn't feel protected. And eventually, I learned how to respond. Sometimes loudly. Sometimes angrily. Sometimes with a lash of my own.

Accountability Cannot Be One-Sided

And this is where adulthood required something different from me. If you received a lashing from me during those years, I eventually had to sit with myself and examine what I did. I challenged my behavior. I confronted my trauma. I looked at the ways survival shaped my reactions. I learned to apologize where an apology was owed. I learned that trauma can explain my behavior without excusing every behavior. I took accountability. Now I challenge you to do the same. Because you don't get to tell the story only from the moment I reacted and position yourself as the victim while conveniently removing everything that happened before my reaction. If you're going to tell the story, tell the whole story.What did you say? What did you do? What did you repeatedly do? What boundaries did you cross? What did you witness and remain silent about? What role did you play in an environment that was supposed to provide love and safety? And for some of my peers, there is another uncomfortable question: How many interactions became opportunities to compare, compete, belittle, or prove that you were somehow better? How often did you need to be one-up on everybody around you? How often did somebody else's moment become another opportunity to establish your superiority? How often did friendship quietly become competition? Because when someone is already trying to figure out their worth, constantly being surrounded by people who need to establish theirs by standing on top of somebody else's can leave another kind of wound. Then when that person finally reacts, how convenient is it to begin the story there? That's not accountability. That's editing. You cannot remove your behavior from the beginning of the story and make my reaction the entire plot. And I'm no longer willing to participate in that version of history. I can own my lash. Can you own what came before it? That doesn't mean you deserved everything I said or did. Accountability doesn't work that way. Your wrongdoing doesn't automatically justify mine, just as my reaction doesn't erase yours. It means we both have to be courageous enough to examine ourselves without needing to become either the hero or the victim of every story. That was part of my healing. I had to stop saying, But look at what they did to me, as though my pain automatically excused everything I did afterward. So I challenge the people around me to do the same. Stop using my reaction to avoid examining your action.If I can look at the parts of myself that weren't pretty, you can look at yours. If I can acknowledge that some of my survival mechanisms eventually became unhealthy, you can acknowledge the ways your behavior contributed to an unhealthy environment. If I can take responsibility without hiding behind trauma, then you can take responsibility without hiding behind my reaction. I am not asking to be excused. I am asking you to be accountable too.

It's Easy to Judge a Fire You're Not Standing In

People can become incredibly judgmental about pain that isn't happening to them. When you're standing outside of somebody else's experience, it's easy to decide how they should respond. I wouldn't have reacted like that. She needs to get over it. She's too angry. She's difficult. But there's a difference between imagining how you would survive something and actually having to survive it. It's easy to give instructions about a fire when you're standing outside the burning building. And sometimes the people doing the judging are family. Sometimes they're friends. Sometimes they're peers. Sometimes they're people who believe that because they survived their pain differently, their way of surviving somehow makes them better. But your ability to survive one environment does not make you an authority on somebody else's wounds. And your pain does not automatically make you more deserving of compassion than mine.

They Saw My Snakes

This is where Medusa and I meet. Everybody remembers her snakes. Everybody remembers what her gaze could do. Everybody remembers what happened when someone encountered her. But I keep returning to the woman before the transformation. Because people met my snakes too. They saw the anger. They saw the fight. They saw the defensiveness. They saw the independence. They saw the version of me that had decided she wasn't going to continue taking hits without eventually hitting something back. But very few stopped to ask: What happened before she became this way?Sometimes it's easier to call somebody difficult than acknowledge what contributed to their transformation. Sometimes it's easier to call somebody angry than examine what repeatedly hurt them. And sometimes it's easier to make yourself the victim of someone's reaction than acknowledge the role you played before they reacted.

I Can Own My Snakes

Growth means I don't have to pretend every response I had was justified. Some things protected me. Some things hurt me. And some things that once protected me eventually became capable of hurting other people. I can own that. That's part of my rising. But I refuse to confuse accountability with carrying everybody's responsibility. I can own my snakes without pretending they grew in an empty garden. Before the anger, something hurt. Before the distrust, somebody was trusted. Before the hyper-independence, depending on someone didn't feel safe. Before the walls, something kept getting through. Before the lashing, there were lashes received. Before the woman learned how to protect herself, there was a little girl waiting for the people around her to do it. My mother introduced me to Medusa. Life eventually introduced me to the meaning I would find in her. And healing brought me back to the question I wish more people had asked: What happened before the transformation?

 Because before Medusa's snakes, there was a story. Before my defenses, there was a child. Before you judge either one, understand the roots. I have examined my snakes. Have you examined what you brought into the garden? That is where Roots to Rising begins.

Chapter Two: When the Safe Place Isn't Safe

There is something about Medusa's story that has always bothered me beyond the snakes. Where it happened. In Ovid's telling, Medusa's sexual violation happened inside the temple of Minerva—the Roman equivalent of Athena. A sacred place. A sanctuary. A place where violation should never have occurred. Yet it did. And when I really began examining my own life, I realized this part of Medusa's story followed me too. Because some of the hardest lashes we receive don't come from strangers. They happen inside our own sanctuaries. Sometimes trauma doesn't happen in the places everyone recognizes as dangerous. Sometimes it happens at home. Inside family. Inside friendships. Inside relationships. Inside institutions. Inside communities. Inside the very places and people we were taught were supposed to protect us. And when harm comes from somewhere you were taught to trust, you don't simply lose trust in one person. Sometimes you begin questioning the entire idea of safety.

What Does Safety Look Like When You've Never Really Known It?

Growing up, I eventually understood something that took me years to put into words: safety and the appearance of safety are not the same thing. A house can look safe and not feel safe. A family can call itself close and still be emotionally unsafe. Someone can say they love you while repeatedly doing things that hurt you. A friendship can exist for years and still be built on competition instead of genuine support. A person can tell you, I'm here for you, while making every vulnerable thing you share feel like something that might eventually be used against you. That story followed me for most of my life. Family. Friendships. Relationships. Different people. Different circumstances. Different chapters. But sometimes the same lesson wearing a different face. For years, I confused being loved with being safe. I thought if someone loved me, surely they wouldn't intentionally keep hurting me. I thought if I loved someone hard enough, understood them deeply enough, forgave enough, helped enough, gave enough, or stayed long enough, eventually they would learn how to love me in the way I was loving them. But love and safety are not automatically the same thing. Someone can love you and still not know how to love you safely.

A Sacred Place Can Still Hold Trauma

That's what I see when I think about Medusa inside that temple. I don't only see sexual trauma. I see the destruction of an assumption: I should have been safe here. There is a particular kind of damage that happens when the place where you were supposed to be protected becomes connected to the very thing you need protection from. Because now where do you run? What happens when the danger isn't outside the circle? What happens when the danger is standing inside it? For a child, that question becomes even more complicated because children don't get to choose their circles. Adults decide where they live. Adults decide who has access to them. Adults decide who is trustworthy. Adults decide what gets ignored, what gets addressed, what gets believed, and what gets swept underneath the rug. A child simply learns how to survive whatever environment the adults around them have created. And when that child becomes an adult, those lessons don't automatically disappear.

Survival Doesn't Always Look Like Fear

This is where people misunderstand trauma. They expect someone who is hurting to look hurt. They expect tears. They expect fear. They expect quietness. They expect vulnerability. But trauma doesn't always produce someone who looks afraid. Sometimes trauma produces someone determined to make sure everyone knows they aren't afraid.Sometimes fear develops a mouth. Sometimes fear develops an attitude. Sometimes fear develops fists. Sometimes fear develops independence. Sometimes fear becomes humor. Sometimes fear becomes control. Sometimes fear becomes anger. Sometimes fear becomes, I don't need anybody. And sometimes the person doesn't even realize fear is underneath it. I know because survival taught me some of those languages.

No One Is Coming to Save You

There came a point when I developed a belief that followed me for years: No one is coming to save you. That belief didn't come from a motivational quote. It came from experience. When safety repeatedly fails you, eventually you stop waiting for rescue. You become your own rescue. You learn how to read rooms. You learn facial expressions. You learn changes in tone. You learn when something feels off before anybody says a word. You prepare yourself for disappointment before disappointment arrives. You learn how to detach quickly. You learn how to leave emotionally before somebody has the opportunity to leave physically. Eventually, people call you independent. They admire how strong you are. They say, You always figure it out. What they don't understand is that sometimes independence wasn't originally a personality trait. It was an emergency response.

I Became the Person Who Tried to Save Everyone

But there was another side to believing no one was coming to save me. Somewhere along the way, I became determined to save everybody else. Because I knew what it felt like to need someone, I became the person who wanted to be there for everyone. I could see people's wounds. I could see their potential. I could understand why they behaved the way they did. I could find the trauma underneath somebody else's behavior even when they weren't willing to examine it themselves. And sometimes my ability to understand everybody else became the very thing that allowed me to repeatedly abandon myself. I gave context to everyone. I gave grace to everyone. I made excuses for everyone. They're hurting. They've been through a lot. That's just how they communicate. They don't know any better. They really do love me.Meanwhile, I wasn't asking the most important question: What is this relationship doing to me?

Fake Safe Spirits

It took me until roughly the last three years of my life to truly understand something: Everybody who feels familiar isn't safe. Everybody who says I love you isn't safe. Everybody who calls you family isn't safe. Everybody who calls you a friend isn't safe. And everybody who enters your sanctuary should not automatically receive permission to remain there. Some people carry what I call fake safe spirits. They know how to appear safe. They know how to speak the language of love. They know how to receive your vulnerability. They know how to sit inside your sanctuary. They know how to receive your love, your resources, your forgiveness, your understanding, your energy, your loyalty, and sometimes even your protection. But when it's time to pour something back, there is very little there. They want to receive without reciprocating. And because you're a giver, you may not notice the imbalance immediately. You tell yourself, I don't give to receive. I still believe generosity shouldn't always come with conditions. But there is a difference between giving freely and allowing yourself to be continuously depleted. There is a difference between loving somebody and repeatedly rescuing somebody who has become comfortable drowning because they know you will always jump into the water.

I Had to Stop Saving Everyone

This was one of the hardest parts of my rising. I had to learn to stop trying to save everyone. Not because I stopped caring. Not because I became cold. Not because I lost compassion. I stopped because I finally understood that constantly saving everybody else was sometimes costing me myself. There were times when I could recognize someone else's pain from across the room while completely ignoring my own. I could advocate for somebody else. Protect somebody else. Encourage somebody else. Give somebody else another chance. And another. And another. But when did I become worthy of that same protection? When did I become worthy of being saved by me? That was the shift. I had spent so much of my life learning how to survive other people that I hadn't completely learned how to choose myself. Over these last few years, I had to learn: Loving myself does not require me to stop loving other people. It requires me to stop abandoning myself in order to prove that I love them.

Then Protection Becomes Personality

This is where I see another piece of Medusa. Whether we interpret her transformation as punishment, protection, or simply part of the tragedy Ovid was telling, the symbolism speaks loudly to me. After trauma, Medusa became someone people could no longer approach without consequence. Think about that. There are people who experience enough pain that they unconsciously create the same thing: Come close to me and there will be consequences. Not because they are evil. Not because they don't want love. Sometimes because closeness became associated with danger. So they test people. Push people away. Become suspicious. Leave first. Lash out. Refuse help. Control situations. Keep relationships at a distance. Eventually everyone says, That's just how she is. But maybe that isn't how she always was. Maybe that's how she learned to survive. Pain becomes protection. Protection becomes armor. And eventually armor can start looking like personality.

The Armor Worked

This is something I refuse to disrespect about my younger self. The armor worked. It got me here. The mouth worked. The independence worked. The ability to detach worked. The ability to read people worked. The ability to keep moving worked. Some of the same things I eventually had to examine were once the things helping me survive environments I couldn't control. Healing required me to understand that without romanticizing it. Something can save you in one season and suffocate you in another. Armor is useful in battle. But imagine trying to sleep in it. Imagine trying to love in it. Imagine trying to receive love in it. Imagine trying to build healthy relationships while constantly preparing for war. At some point, I had to ask myself: Am I still surviving something that already ended?

Some Lashes Happen in the Sanctuary

This is where Medusa's temple means something different to me now. We tend to imagine danger as something outside. A stranger. An enemy. Somebody clearly identified as unsafe. But some of life's deepest lashes happen inside the sanctuary. Inside homes. Inside families. Inside friendships. Inside relationships. Inside communities. Inside spaces where you took your armor off because you believed you didn't need it there. That's why those wounds hit differently. When an enemy hurts you, there is pain. But when someone you considered safe hurts you, there is also confusion. Now you're trying to reconcile two conflicting realities: You say you love me. But what you repeatedly do to me hurts. For years, I thought love meant finding a way to reconcile those two things. I thought another conversation might fix it. Another explanation. Another chance. Another opportunity for someone to understand what they were doing to me. Now I understand something differently. Sometimes the answer isn't another explanation. Sometimes the answer isn't another conversation. Sometimes the answer isn't another chance. Sometimes the answer is accepting that someone can love you to the fullest extent of their capacity and still not possess the capacity to love you safely. And their limitation does not have to become your lifetime sentence.

Love Isn't Automatically Safe

Family can love you and still hurt you. Friends can love you and still compete with you. Partners can love you and still violate boundaries. Parents can deeply love their children and still pass down trauma they never healed. And sometimes we can love people while being unhealthy for them too. That's where accountability enters again. Love cannot simply be measured by what somebody says they feel. At some point, love has to be examined by what it consistently produces. Does your love make room for honesty? Does your love require somebody to shrink? Does your love protect vulnerability or weaponize it later? Does your love celebrate another person's growth or secretly compete with it? Does your love allow someone to exist without constantly proving their worth? Does your love give as well as receive? Because love without emotional safety can still leave wounds.

The Sanctuary Needed a Gate

For a long time, I thought having a good heart meant keeping the door open. Healing taught me that a sanctuary without a gate eventually becomes a place everybody feels entitled to enter. So I built a gate. Not a wall around everything. A gate.There's a difference. Walls say nobody gets close. Gates say access is intentional. Everybody doesn't get access simply because they know my name. Everybody doesn't get access because we share blood. Everybody doesn't get access because we've known each other for years. Everybody doesn't get access because they once had it. And everybody who says I love you doesn't automatically receive unlimited access to me. Love without accountability can hurt. Love without reciprocity can drain. Love without respect can control. Love without boundaries can consume. And love without safety can become another form of survival.

Everybody Doesn't Deserve Access

Healing did not teach me to remove every defense and become accessible to everybody. Absolutely not. Some boundaries are wisdom. Some distance is necessary. Some relationships need to end. Some people should never regain the access they once had. Healing isn't returning to naïveté. Healing is learning the difference between a wall and a boundary. A wall says nobody gets in. A boundary says you don't get in unless you know how to enter respectfully. A wall is built from fear. A healthy boundary is built from discernment. A wall says, I will never trust again. A boundary says, Trust will be earned. And there is power in learning the difference.

Maybe Medusa Needed a Gate Too

When I think about Medusa standing in that temple, I don't only think about what happened to her. I think about what happens inside us when something we believed was sacred becomes unsafe. You start questioning everything. You become guarded. You become selective. You become protective. Sometimes you develop snakes. I understand that now. But healing taught me that I don't have to turn everyone to stone just because somebody once entered my sanctuary and harmed me. I can simply stop giving everybody access to the temple. That is the difference between survival and discernment. Survival taught me: Nobody is safe. Healing taught me: Everybody doesn't have to be unsafe—but everybody doesn't deserve access either.

The Hardest Part Was Learning I Was Safe

For someone who has spent years surviving, danger can become familiar. Sometimes familiarity feels safer than peace. Chaos makes sense because you know what role to play in it. You know how to fight. You know how to survive. You know how to protect yourself. Peace is different. Peace requires you to stop scanning the room. Peace requires you to believe that every silence isn't punishment. Every disagreement isn't abandonment. Every mistake isn't going to cost you love. Every person isn't secretly competing with you. Every vulnerable moment isn't ammunition for later. Sometimes healing is teaching your body what your mind has finally learned: You don't have to fight right now.

Medusa and the Temple

So when I return to Medusa, I keep coming back to that temple. A sacred place where something happened that should never have happened. And I think about how many people are walking around carrying wounds created inside spaces everyone else assumed were safe. That's why I don't immediately ask, Why are you like that? I want to know: Where did you learn that you needed to be like that? Who taught you that love required armor? Who taught you vulnerability was dangerous? Who taught you that you had to fight for your place in every room? Who taught you that somebody else's light meant yours had to become smaller? Who taught you that being loved and being safe were the same thing? And who taught you that being needed meant you were valued?

My Roots Taught Me Survival. Rising Taught Me Safety.

I will never disrespect the version of myself who survived. She did what she knew how to do with what she had. But I also refuse to make survival my final destination. I don't want to spend the rest of my life fighting battles that ended years ago. I don't want every new person paying the debt of someone who came before them. I don't want protection to become a prison. I don't want the little girl who learned no one is coming to save you controlling every decision of the woman who now has the ability to choose who and what she allows into her life. I can protect her differently now. I can give her boundaries. I can give her discernment. I can give her a voice. I can give her permission to leave. I can give her the safety she once searched for in everybody else. I can still be a giver. I can still love deeply. I can still recognize somebody else's wounds. I can still have compassion. But I no longer have to bleed so somebody else can feel whole. I no longer have to repeatedly accept lashes simply because they're coming from someone who says they love me. I no longer confuse being needed with being valued. And I no longer abandon myself trying to rescue people who are comfortable receiving everything I have while giving nothing back. My sanctuary is sacred too. Maybe that's one of the greatest lessons Medusa's story leaves with me. Sometimes the deepest wound isn't simply what happened. It's realizing where it happened and who you thought was safe when it did. My roots taught me how to survive unsafe spaces. My rising taught me something greater: I am allowed to decide who enters my sanctuary now. We don't dig into our roots so we can live underground forever. We understand the darkness so we can recognize when we've finally reached the light. Medusa reminds me that even sacred places can become unsafe. My own story taught me that people called family, friends, or loved ones can still leave wounds. Healing taught me that I am allowed to redefine what safety means. I don't have to become harmless to prove that I've healed. I don't have to remove every snake. I just have to know which ones are still protecting me and which ones are keeping me from living. My roots taught me how to survive. My rising is teaching me how to live.

This is where is gets even deeper…

Chapter Three: I Became My Own Sanctuary

Becoming my own sanctuary sounded beautiful until I realized something: I had to live there too. It wasn't enough to guard the entrance. It wasn't enough to decide who could come in, who needed to leave, or who would never receive access again. I had to turn around and look at what was already living inside. My memories were there. My fears were there. My anger was there. My grief was there. The little girl was there. The woman I had become was there. And yes—the snakes were there too. That's when I realized becoming my own sanctuary wasn't about creating some perfectly healed, peaceful version of myself. It was about creating a place where all of me could exist without every part of me having permission to lead.

The Snakes Live Here Too

I don't want to cut my snakes off or pretend they never existed. They grew for reasons. Some represent lessons. Some represent instinct. Some represent boundaries. Some represent fear. Some represent things I learned when life required me to pay attention quickly. And some still carry wounds that need more healing. They are all mine. The goal isn't to destroy every part of myself that was created during survival. The goal is to understand which parts are still serving me and which parts are responding to danger that no longer exists.

That's where Medusa became more than a story about transformation for me. Her snakes became a metaphor for the parts of ourselves people often want us to remove before they will call us healed. Stop being so guarded. Stop thinking so much. Let it go. Move on. Trust people. Don't be so defensive. But what if healing isn't about cutting off every snake? What if healing is learning why each one grew? I don't believe healing requires me to become harmless. Healing requires me to become aware.

Fear Is Not the Enemy

One of the things I had to stop treating like an enemy was fear. Fear isn't bad. Fear is a tool. Fear has kept human beings alive since the beginning of our existence. It tells us to pay attention. It notices changes. It remembers patterns. It makes us pause when something doesn't feel right. My fear has protected me before, so I refuse to shame it. Fear earned its place in my story because there were times when fear recognized something before I had the words to explain it. The problem was never that I learned fear. The problem came when fear became responsible for making every decision.

Healing isn't me telling fear to shut up. It's me developing a different relationship with it. I had to learn the difference between fear giving me information and fear giving me instructions. Fear can say, Pay attention, but that doesn't automatically mean, Run. Fear can say, Something feels familiar, but that doesn't automatically mean, This is the same thing that hurt you before. Fear can say, Protect yourself, but wisdom gets to decide what protection needs to look like. Fear can speak. It just doesn't get to make every decision.

Fear Has a Seat, Not the Throne

I imagine my sanctuary with a table now. Fear has a seat there. So does wisdom. Discernment sits there. Experience sits there. Compassion and accountability sit there. The little girl sits there. The survivor sits there. The woman I am today sits there. Even the versions of myself I'm still learning to forgive have a place. But fear doesn't sit at the head of the table anymore. I do.

When fear speaks, I listen. What are you trying to tell me? Is something happening right now? Is this a pattern I've seen before? Is this instinct asking me to slow down? Or did something happening today simply touch something that happened yesterday? I don't have to immediately react. I can observe. I can investigate. I can wait. I can establish a boundary. And yes, when necessary, I can still leave. That's not fear controlling me. That's me using the information fear provided. Fear became information. Experience gave that information context. Discernment helped me examine it. Wisdom helped me decide what to do next. My goal was never to become fearless. My goal became discernment.

Medusa's Gaze and My Mirrors

Medusa's gaze turned people to stone. Mine doesn't. But I understand what it means for trauma to change the way you look at the world. When you've experienced enough, sometimes you stop seeing only what's happening in front of you. You start seeing the past layered over the present. Someone becomes quiet and you see abandonment. Someone disagrees and you see rejection. Someone succeeds and you see competition. Someone offers help and you start searching for the strings attached. Someone gets close and you start looking for the moment they're going to hurt you. Sometimes the danger isn't what you're looking at. Sometimes it's the memory you're looking through.

That's why my sanctuary can't only have gates. It needs mirrors. The gate helps me examine who has access to me. The mirror requires me to examine myself. That mirror isn't there for me to criticize everything I've done wrong. It's there for truth. What am I actually seeing? Am I seeing this person or someone from my past standing in their place? Am I responding to what was said or what those words remind me of? Is my fear showing me danger, or is my trauma showing me history? Was I fair? Did I communicate? Did I assume? Was that intuition or fear? Did I establish a boundary or build a wall? Do I owe someone an apology? Do I owe myself one? That's accountability. And accountability belongs inside my sanctuary too.

Trauma Doesn't Get to Continue Their Work

People can leave your life and still have employment inside your mind. Their voice becomes your inner critic. Their rejection becomes your expectation. Their judgment becomes the way you judge yourself. Their inability to value you becomes your question of whether you're valuable. Their abandonment becomes the reason you abandon yourself before anybody else gets the opportunity. One day I had to ask: Why am I continuing their work for them?

If somebody convinced me I wasn't enough, why would I spend another twenty years repeating it? If somebody made me feel difficult to love, why would I continue telling myself I am difficult to love? If somebody abandoned me, why would I continue abandoning myself? If somebody hurt me, why would I give that pain permanent residence inside my sanctuary? They don't get that kind of lease anymore. My trauma can explain what lives here. It can explain why certain snakes grew and why fear sometimes speaks loudly. But trauma does not automatically receive permanent residency—and it definitely doesn't get ownership.

Some Snakes Just Need a New Assignment

This is where my relationship with my snakes changed. I stopped looking at everything born during survival as something ugly that needed to disappear. Some things needed healing. Some needed releasing. Some needed forgiveness. But some simply needed a new assignment. Hypervigilance could mature into awareness. Independence could become confidence. Suspicion could mature into discernment. Anger could become advocacy. Fear could become information. My mouth could become my voice. My refusal to be controlled could become boundaries. My ability to survive could become an ability to recognize when somebody else needs a safer space—without sacrificing myself to create it.

The snake doesn't always have to die. Sometimes it just needs to learn a different job. That may be one of the greatest lessons Medusa gave me. I don't have to be ashamed of what grew from survival. I simply have to decide what purpose it serves now.

Peace Doesn't Mean Defenseless

I used to think peace meant putting every weapon down. I don't believe that anymore. Peace doesn't require me to become defenseless. Peace means I no longer walk around swinging at everything. There is a difference. I can have boundaries and be peaceful. I can say no and be peaceful. I can leave and be peaceful. I can recognize danger and remain peaceful. I can refuse access and still be healed. Peace isn't passivity or weakness. Peace is knowing I have the ability to protect myself without constantly needing to prove it.

I Am Learning to Trust Myself

Maybe this is the greatest safety I have found. I trust myself differently now. Not because I believe I'll never make another mistake. I will. Not because I believe I'll never misread someone. I might. Not because I believe nothing painful will ever happen again. Life doesn't make those promises. I trust myself because I know something today that the little girl inside of me didn't know: I will not intentionally abandon myself anymore.

If something hurts, I'll listen. If something feels wrong, I'll investigate. If fear speaks, I'll hear it. If trauma speaks, I'll examine it. If I make a mistake, I'll take accountability. If I owe an apology, I'll give it. If something is unsafe, I'll leave. And if something is healthy but simply unfamiliar, I'll give myself permission to learn it. I'm not promising myself a life without pain. I'm promising myself that I will be present for myself when pain comes.

Medusa Can Stay

So no, I don't need to throw Medusa out of my sanctuary either. She can stay. Not as the monster people made her into. Not as a reminder that everybody is dangerous. Not as permission to remain angry forever. She stays as a reminder: Look beneath the snakes. Ask what happened. Respect what protected you. Listen to fear. Use discernment. Examine what still needs healing. And never confuse protection with identity.

Medusa reminds me that what the world calls monstrous may have a story underneath it. But she also reminds me of something else: Understanding why you transformed doesn't mean you have to remain frozen in the transformation. The snakes are part of the story. They are not the whole woman. My trauma is part of my story. It is not the whole me. My fear is part of me. It is not my ruler. My anger has a story. It is not my identity. My scars are evidence that something happened. They are not instructions for how the rest of my life has to look.

I Became My Own Sanctuary

Becoming my own sanctuary didn't mean becoming perfect. It meant becoming safe enough to tell myself the truth.Safe enough to acknowledge fear without being ashamed of it. Safe enough to recognize when I'm wrong. Safe enough to change my mind. Safe enough to establish boundaries. Safe enough to love. Safe enough to leave. Safe enough to rest. Safe enough to stop fighting when there is no battle. And safe enough to let the little girl inside of me know that she no longer has to be responsible for protecting the grown woman. I've got her now.

Maybe that's what my sanctuary really is. It isn't a place without snakes. It isn't a place without scars. It isn't a place where fear never enters or trauma never speaks. It is a place where none of those things rule anymore. Fear can enter, but it brings information. The snakes can remain, but they answer to wisdom. Trauma can speak, but it doesn't get the final word. The past can visit, but it doesn't get permanent residence. And the little girl can finally rest because the woman she became is standing at the gate.

I am the sanctuary. I am the gatekeeper. I am the woman sitting at the head of the table. Fear can sit beside me. Medusa can sit beside me. The little girl can sit beside me. The survivor can sit beside me. Every version of me has a place here. But not every version of me gets to lead.

My roots taught me why the snakes grew. My healing taught me to understand them. My fear taught me to pay attention. My wisdom taught me when to listen. And my rising taught me that I never had to destroy myself in order to become someone new.

I didn't need to kill the snakes. I needed to become the woman they could trust to lead them.

That is my sanctuary. That is my rising