I've been on this journey with all of you, so first of all thank you for being here and taking time to take time for yourself to do any amount of this work you can. I've been going through a lot of my past memories and am now aware what my mind so graciously was trying to do to protect me throughout my childhood and up into my adulthood, created these programs for me to survive. I understand now that even though they were meant to protect, they shielded me from actually truly connecting fully and living life as it was meant to be. As a child, I was this beautiful sunflower bubble, despite all the things I was experiencing, almost as if none of it ever happened, unless it was in the moment occurring, in which it was then fight or flight mode. I was surviving and moving through life like a bouncy ball, trying my best to do my best in whatever I did and I usually excelled. I was open to anything, but also not sure of anything as well. Who am I and what did I actually want? Most of the times I just wanted peace, I wanted others to be well, I wanted other's happiness, and I myself wanted to just be happy, simple and vague--perhaps because of how chaotic it seemed life was growing up. I was the negotiator in my family and also the one who knew where everyone's buttons were, I also had a pretty good idea on how to make other people feel better. Still to this day, I wish for other's happiness and love and completeness in whatever they desire. I learned a lot working with others in therapy and connecting to them and helping them find their way, I was also learning a lot about myself and how we hold onto and carry trauma, even if we are disconnected from it. My feelings and intentions for others comes my heart, but what I understand more clearly now is that I myself was never fully grounded, so all my efforts were not pulling the weight as they should. I also was not grounded enough to myself to be connected to what I really truly wanted and needed from life-so I had no real intentions for myself other than that and life was giving me that in return.