Author: DragonflyRose

I live in Maine with my son, daughter, dog, and cats! I am a myriad of things and emotions. I love all that I am and all that I encompass, and I want the same for everyone else. I hope to inspire and to always keep growing! You can follow me on Instagram @thehippiegypsee or at my business DragonflyRose.com

The Weight of Being The Safe Place

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It is a deep pain that words cannot hold a flame to when I see my daughter experiencing the same traumas I endured. Her physical experience is different, but what she is going through emotionally, I know all too well.

Dissociation, distrust, not feeling safe. Anger. She is experiencing passive neglect and verbal and emotional hostility. This is causing her to retreat—to be angry instead of sad, instead of feeling the pain. She shuts down at her dad’s and explodes at home. I know why she does it. I know I am the only safe place she has. But some days I crack. Some days my voice raises and I try to get her to talk, try to get her to open up so she can feel better. It only makes things worse for her.

Today I am practicing breathing, being present. To be her anchor, not her fixer. To be her container, not her rescuer. I am learning to be the calm, safe harbor to her storm, so she knows that no matter what she is going through, I am her safe haven. That I love her no matter what she is expressing.

I need a circle of people who can help me support her in a way that shows her what true love and support look like. People who show her what softness is, what love is, what trust is. She sees that in me, but I am afraid I am the only one she sees it from. I know she doesn’t get it at her dad’s. I also know that she has no healthy male role in her life at all. She tells me every week how she has stayed in her room watching YouTube and shows for most of the weekend. She even eats in her room. She isolates herself, and he lets her… because it is easy. Easy to live the life you feel you deserve because you work… I don’t want my anger to steer this but I cannot deny that it is there and it is powerfully strong. Controlling it is exhausting.

I feel powerless, helpless. Stepping away from my fixer role has been one of my most painful lessons lately, especially for my kids. I am realizing how I have only ever surrounded myself with the wounded—with people who need help, with people who would rather not do the work to better themselves. With people who want to lay all of it on my shoulders. And I have done it, for far too long. I can see and feel the people I call into my life now are different, are willing to put in the work to be better people, without me pulling the strings to get them there. I know my energy demands a lot from people, without me even having to say anything. I know what being with me requires from someone, and I honor those who stay.

My life, my soul, is demanding something different from me now. It is hard letting go, letting that control go. But it has served its purpose. I am more stable and secure than I give myself credit for. I know I can do this. But I now also know that I cannot do it alone. And that no one truly can.

Tough Love Sorrow and the Memories it Brings

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Today, sadness is attempting to consume me as I try to fight it off. Tough love has never been something I could do for anyone I care about. Because of this, I have been an emotional doormat for everyone and bled my own emotions on anyone willing to listen to me, anyone willing to give me the space I needed. It permeates through every facet of my life, even my work. I choose roles that put me in a “motherly” position, caring for people and doing tasks that are well below my level of expertise. I am not challenged, and then I become bored.

I am shifting in a lot of areas of my life, and with that comes great grief. I had to tell my son that he needed to leave. That he could no longer live with us. The thought of my kids suffering has made me rescue them from everything, but in turn they learn nothing. My home is toxic right now, and as much as I try to shift it, it doesn’t move. I know we cannot have a healthy relationship and live together. It is just not possible. But this possibility of a relationship with him may never come. He hates me right now, and I don’t know that it will ever change. It is punching a hole straight through me.

It is also giving me insight into the pain of what cutting a parent out feels like from the parent’s side. It changes nothing in terms of me contacting my mother, but it gives me empathy and compassion as to what she is going through. It is a hard pill to swallow, that I have failed him. That for whatever reason, I am a villain in his life, when I have only ever tried to give him everything.

My sadness is immense this morning, and it is spilling over my entire life right now. I have healed my inner little girl — all the trauma she went through, all the pain, all the abuse. But that angry teenager, angry young mom, angry young adult is screaming at me now. Screaming to be heard, to be held, to be healed. I cannot push her away any longer. I need to face that pain.

My mother kicked me out of her house when I was 16. We were forced to live with our stepdad, a man with dark and harmful tendencies, who should never have been trusted around children – a pedophile who preferred little girls. It took me a long time to cut him out of my life, because he had, in some twisted way, rescued us from her. I often think about how deeply wrong that dynamic was. The place that was supposed to be safe wasn’t. But it was the safest place we had, and that is fucked up.

The thought of my son out in the world struggling, crying, in pain… breaks me in a way I can never be able to describe. And yet, I cannot take this toxic living anymore. How does one choose themselves over their children? I feel awful. I feel like a failure. And I feel like I will never see my son again once he is gone. For so many years it was him and I against the world, now our world is completely different. Changed. I know I could have been better, in a lot of ways, I have to live with that guilt. I just hope he knows how much I love him, even if he chooses to never speak to me again.

I am deeply, heartbreakingly sad today.

Introducing Sera – A new series on Substack!

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Story Sundays!

A New Series Begins Next Sunday
You can subscribe to my Substack and have it delivered straight to your inbox or just follow the link to the series page. I will post next Sunday April 20th at 10 am EST.
https://dragonflyrose.substack.com/s/sera

I have held this story close for a long time. It is one woven with memory, fire, and the sacred power of love.

Next Sunday, I begin sharing highlights from my novel in progress titled Sera. It is a story of soulfire and forgotten realms, of a woman who awakens in a world destroyed and must reclaim her power to heal what remains.

If you are drawn to fantasy grounded in emotion, ancient magic, divine lovers, and a heroine who remembers who she is one piece at a time, this story is for you.

A Story of Rebirth, Soulfire, and the Sacred Fight to Remember Who She Is begins next week. I hope you will join me.

This is the first intro stack about Sera:

https://dragonflyrose.substack.com/p/introducing-sera

Healing is Like a Hurricane After You’ve Deeply Cleaned Your House

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Preface:
I want to start by saying that I’m okay. Tone can be hard to read on a screen, and I want to be clear that this is me processing. I’m working through deep pains in my heart space. Healing is like a hurricane after you’ve deeply cleaned your house. It’s not neat and tidy.

I woke up feeling heavy today. Morose.
I’m facing a lot of things I realize I’ve just been pushing away – or maybe they’re just deeper layers of what I’ve been unraveling from my heart. There’s something I said to my ex that keeps playing in my head: “I feel like I’m a temporary in people’s lives. Someone who helps them be better for someone else.”

I can’t tell you how hard it is to walk past his window every damn workday. A good friend reminded me at work today that even though he was an asshole he taught me a lot and I gained a lot. He told me that if we accidentally make eye contact again to just remind myself that this was my LAST asshole and be grateful for that. I am truly grateful for the souls I have called into my life and the friendships that are blossoming.

For 41 years, I’ve sought love from people who are selfish, who only care about what they can gain from being with me. The woman within me is angry, but the love that pours from my soul tempers her fire.

This anger has brought me revelations about who I am and what I really want.
Not what my attachment anxiety wants.
Not what my wounded child wants.
Not what someone else wants from me.
What I want.

I just laughed because I realized that this is the same anger and fire that activates when I protect my children. It brings me to tears to think about how far I’ve come. I’ve become that protector for myself – the one I never had as a child. I will protect my heart the same way I protect my kids.

If you know me as a mom, you know I don’t control my children. I guide them. They’re not mine. They belong only to themselves. I’m here to protect and walk beside them, and eventually behind them.
Now, I’ve become that for myself.

I deserve someone who sees my potential the way I see theirs.
I don’t let people stay stuck in their stories or trauma loops. I push my partners to grow, to chase their passions – I’m ready for that same devotion. I want someone who truly sees me, just as I’ll see them. A relationship where we both push each other to be our best selves as we walk upon this earth.

I know I haven’t met this person yet, and I am ok if I never do. I’ll keep becoming better than I was. I’ll keep completing my goals and letting love flow from me. I am no longer searching for love, because I know that I am love.

April is National Poetry Month – Going BareFoot vol I Release!!

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Did you know that April is National Poetry Month?

On April 1st of last year, I started an inner office email chain at work. We each wrote one line of a poem and passed it to the next person. That small spark inspired me to finally write my first book.

I started writing poetry back in high school, around 2002, and have been dabbling ever since. In my late twenties and early thirties, I began sharing my poetry on my personal blog. The way I could weave words with imagery and the powrful force of nature became a mirror that resonated with me on such a deep and healing level.

Poetry became one of the tools in my toolbelt. I have used it to express my emotions, to meet my shadows with compassion, and to dance with my inner demons instead of fighting them.

Today, April 1, 2025, Going BareFoot: A Journey of Healing Through Words, Art, and Photography Volume I is officially published on Amazon.

This is more than a poetry book. It holds pieces of my soul portrayed in art, photography, and writings that emerged through my healing journey. I took it a step further by pairing some poems with reflections, personal stories, and questions designed to support your own path toward healing.

I invite you to take a moment and see if this book might be a good fit for you.

I have also created a companion journal to help you explore your own inner world and to walk this journey alongside me, barefoot and in the fullnes of who you are.

You can find the companion journal here:

https://a.co/d/1Tuayds

My Mistake

Published on by DragonflyRose2 Comments
Last week, I made a mistake.

What I viewed as a calling to heal a witch wound, and it was in many ways, led me down a path that began causing me more inner turmoil than I ever imagined it could. I realize now I was operating from fear rather than exploration. Let me share my story.

Last week, I joined a sex site to explore my sexuality and to make money. But to give the full picture here, I need to backtrack a bit.

A couple months ago, I was told that I should take the LinkedIn courses my company offers to buffer my resume. He was so pleased with himself telling me this, like he was helping me in some grand way. I asked him if this was for a new role in this company or another one. He squinted his face and, through a bit of a whiny timid voice, said, “a new company possibly,” and then proceeded to change the subject.

I could see that he thought he was doing some grand gesture of helping me. That was the furthest from the truth. Instead, an inner turmoil of stress and anxiety exploded and I found myself in a space of intense dread. I have been looking for jobs in my field ever since, and every one I have applied to has either been overwhelmed with applicants and I just was not chosen, or they want someone to sit and push out graphics like a machine, not caring if the end product is of high quality.

A coworker had mentioned a few weeks ago that I should do streaming because I have so many things that I do and that I am into and that people would be interested in watching all the stuff I do on a regular basis. He then jokingly mentioned OnlyFans, and even though I brushed it off at first it planted a seed in my mind that I mulled over it for weeks. I did tarot pulls, connected with my guides and divinity, journaled page after page on it. Finally, I decided to just give it a shot.

I signed up for a bunch of sites and waited for the verification processes to finish. On the twentieth, I was approved on one of the sites, so I decided to dive right in. At first it was fun exploring raunchy sexting, risqué topics, endless D pics, and receiving gifts of money for sending a pic here and there. But as I gained regulars who really just wanted connection, I found myself starting to care for these people. Not in a romantic way, but in a human, womanly way. They would chat with me like I was a person, and then all of a sudden the raunchy came out after a few days of messaging.

I found myself losing interest in chatting with them, but keeping it up because I was getting paid for each message sent. I was making decent money for just texting people. But when it switched from me doing it for exploratory reasons to doing it for money, something in me shifted. It challenged my integrity in a way that started me down a path I did not want to go down.

Lying to these men that I was pleasuring myself when I was cleaning, or at work, or simply out and about or watching a movie left me in a space of feeling in-authentic. Honesty is an integral part of who I am and what I am all about. I found myself living in this space where so many are comfortable lying, but I am not.

I even let myself get manipulated into connecting with one of them outside the app, which is a no no. We did not meet in real life, but I also did not get paid for the encounter. It was fun, but there was no real connection.

I was fine with it at first, but last night a small voice said, “you need to let them all go.” The voice was so quiet, I almost did not hear it.

So that is what I did. I let them all go. I said no. I did an Irish goodbye and deleted all the apps I was on, and I blocked the one person I connected with outside the app.

The voice that told me to let them go was not cruel. It was not harsh. It was quiet, gentle, and clear. It felt like love.

This past year has been a journey through my own layers. Through grief, through reinvention, through reclaiming my worth. I have traveled through my own shadows. I have moved across states and seasons, letting old versions of me fall away.

Tarot has shown me again and again that I am being called to build something rooted in truth.
To create, to connect, and to serve from a place of sovereignty, not survival.

And yet, there I was. Back in a space of performing. Back in a role that asked me to pretend, to lie, to mold myself into something for the comfort and gratification of others. I thought I was exploring empowerment, but really, I was replaying an old wound.

The witch wound.

That ancient echo of being punished for expressing too much, wanting too much, being too much. I realized that the healing was not in submitting to it. The healing was in recognizing it and saying no.

What I have come to understand is that self control is not denial. It is direction. My soul does not want to be caged. She wants to be free. But freedom is not found in abandoning my values to chase comfort. Freedom is found in choosing myself, again and again, no matter how quiet the voice or how uncomfortable the truth.

I am not here to sell parts of myself just to feel seen. I am here to be whole.
To guide others toward wholeness. To create from the well of my own healing.
To help people come home to themselves, just as I am learning to come home to me.

This is not a story of shame. This is a story of returning.
Of listening.
Of shedding another layer.
And for standing up, being more honest, more aware, and more rooted than before.

So if you are in a season of questioning…
If you are exploring parts of yourself that feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable…
If you are caught between curiosity and your own inner truth…

Please know this:

You do not have to abandon yourself to be free.
You do not have to perform your worth to be loved.
You do not have to stay in something just because it offered you comfort at first.

You are allowed to change your mind.
You are allowed to listen to your intuition mid-journey.
You are allowed to walk away from anything, even from the things you once asked for.

The path back to yourself is not always loud.
Sometimes it is a whisper.

And when it comes… may you have the courage to listen.