Inner Valkyrie Healing

Let’s do something a little different today.

I tried this AI trend and ended up loving the idea behind it, not because an AI can actually determine your “aura” or spirit animal, but because it can be a fun way to reflect on the qualities you carry.

Mine chose forest green and a wolf grounded, resilient, protective, intuitive, loyal, compassionate, independent, creative, and apparently a little wild. 😂

Now I want to see yours!

Upload a photo to ChatGPT and use the prompt below. Then drop your color + animal in the comments! 👇

Bonus points if ChatGPT absolutely calls you out. 😂

Then paste the prompt you already posted.

ChatGPT prompt: “Based on what you know about me and my personality, choose ONE color that best represents my aura or overall energy AND choose an animal or mythical creature that best represents me. Don’t ask me what my favorite color or animal is—choose both yourself. Explain why you chose each one and what personality traits they represent. Then use the photo I uploaded to create an artistic image of me surrounded by that aura color with my chosen animal beside me. Include words, symbols, or imagery representing the traits that led you to your choices. If you don’t know enough about me yet, ask me a few personality questions first.”

The darkness you’ve walked through does not have to be the darkness you live in.
Sometimes, the very experiences that nearly broke us become the ones that teach us just how powerful we truly are.

Healing isn't about pretending the pain never happened. It's about learning to sit with it, understand it, and recognize that your past does not have to control your future.
You don't have to fight every battle anymore. You don't have to prove your strength to anyone. And you don't have to let the things that hurt you steal the peace you deserve.

There is a fire within you that even your darkest moments could not extinguish.
The moment you stop fighting who you were and start embracing who you are becoming, you begin to reclaim your power.

Your darkness is part of your story, but it does not have to be the ending.
Let your fire guide you toward peace, not back into the battles you've already survived. ⚔️🔥

You Can Be Both.
A reminder that healing doesn't mean choosing between being strong and being human.
You can be a warrior and still have days when you feel defeated.
You can be the person who makes everyone laugh and still carry pain that nobody sees.
You can be independent and still wish someone would hold you and tell you that you don't have to carry everything alone.
You can forgive someone and still choose not to give them access to your life.
You can take accountability for the person you once were without spending the rest of your life punishing yourself for who you used to be.
You can be healing and still get triggered.
You can be grateful for the life you have built and still grieve the things you lost along the way.
You can be both.
Healing isn't about becoming someone who never struggles, never cries, never gets angry, or never makes mistakes.
It's about learning that you don't have to abandon yourself just because you're having a difficult moment.
Your strength doesn't disappear when you're vulnerable.
Your progress doesn't disappear when you have a bad day.
And your worth doesn't disappear when someone fails to recognize it.
You are allowed to be a work in progress and still be proud of the person you are today.
So give yourself permission to be human.

Even warriors need a place to lay down their armor.

At some point, you have to stop shrinking yourself to fit into spaces you were never meant to stay in.

Be loud. Be quiet. Be weird. Be goofy. Be passionate. Be awkward. Laugh too hard. Get excited about the little things. Take the ridiculous pictures. 🤪😂

Just be YOU.

Because the right people won’t need you to tone yourself down, perform, or become a more “acceptable” version of yourself.

They’ll laugh with you. They’ll match your weird. They’ll appreciate the parts of you that other people didn’t understand.

And somehow, when you finally stop trying so hard to fit in…

your people start finding you. 💕

Life is way too short to spend it pretending to be someone you’re not.

Stay weird. Stay real. Stay you. ⚔️

— Inner Valkyrie Healing

There is a kind of grief that is difficult to explain when the person you love is still here.

There’s no funeral. No final goodbye. No clear moment where the loss begins or ends. There is simply the space between what is and what you desperately wish could be.

That is ambiguous loss.

It’s loving someone deeply while simultaneously grieving the relationship, moments, closeness, or role you wish you could have. And sometimes the hardest part is that the rest of the world doesn’t recognize it as grief.

They see that the person is still here and wonder what there is to mourn.

But your nervous system knows.

It knows the cycle of hope, connection, separation, uncertainty, and grief. It knows what it feels like to be okay one moment and have something seemingly small bring the ache rushing back the next.

I’m learning that healing doesn’t require me to stop loving.

It doesn’t require me to pretend something doesn’t hurt simply because other people may not understand why it does.

Sometimes healing means allowing two truths to exist at once:

I can be incredibly grateful for what I have, while still grieving what I don’t.
I can carry hope without denying reality.
And I can love deeply without abandoning myself in the process.

Some losses don’t need a funeral to deserve to be grieved. ❤️‍🩹

-Inner Valkyrie Healing

PTSD and Complex PTSD can look similar but they aren’t always experienced the same way.

CPTSD often develops after prolonged or repeated trauma, and its effects can reach beyond flashbacks and anxiety into emotional regulation, relationships, self-worth, and dissociation.

Because some of these symptoms overlap with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), CPTSD can sometimes be misdiagnosed as BPD or the two can be difficult to distinguish. They are not the same condition, and BPD is a valid diagnosis in its own right. Understanding the why behind someone’s symptoms matters.

Healing isn’t about pretending the trauma never happened. It’s about learning that what happened doesn’t have to control what happens next.

You are more than what you survived.

Sometimes grounding isn’t about fixing what you’re feeling. It’s about reminding your body that you are here, right now. 🌿

Feel the water.
Notice the earth beneath you.
Listen to the sounds around you.
Take a slow breath.
Name what you can see, hear, feel, smell, and taste.

You don’t have to figure everything out in this moment. Sometimes you just need to come back to it. 🤍

Sometimes the hardest thing to see in addiction is the person underneath it.

Behind every label, every mistake, and every moment someone wishes they could take back, is still a human being with a story worth understanding.

We are all more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.

— More Than Sobriety: Understanding Addiction Beyond the Textbook

Sometimes the biggest change in life isn’t what happens to us, it’s what we choose in response.

Peace over chaos. Growth over comfort. Progress over perfection. Hope over fear.

You may not get to choose every circumstance, but you can choose what you carry forward.

Not every closed door is meant to stay closed.

Sometimes we aren’t ready yet. Sometimes the circumstances aren’t right. And sometimes there are things within our control that still need to change.

A closed door doesn’t always mean give up. Sometimes it means stop forcing it, focus on what you can control, and keep growing.

When the time comes, you may find that the door didn’t magically open, you became capable of opening it yourself. ❤️