JULY 2024: having the courage to tell our untold stories
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
―Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
have you ever researched the life of Maya Angelou?
what fascinates me most about her is not only that she was a wildly acclaimed writer/artist, but the fact that like thousands of women, she knows what it is like to completely lose her voice and her power…and also what it’s like to reclaim it.
here is an important story from her life.
at the age of seven, Maya was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. he went to jail for this, and then was killed after his release. believing that her confession of the abuse was the cause of the man’s death, Maya became mute for six years.
in other accounts of this incident, it was recorded that Maya became so “frightened by the power of her tongue” that she made a conscious decision no not speak for those 6 years.
oh, the story of women and the relationship we have to our power.
of course, Maya goes on to become a huge civil rights activist — and actively transforms her own childhood trauma and societally imposed systemic racism in her works of art throughout the duration of her career.
her story is one of losing her power, losing her voice, in order to reclaim it.
this made me think about my own life.
how when i dared to publicly tell the truth of the abuse that was happening behind closed doors in my family, my father legally threatened to sue me. how this incident completely destroyed the relationship i have to my power and my voice…for years. like Maya, i didn’t sing for a full decade.
and this is the story of many women.
we live with untold stories that fester inside of us. we are taught to take on the opinions of others as our own and see ourselves through the eyes of a society built for men. we’re taught to be responsible for making sure people react well to our truths, rather than simply speaking them and letting people deal with their own emotions. we are taught to carry our mothers pain, our fathers pain, our families pain...to wear martyrdom and self sacrifice as a badge of honor. we are taught to betray our own inner knowings and voices and truths in order to coddle the feelings of those around us. we are groomed to bend to another persons version of the truth, of what it means to be a woman, of reality, rather than discovering and embodying our own.
we are taught to behave, to be nice, to be good, to be appropriate, but never to be ourselves.
and it takes a toll on us.
as a result of this conditioning, we are severed from our own power.
the kind of true feminine power that can only come from tending to our own bodies, truth, emotions, and authenticity.
so how do we get there? when we have been so conditioned away from ourselves in the most subtle of ways spanning over generations…how do us women truly learn to reclaim and embody our power?
well, we start with daring to tell the untold stories that live inside of us. we dare to allow our voices be heard and witnessed by safe others. and, we dare to stand rooted in our bodies and not abandon or shrink ourselves when doing so.
in telling our untold stories, as writer John Bradshaw says, we release the shame that “binds” us. in telling our untold stories, we let go of stagnant emotional energy that keeps our voices stuck on mute. we are able to rage and grieve and cry and say/do whatever it is we needed to in the moment where our power was violated and we couldn’t access the internal resources at the time. we release the shame and projections and opinions of others that we have taken on as our own truth. we clear ourselves out of all of the gunk that blinds us to the truth of who we are.
in telling our untold stories, we dare to say this is where i have been, this is what happened to me, this is what i have walked through…but this is NOT who i am.
one of my mentors, Adriana Rizzolo, taught me that shame can only survive in the basement. meaning, shame only survives when secrets are kept and voices stay silent.
shame cannot survive when a story, and therefore a voice, is set free.
so this month will be all about telling our untold stories.
on Sunday, July 21st, we will meet for Creativity Church and dare to let our voices be heard…in the kind of ways that truly set us free.
in the meantime…start journaling.
what is your untold story?
what did you/do you need to say but have never had the chance to?
what has been left unsaid?
what have you been afraid to share, to speak out loud?
what story holds you bondage?
who are you trying to protect by staying silent?
what are you afraid will happen, if you finally tell the truth?
of what happened? of how you felt?
of what you really think, feel, and believe?
bring your story to church.
(sharing optional of course)
LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.
SEE YOU SOON.
XX EMMA
“ i want to be the fiercest motherfucking womanthe world has ever seen”
hello to the beautiful beings of creativity church,
a couple announcements -
our first church service was last sunday!! if you missed it, you can review the recording on the members page - www.emmazeck.com/cchome
our next gathering is Sunday, April 21st at 1:00 PM CST. NOT this upcoming Sunday. i had to change my travel plans to LA because I do not want to be flying in the sky during a total solar eclipse LOL no thanks
3. we are still exploring the energy of the Goddess of Never Not Broken…and i want you to think about this some more.
instead of trying to fix yourself, what if you loved yourself right now, in this moment, without needing absolutely anything to be different? what if, even if the lover never comes, or the bank account never changes, or the habits never change, or the weight never drops or the wrinkles never smooth over…
you were still worthy and good right now, and life was still worth living and worth loving, even within all of your/it’s imperfection?
what if this was the portal to your uninhibited, bloody fucking FREEDOM???
“the way to God is simple
find what is still wild within you
and follow it”
3. if you feel led, in the Telegram group…share where you are from, what led you to join this space, answer this prompt/and/or dare yourself to write a poem from this and share it publicly 😉
“I AM LOVING MYSELF RIGHT NOW FOR ALL THE WAYS…”
or
“I AM MY OWN BEST LOVER BECAUSE…”
here is some fiery feminine inspo…
“I want to be
The fiercest motherfucking woman
The world has ever seen
With tits that reach up to heaven
And an ass twice the size of Kim Kardashian's
I want to have rampant sex
All day long, and pause
To jot down impassioned
Commentary
On orgasms
Commentary
On life
Commentary
On God
And how it's all the same
————Fucking———— commentary!
I want to bare an army of children
Who know their worth
Who follow their instincts
Who don't give a fuck about conformity.
I want to be the woman
Who's remembered, not by
Her name
Or body
Or face
Or job title
Or generous
Philanthropic offerings
I want to be the woman
Who's remembered by the ocean
Left in her wake
And the nakedness
That —— needed—— to be seen
I want to be the woman
That bakes a loaf so fucking tasty
It annihilates world hunger
I want to be the woman
Who can read this poem
And know, honest to God,
That it's okay to —— want—— anything at all
I want to be simple
To say what needs to be said
To look reality in the eye
To not hide
To question everything
I want to trust in the questions
To live the answers
I want to hold the woman inside
That still blames herself for
———EVERYTHING——
I want to be the woman
Who can look you in the eye
And be with your pain and mine
And see what's beyond
I want to be okay
With the ache
With the feelings
With the noise
I want to be much more loving
To myself
To look
In the mirror
And see the woman
That everyone else sees
I want to be
The woman I was born to be.
-LIBBY WEINTRAUB
LOVE YOU ALL, THANKS FOR BEING HERE. MAY WE ALL LOVE OURSELVES SO DEEPLY IT SHAKES THE EARTH AND RATTLES OUR OWN LIMITATIONS TO THEIR VERY CORE.
also i have a few live shows in California coming up soon. i would love to meet any of you who live there. you can see more info at www.emmazeck.com <3
xxx
emma fucking zeck
where you die is where you live / the goddess of never not broken
“she died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power” - adrienne rich
lately i have been chewing on the idea that it is through our brokenness that we find our power. so i’m going to tell you a story.
the quotes “the wound is where the Light enters you” from the ancient Sufi poet Rumi and the classic Joseph Campbell “the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure in which you seek” have been swirling around in my sometimes what feels totally cracked out psyche. i come from good people who were broken by life and never knew how to really deal with it. this brokenness manifested in shit storm tornadoes of mental illness and addiction and it is now, in my late twenties, that i feel myself really coming to terms with the cards that i was dealt and how deeply i have been impacted by these cards, for better or for worse.
for a long time i’ve run from it all, trying like hell to cover up the deep swell of grief that haunted me through various forms of escape… until now.
i am at a place where i am gritting teeth. truly facing my own demons and that of my lineage so that i can live a life where i don’t feel haunted but instead am making love to the places within me that are totally shattered.
it’s a scary thing to admit you are broken.
especially when you have a public persona that is wrapped up in being a fiery, outspoken, confident “independent” woman. whatever that means.
this side is true of me, yes, but the deeper reality underneath it all is a little girl who was abandoned, betrayed, and left for dead by those who she loves with all her heart.
in other words…she’s fucking heartbroken. puke. vomit. death. no breath. sorrow. fear. black holes. more death.
but i can’t admit i’m broken. i’m supposed to be confident for my instagram followers! i’m supposed to think positively all the time in order to manifest anything! i’m supposed to look hot and make people laugh in order to get likes and stay relevant! i’m supposed to be the fully integrated, fully high vibrational, fully cleansed spiritual guide for the women i teach and the people that look up to me. blah blah fucking blah.
it is in our brokenness that we find our power.
my priorities have changed since admitting i’m broken and it seems that life has forced me to completely let go of trying to control everything, from my family to my body to the way others perceive me. needing to staying relevant..to who?! scarcity. fear. isolation and being terrified to connect with others because of the ways i’ve been scapegoated in the past. “reprogramming my subconscious brain to only think about butterflies and fucking rainbows so i can manifest 10 million dollars in one day” restricting myself from coffee or cigarettes or shit that brings me joy because it is not “spiritual” to do.
since admitting i’m broken, all i want to do is love.
myself. the women i teach. my family in all their fucked up glory. the world in all its fucked up glory. my friends. my animals. my lovers. the Earth. my poetry, my work, MY SACRED AND BEAUTIFUL AND BROKEN AND CHAOTIC AND TENDER EFFING LOVING LIFE.
when we admit we are broken, when there is no where and no one and no thing to turn back to, when all of our coping mechanisms and ways we escape have run their course, when we cease to run away from ourselves for one more second and go into the belly of our grief, our personal story, our humanity, our what feels like grime and filth, the places that are tender and terrifying and troubling to taste…
“It seems that all my bridges have been burned. But, you say that's exactly how this grace thing works” -Mumford and Sons
…we find a power that is not dependent on anything outside of us. we touch something that can never be destroyed, tainted, smeared, stolen or damaged by anything in this world. something ancient, holy, and wild is revealed to us through our daring surrender of how we have been pierced. we become like the oak tree who has roots deep down into “hell". (that tasting of hell is the only reason the oak tree is so mothafucking strong) we become like the bison who run head on into snowstorms because their instincts know that running away will only make them weaker and the winds hit even harder.
we become the eye of the storm, the tornado, the hurricane.
not to master the chaos of life. but to literally dance with it. to be transformed by it.
we become like the ancient Hindu Goddess Akhilandeshvari (ahk-ee-lan-da-swari), the Goddess of Never Not Broken, of who i was recently introduced to by my best friend.
“Ishvari” in Sanskrit means “goddess” or “female power,” and the “Akhilanda” means “never not broken.” the philosophy is that her brokenness brings her closer to God and therefore she wishes to stay that way. she is usually depicted riding a crocodile. it is said that the crocodile represents our reptilian brain, which is where all of our trauma, past programming, our coping mechanisms, our fear and all of the walls we have put up to keep ourselves safe, they live in this part of our brain. the parts of ourselves that we would rather meditate or medicate away - the ugly, the hag, the pain, the suffering, the angst, the loneliness. the dirt and holy broken places that we stuff underneath our beds or in our laundry baskets before a friend comes over so everything looks perfect and put together and instagram worthy.
so this badass bitch is literally riding the crocodile…her trauma, her pain, her personal story…instead of running from it or cowering in the face of it or pretending that it doesn’t exist. she’s not stuffing her shit in a hamper and going about her merry way - she is not trying to control it by measly attempts at behavior management - she is RIDING. IT. ALL.
she’s not ashamed. sure maybe she’s afraid, but that fear sure as hell doesn’t stop her. and of course, i believe that embracing her brokenness is where she finds her strength, her magic, her power.
it’s hard to find a lot of information on this Goddess and i believe thats because her philosophy is so opposite of what we are taught, of the culture we live in.
especially in spiritual spaces nowadays, we are taught behavior management instead of getting to the root of what ails us. we are taught to transcend our humanity, and told that maybe one day if we meditate enough or eat clean enough or pray enough we will get to a place of enlightenment…except that shit doesn’t work, hello haven’t we all tried it?!
and…the root of our pain is where juice and the glory and the medicine lives. so when we try to transcend, when we try to control life, we are going against the flow of life instead of with it.
and as we all know, resistance to the flow causes us to become trapped in fear, habits, and belief systems that make us feel small, timid and disempowered.
the breaking open of our hearts and our wounds is also the breaking down and dissolving of the kind of fear that keeps us trapped in our own limited minds. they are one in the same. you know how everyone says the breakdown leads to the breakthrough? yeah well what they didn’t tell us is that we will do this thousands of times in one lifetime. and all of it is to reveal more of our true essence.
thank God we are gathering now so we can walk this path together.
here is an article where you can read more on the badassery that is Akhilandeshvari.
so, where do we go from here?
well, for the month of April in Creativity Church we will be exploring the energy of this Goddess and how in humbly surrendering to ways in which we have been broken… the truth of who we are and the love and grace and beauty and expansion that is our true nature gets revealed on even deeper levels.
we are going to be diving into transforming our wounds through art.
we are going to write to and from the places where we have been broken and shut ourselves off from love. we are going to learn how to make love to our wounds. to lick the dirt and grime and filth. our power comes from the places we have been pierced and stretched and tasted death.
not from trying to pretend we are perfect or fully integrated or whole.
❤️
the prompt for the month of April is:
“goodbye to holding it all together…”
and to give you some inspo,i wrote a song that will be on my upcoming album ECLIPSE - it’s unreleased and is called Tell Me. you can listen to it here. i feel that this perfectly encapsulates the innocence and vulnerability that is a heart cracked wide open. you can listen to this song and receive my words as fuel to ask and pray for the Divine to reveal to you the magic that exists deep within your bones.
lastly, our first two calls are as follows:
Sunday, March 31st at 1:00 PM CST
and April 7th at 1:00 PM CST.
this will be ceremony style so come as you are. whether you are broken as i am or on top of the world or both or somewhere in between, i hope this space brings you empowerment and a sacred remembrance of why the fuck your soul chose to come to this planet.
mark your calendars now and if you can’t make them live, as long as you have a membership to this space, all calls will be available underneath the library tab for you, for us, forever. :)
xx
emma