My podcast kicked off this art therapy project in 2023 with a declaration:
“Hi, I’m Jaye, and I am here to unf*ck myself.”
Then… I disappeared.
What can I say? Life happens. And 2023 decided to have its share of medical situations come up, from a serious knee injury to a nervous breakdown to a cancer scare. Working on a podcast was my last priority through all of that Life Happens Stuff™️. The only way out was through, and I’m grateful to say I did indeed get through it all relatively unscathed. The knee injury didn’t result in permanent damage, and the nervous breakdown got me connected to the most amazing doctor, who prescribed the medication that I wish I’d been prescribed twenty years ago—it has been that life-changing. Last but certainly not least, the needle breast biopsy I was dreading throughout the holidays came back benign in January! What a way to start the new year: breathing a sigh of relief that **I don’t have breast cancer! 😌🥹😮💨
Now, I’m ready to pick up where I left off. In a way, you could say that I was off in the real world unfucking myself! I didn’t have time to document it much, nor did I have the strength, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t “doing the work.”
Well, now I have the energy and the strength to document this process through art and writing. My creative spark is BACK! And I have a lot in store for Girl Unfcked in 2024!
I wrote my Manifesto of a Codependent No More over a year ago, and it’s taken that long to feel the feelings and let it heal me. Finally, I am ready to share it with the world. I wrote this to heal from a bad breakup with my ex-fiance, who had a serious alcohol use disorder. I was his ever-loyal, faithful doormat codependent, trying to “change him” some days while drinking shots with him at a bar the next. Rinse, madness, repeat. It was also written as I dealt with another person in my inner circle who is fighting for his life against heroin use disorder right now. Again, in believing that I could “fix him,” I only lost myself and further alienated him. I needed to detach, and my therapist, my meds, and a game-changing book, Codependent No More, helped me to do that, as has the study of Greek Stoic philosophy—the origin of cognitive behavioral therapy.
Writing this manifesto felt like cutting my codependent self’s throat and watching the universe bleed out of her. There’s something magical about what these words did to me, and I knew it also needed to be expressed visually and read aloud for my podcast because… art therapy! When I am feeling too enmeshed, too lost in other people, and too ready to clean up everyone else’s messes, this video/podcast episode will be my meditation and reminder that we cannot fix anyone. It’s not our job, and it’s not even possible. All we can do is love them and be the best version of ourselves we can be.
Below is this podcast episode, which you can watch/listen to on Spotify and also watch/listen to on YouTube.
Thank you so much for being here! 🥰
With all of my heart,
~Jaye 💖🦋
**If you want to watch vlogs about my first mammogram and what the biopsy was like, you can watch here and here on my other YouTube channel, Jaye Weighs In.
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