It was not mine to carry
Trigger Warning: This post discusses surgery, generational trauma, and includes graphic content and images. Please read with care.
Back in April 2025, I had surgery to remove a 12cm dermoid cyst from my left ovary.
Rewind about 5 years to when the majority of the symptoms all started. I was constantly bloated, fatigued, lacking energy, having multiple naps a day, constipated, sharp pains in my lower stomach, heavy periods, you name it, I had it. At the time, I thought perhaps I had just eaten something that upset my stomach, and as someone with a Nutrition Certificate, I knew generally, the diet is the first place to start.
So, I went gluten free, dairy free and essentially vegan (I still enjoyed the odd bit of bacon or cheese throughout this period). But after multiple blood tests, my GP kept telling me that the issue was my iron because it was low and to “just take iron tablets.” Now, for context, for women, your iron levels should be between 60 to 140 mcg/dL, mine was 6. The iron tablets were horrible! It left me with a sore stomach for days and all bound up (sorry for the graphics!).
Now, the fatigue didn’t stop. And as a small business owner who was running a very busy wedding floristry business, I thought I was just tired from all the hours preparing and cleaning up weddings. So I started having some Reiki treatments to help with the fatigue and mental stress my body was under, hoping that the Universal energy would work its magic. And it did, for a short time. But without constant consultations, it didn’t last long. So in 2022, I decided to give up my floristry career because I was burnt out and fed up with the constant lack of energy. That business was my pride and joy and it was a difficult decision to make. I finished up my very last wedding in March of 2023.
It was after this that I decided Reiki was something that I actually wanted to explore further, and did my training. During this, multiple students (most who already had intuitive abilities) told me that my left ovary was feeling “off”. I brushed it off because, surely, I would know how my body felt. So for the next year, I would still be experiencing the bloating, fatigue and pain in my lower abdomen and trying to ignore it because the GP said nothing was wrong. But I knew there was…
I switched GPs and ended up seeing a lovely, young female doctor who listened to my worries and, instead of prescribing me more iron tablets, told me to have another blood test. My blood test came back as 0. No iron was present in my system, and I was borderline anemic. I was booked in for an iron infusion and within a day, I felt like a teenager again! I had so much energy, it was incredible! If only the first GP had prescribed this all those years ago…
Anyway, my doctor also asked to have an ultrasound done, and this would be the moment everything changed. Emotionally and spiritually. I went to my appointment and thought maybe the pain was because I had had 2 C-sections from having my kids. And as soon as the sonographer put her transducer on me, she said, “You have a cyst.”
Those 4 words would change my energy instantly. I was in disbelief. How could I have a cyst? Since when? Why? How? How? How?
I cried all the way home.
At the time of the ultrasound (January 2025), it measured 7.2cm and was located in my left ovary. Not surprisingly, because this was where my pain was. A couple of days later, I was back in my GPs office and she was explaining that it was a “dermoid cyst” and had been growing inside of me since gestation, but because of its size, we needed to get it out. She sent me off to see a gynecologist who ran some cancer tests, which came back benign, and I was booked in for my surgery on April 3rd, 2025.
Now, because I am who I am, and love all things to do with metaphysics and ancestral trauma, I thought that perhaps there was a link as to why I had a dermoid cyst. I own 2 very amazing books that talk about the metaphysical body and how our emotions/ancestral lines are tied to our physical symptoms, and the meaning wouldn’t come as a surprise to me: “Unfulfilled dreams. Holding onto regrets, which prevent you from moving forward. Fear of being hurt and taken advantage of. Holding onto disappointment and failures from the past. Buying into fears and false ideas. Allowing doubts and limitations to dominate your life.” - Inna Segal, The Secret Language of Your Body
Now, for full disclosure, I see, hear and feel Spirits. And roughly a week prior to my surgery, I kept feeling someone around me and seeing shadows in my kitchen. I tuned in with my guides, and it turns out, a great-aunt x18 generations back, had come to be with me as she was the first “witch” in my family and was here to help me “release” this generational curse. (Which is also wild, because in September of 2023, I had seen a psychic who said I have 18 generations of trauma to release.) Her name was Ingrid, she is from roughly the year 1530, and she was beheaded for being a healer in her community. That trauma has been passed down in the family line for all of these years.
The morning of my surgery, my dad dropped me off, and by 10am, I was in recovery. Everything went smoothly. They loaded me up with multiple packets of pain killers and I went home to sleep for what seemed like forever. Ingrid would only stay with me another 3 days post-surgery. I haven’t heard or felt her presence since.
At my follow-up appointment, 6 weeks later, my gyno revealed to me that the cyst was in fact 12cm long! It had hair, skin cells and tissue. I am still yet to see an image of it…
I can report I have been doing SO much better. I have no pain in my stomach, the bloating has subsided and I no longer get the sharp pain in my left ovary. My point in sharing this personal story is to remind you that sometimes, whatever you may experience physically, it isn’t yours. In my case, this was something that had been passed down through the generations of women because we had been silenced, put down and told to suppress our emotions. It finally stopped with me. It was an exhausting time mentally and emotionally diving into this story for deeper meaning (hello, my Scorpio placements!). Still, I also get the satisfaction that this will not be passed on to my daughter or any future female in our maternal line.
-Paula
Images 1/2/3: Prepping for surgery and directly after surgery.
Image 4: One week post-surgery
Image 5: Two weeks post-surgery