My Odyssey: Face the Past

This can be a really difficult world to dream. Do it anyway.

We all deserve to live our dreams.

To pursue your artistry, to live a life you enjoy as much as possible, to invest in yourself and the world in unexpected, unprecedented, or unconventional ways takes a certain boldness. Despite the critical, anxious or cruel voices within and around us, we choose to act in defiance, love, and revolution. I love that for us as a world, I love that for you, and I love that for me. Because, we know in choosing that life, we are choosing to show up and do the work to work through feelings, face fears, and embody our personal power – continuously.

My journey to purpose is a long one. If you want the short version, it can be summed up as: Release the Past, Face Your Fears, Claim Your Power, and Live Your Life.

This is all about that first part of the journey: facing and releasing the past.

Twice now, I’ve woken up in a life - a life that I’ve created - to find out that it wasn’t mine. Each time, I breakdown, find the strength within, and start again.

Therapy was really the hammer that cracked me open and brought awareness to my many maladaptive patterns, my tendencies to emotional enmeshment, and high-functioning anxiety and depressive episodes. During those intensive three years of therapy, I began to practice meditation, a practice that changed my life. It started with ten-minute daily meditations. Then, I started to incorporate journaling, gratitude lists, yoga... my therapist was teaching me mindfulness to help me break the patterns and create presence.

I had been working weekly with my therapist on boundaries, balance, accountability, and managing my emotions. She may have been the biggest fan of my job departure. Leaving was an incredible step for me. I had been saving for three years. I was waiting for the perfect moment... it never came. So, I created it.

By the time I left my job, I was nearly eight years in. I was burnt out. I was angry, jaded, excited, and, most of all, hopeful. I was ready to live a life that felt more aligned to my values. I was ready to answer a calling I couldn't quite name.

I imagined leaving would be this beautiful spiritual journey (queue the rainbows, and butterflies). To me that meant, feeling connected, fulfilling, and free — things I hadn’t felt in a while.

And, I got did get that experience... but it did NOT look like how I imagined it would.

Weeks after I left that job, a loved one was diagnosed with terminal Cancer. I'll never forget the moment sitting on the ground in the living room as they told me. I still can't access the memory of that conversation without crying. In a single moment, everything changed.

That single event forced me into grief. Here's the funny thing about grief, once the door to it is opened, all the pain from the past comes pouring into the present. As if it feels called to the surface to be released in the tears that won't stop flowing. Grief is an amalgamation of sadness, pain, fear, anxiety, anger, and guilt - you're feeling it all at once and in cycles.

So I let it flow, I felt it all. I spent the following seven months in grief. That time in my life will get its own dedicated chapter: the lessons, the practices that saved and healed me... But ahead of that, I'll share this: when grieving, there are beautiful moments too. There is a greater level of gratitude, a returning to appreciation of the simple things, and a savoring of being present in your relationships.

For the first time, I was leaning into emotions. I cried... a lot. There were moments I screamed and raged. There were times, I sat in complete stillness trying to breath through the anxiety and fear. I relived memories from the past, the ones seeped in trauma that we lock in a basement within us and try at all costs to avoid. I worked on forgiveness and acceptance, as I processed my trauma and conditioning; I did the inner child work, to learn how to comfort myself, give myself words of validation and affirmation, and acts of service. For more hours than I can count, I sat in stillness to let my body just feel and to let my mind rest.

I leaned into those practices I started in therapy. I also discovered new practices that changed my life, none more than breathwork. I invested in working with a Reiki healer. I became mostly vegan and stopped drinking. I integrated sound healing. I did a ton of shadow work. I developed a dialogue with the universe. I walked in nature daily to connect and ground. I experimented with EFT tapping, hypnotherapy, shamanic healing, plant medicine, psychics, somatic massage... the list goes on. I really was open to everything and anything. I poured all of my energy into being of service to my family and myself.

During those months, I had incredibly beautiful moments of connection with people, with the universe, with myself - learning to trust all of the above.

I practiced boundaries in the most stressful of situations; I practiced communicating my emotions; I practiced acceptance, duality, and acknowledging my anger and pain; I practiced slowing down and rest; and, I practiced making healthy decisions.

I healed parts of my relationships with family, in a really meaningful way. I healed my nervous system and cortisol levels. My physical appearance changed, my anxiety and depression lessened (and I developed better systems for managing them). My confidence increased. I felt real and deep self-love for the first time.

Some of the practices stuck and I still work with them today, and some were good experiences that I don’t need to repeat. But, largely, everything helped in its own way.

I wish I knew going in what feels obvious now: emotions can get stuck in your body; if you, like I, repressed a lot as a coping mechanism, you have a lot to release and feel by the time you’re ready to face them.

Seven months after the terminal diagnosis, my loved one went into spontaneous remission. I was honestly unprepared and overwhelmed by the miracle. And, I learned another important lesson: as quickly as everything can change for the worst, it can just as quickly change for the better.

Today, they are healthy and living a more fulfilling life... and, so am I.

I moved a few months later. And, then began the second phase... face your fears.