Safety, Surrender, and Soul

I’m grieving for a layer of myself I didn’t know I could shed…
And learning to embrace the gifts she left behind.

I’ve been vulnerable since finding myself on the floor of the farm in North Carolina.

In the mess of my emotions, last month I set in motion a series of events with consequences more difficult to face than anything I’ve experienced before. The carefree, fearless, childlike part of me that once leapt into uncertainty and trusted her inner nudges unquestioningly fell from a great height.

… and she landed face first, no hands to catch her. Alone, with nobody to help her get back up.

She had to do it herself. At least, for a moment. She had to make her own way back to her family, to the medicine that would patch her up and make her whole again. I don’t care what they tell you, there are no self-made anythings in the world. People need people.

This Experience Feels Like Brandi Carlile’s Voice.

Rocky. Raw. Painfully beautiful. Tired. Powerful. Like acceptance and sadness, hope, and strength.

I look at the life I’ve lived, and I am proud of myself.

And… I see room for forgiveness.

A lot of it.

I see more fear, strength, beauty, grace, and magic than I’ve ever noticed in myself before.

I look at myself now and see the ways that I am rare. And… I also see what that rarity costs. I see where the ways that I am special have been abused and used against me - both by myself and by others - and I see the ways that my being different has also saved and changed lives.

As a survivor of trauma, I see where I’ve received special treatment and felt unworthy of it… and as someone who grew up with a chronic illness and shorter life expectancy, I also see where I’ve received special treatment and let it get to my head; I made this special dose of compassion that I received from loving parents, friends, and teachers into an expectation of everyone who encounters me, not realizing strangers didn’t, couldn’t, know the whole story…

I didn’t realize I felt entitled to this special treatment and expected it from people who do not know me; along the way, I made the mistake of assuming anyone anywhere owed me any debt… they owed me their time, their attention, to listen and hear my story and allow me to influence them. Attention is the new currency, in many ways as social media and the internet continue to expand, and I took the generous attention offered me for granted.

I finally see why they say I’m brave…

I couldn’t see it before, and hated the compliment. But I see it now… with a sobering sense of gratitude, because now I understand the cost of my courage, too. Maybe I was a little brave before, but part of the “courage” everyone saw in me was the blissful ignorance of what exactly I was revealing and risking. The brave part is now - it’s the continuing to share with courage, after recognizing the cost and the risk.

When I look at who I am, the way that I share myself, the wounds I’ve opened and faced and shared in such courage I see that I am different in more than just the things that I’ve experienced and overcome. I’m different in more than just my genetics and my dedication to self-awareness, healing, and personal responsibility for being the change I wish to see in the world.

I’m looking at myself with eyes open… and what I see is someone who is tired, sad, and lonely, as well as bright.

I see someone who is capable of being fiercely kind and loving, and I also see someone who can be quite harsh. I’m capable of an incredible depth of understanding and limitless grace for myself and for others. In myself, I see a light, and I see how that fragile light flickers, but won’t go out. I appreciate that strength more today than I did a month ago, or even just yesterday.

These Past Few Months, I’ve Been On A Train Going Way Too Fast.

What meant most to me wasn’t at all what I was focusing on… though I thought I was. I was focusing on growing my income, increasing my capacity to receive and let more in, especially in terms of money and enjoyment without guilt or shame… because I believed powerful women when they told me I was lacking in these areas. I trusted them without question, and began following in their footsteps. And their footsteps worked - to bring me closer to the goals they had for me… but I didn’t notice the trail of footprints behind me taking a sharp left, where the path of my heart and soul took a gentle right.

I understand that heartfelt conversations, walks in nature, and inner peace don’t pay the bills.

I understand that homelessness, starvation, and addiction are very real.

And yet…

It’s not homelessness, starvation, or addiction that very nearly cost me my life last month.

It was emptiness, aloneness, self-centeredness… Self-judgment and disconnect.

The very things my precious heartfelt conversations, walks in nature, and inner peace cure in me are what almost stole my life. They are the fuel and foundation for everything else that I do, because without that depth, I cannot exist.

The scary thing? That blade touched my arm, and I have no memory of the moments before.

There was no conscious decision. There were no substances involved. It was just me. By myself. With a lost and scared little heart. Slipped into a moment of terrifying autopilot, I nearly ended my life. I was making more money than I’ve ever made in my life, my bills were paid, and I almost ended it all. A robot. Gone.

The cold blade startled me; it brought me back.

I remember so many nights spent on freezing bathroom floors, curled up in the bottom of a rusty clawfoot tub, feeling my heart and the body around me seeming to crumble. Weak, empty, afraid… and in those moments, I hated the cold. I thought, “just make it end. Just let me go.”

I longed for warmth, I resented the man who couldn’t give it to me. I beat myself up for not knowing how to give it to myself in a steady stream that kept me off the freezing floors where I would wish for annihilation. Not to die, just to have never existed at all. To be wiped away, to leave without hurting anyone. To just let it all go. To be done.

It’s a testament to the Great Mysteries that same harsh cold I once wished away would later save my life.

The cold things in life, I’ve so often taken for granted. I appreciated a cool November morning in my RV on the Oregon coast when I was at my strongest and most peaceful… but beyond that, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t wish the cold away. Longing for winter to end, soaking in boiling hot showers to burn away the dirty homes and beds and memories I left behind on any given day… Always a lover of autumn, never a fan of winter. That point of almost cold was my greatest joy.

And now… I understand something new.

Cold is life, too. Winter is important. In desolation, emptiness, grief, ambiguity, and the painful reality of consequences that stretch out for an uncertain length of time, there is life, too. The cold stimulated my roots, they tensed up around my core and I could feel them, painfully aware that they existed… I came to know myself in a new way. Frigid, but strong. I felt little messengers of love and grace dancing around my frozen roots, tending to the cracks, warming them little by little. In the cold, we lean into community. We lean into our reserves, our resources, the deep-rooted strength we might never use otherwise.

And so it goes.

In the cold of this experience, I saw my commitment to love and kindness from a new angle.

I saw my big dreams and the many, many things I long to do, experience, and create in this life. I saw the time, energy, and attention they would require, and this time I saw it with an awareness of my own limited capacity. I feel the cystic fibrosis in my body more with every passing season. My time in North Carolina and the near-loss of a most precious love put my mental health into perspective, too.

All this time, I’ve thought: I’ll get to it, I’ll make it better. Next month I’ll do better with this, next week I’ll start that. I’ll heal this one and uncover the trigger there and make it all better.

Today, I Realize… The Work Will Never Be Done.

The healing is happening, now and in every moment. And it will continue to happen. But there is no such thing as healed, for me. It’s a lifelong journey. It’s the reason loving kindness come so naturally to me. It’s the reason I feel such a call for grace toward myself and others… because deep down part of me always knew that this was my path, and I would need love, kindness, and grace to walk it.

I feel a gentle acceptance of the cycles of my mental health.

Emotions, memories, wildest dreams, they come and go… with the seasons, with the cycles of my body’s hormones, with the moon, with the relationships in my life, with the news of the world around me. I’ve always had an explanation for the ups and the downs, I made it make sense. I dreamed of a peak, where it would all settle down, become predictable, and I would manage it effortlessly, no longer exhausted or driven by the whims of mania and depression.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that there are things that will help. There’s therapy, there’s medication, there’s mindfulness, there’s Ayurveda. There are ways of structuring my day, my week, my seasons… And I will. I love exploring, growing, learning, and healing.

This is not a note of dismay; it’s a gentle and long-awaited acceptance.

And… I am also ready to set down the torch. I will not run this life as a marathon anymore. I’m ready to walk it, hand in hand with my sisters, my love. I’m ready to let the acceptance, peace, and power of my loving core actually touch these parts of me that I have for so long declared separate and unfinished.

This is not a giving up, but a surrender.

Giving up is to lose hope. I have more hope than ever. This shift is a coming home. It’s leaning into the embrace of my beautiful loving core… and the love and acceptance I have always longed for more than anything else in the world.

I am grateful for the cold blade, the ambiguity, the grief.

I am grateful for the money made, and the time lost.

I am grateful for the depth of this little soul I’m so blessed to be.

I’m grateful for this invitation to make peace with my mind and body.

I’ve always left the light on for others.

Now, I leave the light on for myself, too.

There is hope, love, light, healing, and so much beauty within and beyond this chapter. Just for today, though, I’m allowing myself to grieve and rest in humble peace with what has happened, what is lost, and what never really was.