A Phoenix on Easter | Ashes Exposed

I haven’t sat down to write with my whole heart regularly in over a year… and this is the coming back. It nearly killed me to be away. If you want to hear about it, you’ll find the story in the words below. (Trigger warning - mention of suicide, self-harm, and sexual assault in a healing context.)

This grand adventure across the United States has been magic, but not all of it was pure.

I’ve been battling demons and in the upheaval of my peaceful, simple life in an RV on the beautiful Oregon coast, I accidentally upset the delicate balance of my loving core and the demons I had tamed, but not yet slain.

I’m Writing This Today In The Aftermath Of What Feels Like A True Phoenix Moment - A Rising From The Ashes.

Five days ago, I found myself with a blade to my arm and no idea how I’d gotten there. I’d sent away my most precious love and found myself alone on the wrong edge of the world - a farm in North Carolina, over 2,300 miles from my family and everything I knew before this pilgrimage.

In that moment, I looked down and saw what I was doing… and felt sheer terror at the realization that I never consciously made any decision to end my life, but I was just about to do it.

It was a 3am wake up call, the loudest of my life.

I got help immediately… help that pushed me to look around and see the resources I had within me to get through this dark night alone on the wrong side of the country. I was on the next flight back to my family. Feeling safe from myself, I spent the next few hours reuniting with the loving core I’d pushed away in the rush of adventure and chaos over the months before. I sat on my yoga mat for the first time in months, lit a candle and made a cup of peach tea… an old favorite I hadn’t had for months, that just happened to be stocked in the farmhouse’s tea basket.

By 6am, I had changed. Not completely, but irrevocably.

Gentle hands to my shins and thighs, deep hugs to my own heart… and words of loving, gentle, kindness spoken toward myself in stark contrast to the judgment and fear that had been blaring like a siren for as long as I could remember at the time… I saved myself.

I Arrived To My Family Like A Fragile Cloud.

It was my first time flying and I’d made a lot of beginner mistakes. My shoulders screamed from the weight of my wheel-less carryon and heavy purse, picked up and dragged along everywhere I went through the entire 25 hour travel period, including an overnight layover. My ankle throbbed and I regretted the boots I thought would help me feel strong on the journey.

By the time I fell into my sister’s arms, I’d slept only four hours in the course of 3 days and the world was spinning around me.

I overlooked the gift of family I have.

I’m grateful for their presence and patience.

We had a dinner just like we did ten years ago, everyone laughing and crying and hugging over a delicious meal… something I didn’t know I missed so much until I had it again… and as my eyes fell closed on the pillow that night, I felt a held. I slept peacefully and woke before the sun rose the next morning, teary and shaken, sore, feeling raw and vulnerable, but stronger.

In the days that followed, I heard judgment and scorn toward myself with every sentence that came out of my mouth…

Sharing the stories of my adventure, and jabbing myself for mistakes and foolishness in every line. I didn’t mean it, and I remember my awareness and that deep love for myself gently nudging each statement of judgment, countering it with reminders that I was learning, that I did hard things, that I am proud of myself, and that I have lived beautifully, kindly, that I’ve done my best.

For the first time in too long, I felt myself shining the same gentle, loving grace and acceptance on myself as I am always showing to others in their moments of doubt and weakness. There was no additional criticism for being too hard on myself; it was just gentle, loving understanding and patient redirection toward the love and light in my heart. It was like holding my own hand in the frozen aftermath of a traumatic event. I was in shock, but I was loved. I kept myself safe. I brought myself to the medicine of family, familiarity, grace, and beautiful fires and I had the courage to let it all pour in. Not afraid to show the tears and the pain, I surrendered to the love.

Everyone told me, in one way or another, that I was already all that I longed to be.

They told me I’m kind, gentle, loving. They told me I brighten the world, they told me I didn’t deserve the judgment. They laughed with me as I shared my realization that I can be an incredibly judgmental person - very attached to my idea of right and wrong, and stubbornly resistant to perspectives of anyone who has never personally blown my mind with their own compassion or wisdom.

On The Third Day Of My Visit Home, I Was Ready To Face How Disconnected I Felt From My Body.

My energy had been gone for a long time, and in the weeks on the farm, I’d eaten non-stop and still felt constantly tired and hungry. I felt weak. Something was wrong, but I refused to see it. In Idaho, I stepped on a scale for the first time in six months.I’d lost 21 pounds over the course of six months.

(And it’s important to note that I was at just the right weight for my body with cystic fibrosis when I left. I’m now dangerously underweight. A little cold or, ahem, the virus taking over the whole world right now or an exacerbation of my CF could do a lot of damage very quickly and put my life at risk. Being underweight is really serious.)

I reset the scale, sure that couldn’t be right. I was wearing my heavy boots. I’d been eating so much. Hundreds of hearty meals flashed through my mind in a moment of confusion as I tried to calculate the numbers and see what I’d missed. I hadn’t missed anything. I was eating. My body just wasn’t keeping any of it. Enter: sheer panic.

That safety and connection I’d been rebuilding with my body those couple of days shook like the earth beneath me.

I went to my family for silent hugs, in shock again. I looked at my skin, the circles under my eyes, the coloring of my eyes, the weakness in my gut and muscles… taking notes of which ones are typically due to which vitamin deficiencies (I’ve been through this before, common with cystic fibrosis, I just forgot about it in the midst of a big journey). As my calculations came together, I told my mom what I’d learned and got in touch with my doctors. We sorted out some plans, got me a cocktail of vitamins and enzymes to start taking, and the hugs and surrendering to the love and support of my family continued. More shock, more vulnerability, more fear… and somehow, more light, too. That loving core inside of me wrapped warm arms around my heart and told me we will get through this. I felt loved, held, and the kind of strength that does hard things, even when the results aren’t promised and the path looks more like a trench than a tunnel.

It’s April 4th, Easter Sunday,
and my first day back in Oregon now.

I can’t help but see the connection between the rising of Christ
and my own rising as I step out of my own ashes once again.

I’m alone and I am safe.
I feel at peace.

I’m going back to work (my Pinterest marketing business) tomorrow and looking forward to a beautiful Ayurvedic detox beginning April 9th. I love Carly’s detoxes, because the focus is so strongly on “more of what you want” and not at all on denying or starving yourself. It’s a 21 day process and it’s absolutely beautiful. Given my weight and situation, I’m using this detox and her amazing recipes to continue consciously increasing the amount of vitamins and minerals I’m consuming and to eat more living foods, prepared in ritual that brings me back into my body and reminds me to connect with that self-love.

(Wait, what? — I’m an affiliate for this program because I believe in its healing so deeply. I’ve followed Carly’s 21 day detox programs in the spring and fall every year since fall 2019, and it’s been a deep root in my life. If you decide to join, You’ll be going through it right beside me! Here’s my affiliate link to the page where you can get all the details. Carly sends me a commission for bringing you along, at no extra cost to you, and it helps pay for this blog, the productions of my books, and the purchase of the nutritional goodies I need in order to stay healthy!)

It’s always been difficult for me to rest easy in my own body.

The work I get to do in Carly’s Ayurvedic detox and her Everyday Ayurveda program help me reconnect and root down into my body every day.

This big scare got me thinking more seriously about that disconnect with my body, and I realized something:

I’ve felt so busy holding back demons of the past, like trying to control a dragon.

I was afraid and holding back because… the story I was telling myself is that distracted people allowed their demons to hurt me as a child, and later as an adult when I was raped by someone who was supposed to love me most… and I made a vow to myself that I would never allow my own distraction to unleash demons and cruelty on anyone around me.

Instead of trusting and inviting in any form of pleasure, trusting myself, and leaning into the light and love around me, I felt a need to freeze, assess, and prepare damage control for anyone my actions might hurt. I was so sure if I allowed myself to relax fully into the moment, that demon that hurt me through so many others would crawl into my skin and cause me to hurt other people too.

My greatest fear has always been hurting others.

And realistic or not, those deepest of fears feel very real.

They’re convincing, and there’s a sense of life-or-death urgency and danger surrounding them.

Through this experience of coming back to myself, I see now how I was listening to that fear and allowing it to choose the path for my life…

I believed it when it told me I was small, evil, unworthy, weak, incapable… I let it boss me around and break me down, and in listening to it, I thought I was protecting people from a monster in me. I thought I was making myself kinder, more thoughtful, and capable of deeper love and connection. That wasn’t true, it was the opposite. But I’m seeing the beauty in those intentions too. This fear wasn’t some horrible rotten thing out trying to destroy my life, it was just trying to keep me safe from my biggest fear of one day waking up a monster.

The outpouring of love and support from my family, friends, and readers over the past week has been the most healing of spaces to be held. I’m grateful for each of you.

The next step is to continue to practice embodying this love and grace.

I say practice because I know that I am already doing it, and I will continue to do it consciously with a dedication to bringing it out with intention each day. Practice.

I see the truth behind the fear. I see that I’ve become very much the woman I always wanted to be. I know that I am kind and loving and good. I know that I don’t hurt people on purpose. I know that I can be judgmental, and that’s okay. I know that I’m not perfect, and that’s okay too.

Yesterday marked the eight hour drive to my new home in Oregon. (It’s so good to be back.)

Before she left me here, my sister told me this story about how we all search for four-leaf clovers…

We seek them out thinking they’re lucky and so special… when really, they’re just a genetic mistake.

Especially as the daughter of a 16 year old mother, someone who lives with a genetic disease (Cystic Fibrosis), and as a person struggling with mental health and a family history of mental health disorders… this story was steeped in love and meaning for me.

If I’m not a genetic mistake, who is?

And yet…

I seek out the most precious anomalies and synchronicities in life. Those are the little delights I’m always noticing, searching for, appreciating, and sharing. That’s serendipity. That’s my faith.

And yet… I forget that so often that I AM one of those most precious little bundle of anomalies and synchronicities the universe has ever created.

What a gift, just to exist in any degree of self-awareness.

To see this sanctity and preciousness in the moments right as I live them.

What an opportunity to love, wonder, and feel the endless waves of awe and gratitude.

I had to travel to all the edges of the world inside and all around me, back home, and out to the edge all over again just to see what I have always been.

And now, it’s time to go and live some more.