So I did

‘So much has changed’ an understatement for the year 2020. This time last year I was in my marital home, in a different job, my a horse and two cats alive and well, teaching yoga classes out of my studio. 

12 months, 365 days ago. That is a blink of an eye, a drop in a bucket. Where we’re you on your life path a year ago?

Transformation and rising to the challenge has been the theme of this year. I have found foot holds, and small caves to rest in during the metaphorical rock face mountain climb- grateful for each moment of pause and self-reflection. 

I am what my therapist would call a ’surviver’. It sounds glamorous… It isn’t. My primary way of dealing with situations is to ‘survive them’. That means I shed things, people, and places quickly, loosening my burdens or responsibilities in order to survive.  

Imagine you are floating in a little boat on the ocean. It is a calm and beautiful day. You have everything you love and need with you on your boat. Then, all of a sudden, a storm kicks up. To survive the storm, my first reaction is to start throwing things overboard. <— welcome to my shadow work.

This year was important for me to experience because it forced to me face some of my truths about my ‘survivalist’ mentality. 

The first truth; I was raised in isolation. The woods, birds, and frogs were my friends. I grew up making imagination my playmate. I would take to the woods, the fields of the farm, and the comfort of my own companionship to overcome my loneliness. 

When the pandemic hit my county and we shut down, I was scared, as we all were, I sank deep into my childhood experience. The isolation reminded me of my youth, at 4 years old, wondering around in wooded groves, talking to wild animals, allowing stillness and solidarity to be my kinfolk. 

I was was born to overcome isolation while making friends with it. 

The second truth; No one said ‘I love you’ growing up. There were no hugs or kisses, no comforting cuddles when I fell or scuffed my knee outside. I wasn’t told I was beautiful, smart, or kind. I didn’t have any sort of role models for how to help others feel respected, nurtured, or loved. Diminishment of self and being the preverbal doormat was how I was raised to behave to ‘fit into’ society.  Be quite, do what they say, and take my punches without flinching. I have given many years of my life to making others feel more comfortable with my presence, to be small and of service. Like many women and girls, I was brought up to fit into a box that a man would find appealing.

During COVID, I isolated in the Catskills, with limited internet and no TV, I was sitting with myself a lot. No distractions. In that time I sunk, like many of us did, giving into a certain level of fear and the question of ‘What will become of me now?’. That is when I took to the yoga mat, I meditated, prayed, and stared out the window at the early spring days, when night came I stared at my own reflection asking the universe ‘What now?’ it answered…’Focus on yourself.’ 

So I did. 

The third truth; through my suffering as a child I learned who I was as a person, my truth. I learned that I cannot control anyone else but myself. I learned how to survive my situations. I learned the value of my own thought and that my power frightens weak people. 

When we went into ‘lockdown’ I had to make a choice on how I was going to navigate the whole experience. I wrote down steps, changing how I would ‘survive’ to how I would ‘THRIVE’ during the pandemic. I wrote down several things that I would do every day or week to THRIVE in the situation. 

Some examples were to do my yoga, sit in nature, write and do my artwork every day… also to connect with another person, begin a search for a romantic partner who wanted to be on this journey with me. 

So I did the unthinkable. After sifting through my work in isolation, focusing on myself, and actively manifesting how I want to feel with a new life partner- I started dated, for the first time in 7 years, during a global pandemic. 

From this experience I learned that affirmation doesn’t really care who you are, but what you think and feel regularly, and it will, without a single doubt, manifest your thoughts again and again without fail into the physical world. 

The pandemic brought me a gift, the ability too see every situation as an opportunity. 

An opportunity to learn, reconnect with myself, love when it is hard or scary, trust the process and myself, trust in my feelings, respect myself, and dive deep into my shadow.  It gave me the opportunity to accept loss, grieve completely and fully, accept what I cannot change, and to grow as a person. 

So, where am I at the end of 2020?  

For me it feels like the best is yet to come, there are so many wonderful things to look forward to.  My third eye is open, my heart is full and my mind is ready. I feel confident and strong in my abilities going into the next year, this next phase of things. 

I wish you peace and deep self love for the new year. My hope for you is to walk in your life knowing that every situation is an opportunity, and that you are not alone in the journey. 

Through Flames and Darkness

Thanksgiving and November in general has to be my most difficult time of year. The idea of family gatherings bring me nothing but a burning through my chest: a mix of hope and loss.

How green I was five years ago, my last name recently changed through marriage and struggling though my second semester of student teaching in a Pittsburgh inner city high school. Still fresh with the ideals that had been presented to me through my life- some sort of fantasy intertwined with hope and crushing disappointment. 

I wish I could even remember what I was trying to teach the students that day, or what topic my after school course was when I got the email, (yes… email) that my house had been lit on fire and was currently being extinguished.  I think the landlords even said ‘it’s all been taken care of.’ like it was a broken hinge on the door or someone mistakenly put my mail in the wrong slot. 

Lights from fire trucks were blazing as I pulled up. The company who had been hired to fix the roof had lit it on fire by mistake when using a blowtorch. I entered looking for Whittaker, ignoring all the men who tried to talk to me about logistics and insurance. 

He had been home alone, just a kitten at the time, and after searching and calling for him he finally appeared, shaking and scared. I pulled him to me and breathed him in, soothing his fears. 

That’s when the phone rang: 

“Your mom is dead.” 

A high-pitched ringing in the ear and breath stopped in my lungs. At least the voice was familiar on the other end of the phone, gentle cool, begrudgingly giving me this tidbit of information, my grandmother.  

Firefighters boots heavy on the floor behind me tracing patterns on the old wooden floorboards now covered in soot in water. The only words I could utter from my lips were “ okay”  before ending the phone call and standing in the war zone in my own home, so different from how I had left it that morning.  

Hands shaking, I dialed my new husband, I tell him that my mother has died, over 1000 miles away from my now ash soaked linen.

The cleanup crew sent in women, with mops and buckets, brooms, and towels. One of them stoped, noticing my tears. She ran to me giving her condolences on the fire, the loss of my possessions, the inconvenience of my displacement.

I allowed myself to confide in this woman, a stranger, that my mother has just died. Instinctively she reached out, pulling me to her chest, as I began to sob, my inhales catching her gentle perfume. She smoothed my hair and tells me she is sorry, comforting a little child in her arms.  

Women do this, we sooth, comfort, give of ourselves to complete strangers, to loved ones, to the little children whose tears are hot and sticky on their cheeks. It is race-less, creed-less, genderless, to whom we give this love.

As women we feel such deep emotions, beautiful things like love and hope, and we can feel pain in others as if it was our own. It is such a powerful thing to be able to comfort, to lean into a woman and ask for help, to be given that help so freely. How powerful, how absolutely gorgeous in our divine nature, our truth. 

From the literal ashes of my worst day on this earth I have rebuild myself, piece by piece. 

This is the truth you have been needing to hear- If pain can be acknowledged and given comfort as if it was a little child; if you allow your self-love to be a balm, you will heal.

It is guaranteed.

It’s not easy, to push up against these big feelings; to allow yourself to fall to your knees in agony, to cry unapologetically, to beg God or the universe to ease your suffering, to feel every bit of the experience, but it is truly necessary. It passes. It is but a storm on a black sand beach.  It is temporary. 

You must experience it, know that you are indeed strong and worthy, you will be there at the other end of the storm. You will hear your own breath in your lungs, your heart beat in your chest. You will still be alive at the end of it. It is not the end.

You are not alone, you never were alone. The worlds women are here to hold you while you sob, even if it’s just in our hearts- we all feel you through the flames and darkness.  

current work in progress- Acrylic on paper 12”x18”

Let it Burn

I have endured my fair share of emotional pain in my life. I first started my yoga journey, one hundred pounds heavier and full of self loathing, standing winded at the top of the single story steps to the studio with unease in my heart. I had recently moved to Pittsburgh to start a new life, leaving a career in EMS in New York to earn my masters degree in teaching.  The rent prices then were easily manageable with a meager hourly wage and my tuition costs included some living expenses. Because I was alone, unmarried without family in a 2000 mile radius, I hedged my bets on self-improvement in the vein of my own education. While this may seem logical, to continue to go to school for greater career goals and financial independence, it was more that somewhere deep inside me I knew I was worthy a good life. This spark of resiliency, is key, I think, to healing emotional pain and trauma. 

When I took my first yoga class at 25, I had such a terrible relationship with my body and my feelings. I felt I wasn’t enough. Period.  If I had been enough my parents wouldn’t have physically hurt me, or drank, or caused so much deep emotional pain. Lovers would have stayed loyal, been kind, listened to me and treated me with respect. Love was missing from the outside world and, therefore, within. 

I had been fighting the idea of yoga for years. During my time as an undergraduate the yoga studio down the street offered $2 classes. I was encouraged by everyone to attend. They said I would love it, it would be so good for me. I resisted, fearing I would start crying if I had to walk into a room full of strangers and be told I was worthy of love. Little did I know that, yes I would absolutely cry, but that would be much later and extremely liberating. Because the cry we have during our yoga or meditation is our truth bubbling to to surface and letting go of self-doubt and emotional pain or blockage. It’s very healing. 

In my own studio I tell my yoga students with a grin ‘If you aren’t crying, I’m not doing my job!’ Inciting laughter. They laugh because there is a undeniable untold understanding that they are safe to cry and let go with me. Those who are not ready don’t practice with me, and those who are edging the line keep coming back. 

I found a spot on the floor and clumsily laid down my mat somewhere in the back of the small homey studio. The light sifting through the second story windows warmed the pine floors and the soft sent of incense clung in the air. I listened, mouth agape, as the teacher, a total stranger to me, explained that today’s class would be about transitions into a new phase of our lives. She handed out small pieces of green backed paper and told us to write one thing we wanted to let go of, and one thing we wanted to bring into our lives to replace it. Once we were done we were instructed to fold the paper up tightly and tuck under the top of our mat- and after class we were to burn it. 

I didn’t know at the time that this was a fire ceremony surrounding the idea of cleansing and transformation, or that I would continue to practice and lead them. I only knew that this resonated so deeply to my feelings (vibration)  I could no longer deny it. Yoga and it’s philosophies would be like a salve to my wounds, and enable me too stand in my truth as a light worker and teacher to those who are open to it.  

That day in the studio something cracked inside of me and a small ember was lit into a tiny little flame in my belly. The truth is, that once that flame is lit, nothing in this world can extinguish it. It is that small little light that shines outward clearing away the darkness, the hurt, the emotional pain. Reflecting on that light, feeling it’s warmth on the cold days, is like a hot bath that comes from within. 

If you are reading this then your spark has already been lit and can never be extinguished. Always know, you are so worthy of this little flame within you. Let it burn baby. 

Allow Her to be Silenced

I have learned a great deal about anger in the past year. 

In the past I was shunned and belittled my anger, told things like ‘I don’t deserve your anger.’ Or ‘Your anger scares me.’ 

I have come to understand that anger was really my soul feeling deeply sorrowful, something was crossing my natural vibration, causing discourse through my system and ultimately bringing me to great anger as a very human and honest response to pain. 

How we express our emotional pain is just as valid as the expression physical pain. I believe that actively trying to rigidly control our emotional outbursts is more detrimental to our health then constructively expressing it.

Recently, someones actions hurt me and in response I got angry, stood my ground and raised my voice to this person. I felt a twinge of guilt for my anger as I started to question my reaction. I was taught to be ‘in control of myself at all times’, discipline and militaristic ideals that dismissed my passion, feelings, divine intuition, as well as my softness: was my trigger to sharp and unjust? Was the snap of pain I felt in my core valid? Was I being ‘too sensitive’? Was I blaming this person for someone else’s sins? Should I have just let it go? 

The answer was no to these and many other questions aimed at loosening my feelings validity.  My emotional pain was real, true, and identifiable. 

I feel that so many woman are trying to put themselves into boxes that the world tried to carve out for us to live in when it comes to our emotions. 

If I had metaphorically swallowed back that feeling of being emotionally hurt, which is really translates into allowing my self-worth to harmed, I would have felt sick to my stomach. Like food poisoning these deep feelings would have made me feel physically ill. Over time I would have felt the consequences of not speaking my truth in a more physical manifested presence through disease (dis-ease). 

To make matters worse, I would have come to resent the person who hurt me and a rift would form vibrationally as I tried to sweep my feelings under the rug. 

I was born into a home that was unhealthy, you can watch my documentary ‘Pura Vida’ here. I was given the opportunity to experience compounded trauma and work through it. I know that I will never hear ‘I’m sorry.’ from those who have hurt me the most. For a long time my soul was deeply saddened by this. The little girl that lives within my chest was vulnerable and in mourning, unable to processes deep wounds all by herself.  It helped to know that the pain is real and valid. Any feeling that comes up such as: anger, depression, moodiness, wanting to be alone, fear, and many more are all totally natural responses to your inner child feeling wounded. 

If we fail to respond to this pain by acknowledging it and accepting that it is real, we get sick. This is a universal truth- it rots us from the inside out. There have been countless movies, books, shows, plays, stories, etc. of this tail, the protagonist fighting with herself to heal her pain and move forward. But, here is what they fail to mention in these stories, I know you will agree that this is true, the sickness doesn’t end with you unless you work through it. Your children, children’s children, distant relatives, will all feel the echo of your pain for generations if you don’t property see it, embrace it, and love yourself through it with unrelenting will. 

This is the beauty in anger; when we are moved to express, scream, yell, say our truth even if it’s shaky, it can’t cause us any more harm because the universe has accepted it as our divine truth and thus our vibration is free of discord. 

If you are not there yet, that is ok. Write it, burn the letters. Paint it, destroy the canvas. Sing it, and don’t record it. Break the glass against the wall. Run until you can’t any more. Move through the yoga flow until you break down in tears. Just keep working on it. The child within your heart is gorgeous and worthy of your love and dedication, never allow her to be silenced.

And when in doubt listen to some country music…

Under the Pines

Finally I must admit that there is no better time then the present and no better thing to be then ones true self.

Living presently is much harder then we give it credit for and being ones authentic self is much scarier then I think we like to admit.

Let’s be honest though, the true point in looking to ones past, should be only to reflect and make sure we don’t continue to make the same mistakes, repeating the same cycles, and craving the same unhealthy desires that brought us any sort of discomfort or misery. That is, unless of course you enjoy nostalgia.

The future too, is not certain, which should be pretty obvious at this point by the global pandemic that we are sitting in currently, also, what I have learned of late, tomorrows are not promised.

The “authentic self” or as I like to call it ‘divine self, or true self’ is something I have a very hard time opening up about to anyone. Though most of my demons have been quieted and my shadow work is just about cleaned up and all feels fine in my energetic field, I still feel a certain rawness to who I am. I consider this a vulnerability that feels like an Achilles heel.

Maybe my ‘give a damn’ busted off at some point through the turbulent waters of my recent divorce and personal devastating losses. Maybe the pressure of compounded isolation in the deep woods of upstate New York has cracked some sort of internal shell of underlying truth; in reality we are all finite, as is pleasure and pain, and yet we are eternal, as is love.

I have stopped looking for the ‘whys’ they don’t hold as much relevance for me anymore. Not personally, not in my artwork, my job, nor my relationships or personal journey. I don’t really care ‘why’ so much as I care that it is. I have held myself back for so long, trying to fit into a little bubble that has caged me since my birth, forced upon me with all of it’s rules and confines. What I can and can’t express, expect, be, say, do. A mutilation of my divine sense of autonomy.

I write here with naked heart because I am no longer ashamed of my pure being. I am who I am, and that light will never go out now that it as been lit a blaze.

In addition to the full enjoyment of my life’s creation, my only reason for being put in his body is to share my stories and experiences so that they may serve as your road map. I have weathered storms that many girls and women will face or are currently surviving. My inner child is here to hold hands with your inner child, she is a friendly girl who will love you hard without condition. I am her armor, knight, and protector.

Let us walk, tender footed under the pines, in oneness.