“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.”
I always thought I would wait until I was “further along” before I’d share some of what I’m about to write. I imagined I would eventually reach this far-off destination where I’d be able to fit my story into a neat little box and deliver it to the world on a silver platter.
Over the past several months, the loving voice of my spirit has completely destroyed this fanciful idea which was clearly coming from my strongly willed perfectionistic ego. Instead, it threw me into the messy yet beautiful world of learning to fully own my truth and gaining the courage to share it with you the best I can.
I’m writing this now for a few different reasons:
I’m at a place where I need to embody and freely express my truth for my health and well-being to thrive
I hope it will allow for more open and authentic relationships with friends, clients, and my whole community as I move into this next phase of my life
I’d like to inspire others to know that they are not alone and healing is always possible, no matter what
First, I want to share something that I happened to write exactly 13 months ago on November 8th, 2018. Here are the words I jotted down in my notes app as I came out of my morning meditation at 7:35 AM:
“Maybe the past 10 years of my life were not a mistake or waste, maybe they were training me for the work I am meant to do in this world. Maybe all of the pain and illness and struggle was priming me to become who I needed to be. Maybe I’ve been in this spiritual incubation that is forming me into the exact vessel that Source needs to help others. Maybe not being able to change my body or control my illness was part of this process so that I could learn unconditional acceptance of myself and the process of life. I had to learn to be ok within me even if I couldn’t control anything around me. I needed to surrender. I needed to trust. And when I finally did, the Universe let out a big sigh of relief that I learned the lesson in it all and that’s when the true magic came pouring in.”
These words were never intended to be shared, only let out as a means of self-expression and to record what felt like a download from my higher self. When I recently rediscovered the note, I knew I was meant to share it exactly as it flowed out of me, completely untouched and unfiltered. As you continue reading through the blog, it will make much more sense.
Although there’s no typical blueprint for what our twenties look like anymore, this decade usually consists of establishing a solid career, deepening close relationships, and navigating independence in many ways. I would have assumed this would be my own experience, but the Universe had other plans for me:
struggling with severe health issues for many years
being diagnosed with chronic lyme disease
going through life-changing spiritual awakenings
This is the story of my pain, my healing, and my beautifully winding journey back home to myself.
Starting when I was a teenager, I experienced many symptoms that I couldn’t explain. Whenever I went in for testing, doctors would tell me everything was fine and send me on my way without any answers. I struggled through much of college, feeling awful both mentally and physically, working so hard on my health yet getting nowhere.
Dealing with major hormonal imbalance, weight fluctuations, chronic fatigue, anxiety, and much more, I saw my body as the enemy and did what felt like everything in my power to try and change it. Our relationship had already been rocky for years and the divide was quickly deepening. We were in a constant tug of war as I attempted to control it and reprimanded it when it didn’t comply with my demands.
I began isolating myself more and more from people who were really important to me, hiding away in shame. Since I’ve always been someone who needs and enjoys a lot of time alone, I don’t think it was even obvious what was happening at first.
There were a lot of reasons for why I reacted as I did, including a complicated mix of insecurity, anxiety, pain, and pure exhaustion. I had also been conditioned to believe that speaking about my struggle was a weakness and my people-pleaser self was afraid of anyone seeing me in a negative light.
The longer it went on, the harder it was to think about sharing with anyone and my feelings of shame continued to grow.
After graduating from college in 2011, my health steadily deteriorated over the months.
In March 2012, I went into a deep, dark depression which shook me to my core like nothing ever had. I wasn’t able to function at all and truly didn’t think I’d ever be alright again. This wasn’t just a physical and mental depression, which would have been painful enough, it was also what I would come to realize was a spiritual dark night of the soul.
After not being able to get out of bed and resisting help for weeks, my amazing mother insisted on taking me to an acupuncturist, who was the only professional I’d agree to see at the time. I had already been interested in eastern medicine and philosophy, and somehow intuitively sensed that this was the road I needed to go down to begin my healing.
In addition to acupuncture and other healing modalities, I drastically changed what I was eating to a totally gluten, dairy, and sugar-free diet, and also started taking all kinds of vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other supplements to help balance my system.
These changes helped tremendously with easing my depression and other symptoms, and are a major reason why I’m now in graduate school studying clinical nutrition and integrative health, but they were only getting me so far.
I ended up being tested for chronic lyme disease after a referral from a practitioner I saw who had it herself. She felt my constellation of symptoms matched what she and many others experience with this common condition which is so often left undetected for years. The test came back positive, much to my surprise since I didn’t know how widespread it was then, just a few days after Thanksgiving 2012. I began seeing a naturopath who was a lyme specialist up in Maine soon after that, having my first appointment two days after my 23rd birthday.
I felt so much relief at the time, thinking I had finally found the answer to why I had been in such physical, mental, and emotional pain. I was told that all of my symptoms could be attributed to this one disease and figured within months of beginning my various naturopathic treatments, the symptoms would disappear and my life would be able to begin.
Little did I know, that’s not exactly what was in store for me.
The next few years consisted of many doctors’ appointments, too many supplements to count, and endless sessions with a multitude of healing practitioners who struggled to figure me out.
I read more books on nutrition, health, spirituality, and personal growth than I could possibly remember. I attended dozens of virtual health summits, seeking any answers I could get my hands on. I began meditating more which was already a practice I had started in college and became increasingly drawn to my spiritual side in a deeper way as an attempt to find some sort of relief in the midst of my pain.
I had moments where I felt like I was making a lot of progress and others where I thought I would never recover, living between alternating states of hope and despair.
In 2016, I began diving into more energy healing and deep inner work to get to the core of why my body became sick in the first place and was struggling to heal despite all that I was doing.
I started to experience a major awakening and shift in perspective, realizing that although I’d been working on my healing for so many years, it was extremely conditional. I was doing everything to get to this end goal of not being sick anymore, which is not what true healing is about.
As hard as it was, I decided to accept where I was and learn the lessons my body was trying to teach me, even if I was never “cured.”
Although I didn’t know what it was yet, I came to understand there was a reason for what I was going through and that it was a necessary, though painful, part of my soul’s growth. This was actually something that I had known for a while with all of the personal and spiritual development work I’d done, but hadn’t been ready or willing to fully take in yet.
After embracing this realization, I felt like I could welcome whatever was next, not knowing that soon after that would come one of the biggest tests of my journey.
Toward the end of 2016, even though I had felt like I was finally getting to the root and healing, I ended up falling into another period of unbearably debilitating depression. It was especially difficult because a part of me mistakenly thought I was immune from it happening again due to everything I’d done over the years.
I lost all ability to function again and was crying uncontrollably from the depths of my being on an almost daily basis, feeling this immense grief for the loss of myself that I didn’t believe would ever return. It’s difficult to fathom now but I remember waking up many days with a strange mix of deep sadness and apathy that I was still on this planet.
I didn’t know how I would get through it, but some small part of me still had faith that it was happening for a reason and summoned the strength to call out to the Universe to guide me to the right people and tools that could allow me to save my life.
I was blessed to find a few gifted practitioners who ended up walking with me in the darkness and helping me get out of that excruciating place, slowly but surely. They believed that I was in charge of my healing and helped empower me during some of the most brutal moments of my life.
With tons of personal healing work, they supported me in awakening and reclaiming my authentic nature as well as releasing some of the many blocks I didn’t even know were there. Some from earlier in my life, some from ingrained patterns imprinted on my soul before I even incarnated on this earth.
The bone-deep chronic fatigue and many other symptoms that I had experienced for so long finally began to lift and I felt my life force energy coming back for the first time in years.
By the spring of 2017, I was feeling well enough that I decided to take a leap of faith and sign up to become certified as a health coach. I didn’t know if I would end up coaching people, but was intuitively drawn to the program and thought it would be the right stepping stone to help me progress on my path.
I connected with a lot of people in my program who had gone through similar health struggles, several of whom ended up becoming dear friends. The more I allowed myself to authentically share my story with them, the more I was able to continue melting away feelings of shame and secrecy that had built up over the years. It was a huge gift to be truly seen and heard, especially by others whose lives were also turned upside down by chronic illness and the unique complexities that accompany it for all of us.
Throughout the program, I began gaining more confidence in my natural abilities as a coach and realized that maybe I was actually capable of guiding others on their path as well as supporting myself on mine. I decided to go for it and within two weeks of earning my certification, I synchronistically began working with my first client, which felt like divine confirmation that I was heading in the right direction.
Before even finishing my coaching program, I also decided to continue my education and began graduate school. I went from taking one class to start (which, crazily enough, was organic chemistry!) to now being just months away from earning my master’s in nutrition and integrative health.
Over the past couple of years, I feel like I’ve transformed into a completely new human being. I now understand that some part of me wasn’t allowing myself to heal until I would acknowledge that this painful journey wasn’t just a setback in my life that I could sweep under the rug, but rather the pathway into my life’s purpose.
No amount of resistance would change where my soul wanted me to go, and I needed to release my ego’s agenda of how I thought everything should be going in order to let it take the lead.
As I learned to surrender to the process of my healing without needing to control it or know how it would all work out, that’s when real magic started coming in. When I began to accept and trust that it had all happened FOR me and not TO me, I was better able to relax into my journey and allow it to take me where I was meant to go. Although this lesson is still ongoing, and some days are easier than others, it’s something I have found to be true time and time again.
My biggest awakening yet came earlier this year, pulling me even deeper into my spiritual path and catapulting me into what felt like a mind-blowing understanding of a higher truth that was always within me.
I had my entire life flash before my eyes and everything I went through since I was a teenager made total sense. I was meant to completely tear down all false foundations of who I thought I was and why I’m here as a human being on this earth, gaining the tools and wisdom to support myself and others along the way.
The path I’ve been on has helped me step into my power and purpose in a way I didn’t realize was possible, and I know I wouldn’t be where I am or where I’m going without every single piece of my journey exactly as it’s been. Even the most painful parts, or rather especially these parts, were planned out by my higher self to peel back the layers that were keeping me stuck and help me grow into who I needed to be.
This awakening truly brought my spiritual understanding of life and my purpose to a totally different level, crushing my last bits of doubt and deepening my self-trust like never before.
I used to be filled with such anger and frustration about my illness and what felt like my life being on hold, but now I see I never would have learned the lessons that I came to this earth to learn if I hadn’t gone through it all. While my ego tried to resist my path every step of the way, my spirit always knew exactly where it was taking me.
Although it’s still been a bit scary and uncomfortable for me at times, I’ve been letting my soul’s wisdom and inner guidance lead me more than ever these past months. I was called to study Reiki energy healing and became certified as a Kundalini Reiki Master in the summer. Despite my lifetime fear of any kind of public speaking, I also felt strongly guided to begin leading women’s circles this fall. It’s been beautiful to witness the impact that this sacred space has already had on women in my community, including myself.
Even though I still don’t know how it will all unfold, I’ve never been so certain that I’m on the right path and that I can trust my intuition to guide my way forward.
As I celebrate my 30th birthday, I’m surely not where I would have expected to be. I didn’t reach most of the typical milestones that society told me I was supposed to reach before this age. I haven’t yet achieved or attained much that would make me a so-called success in the eyes of the outside world. And yet I feel more joy and freedom within me than I ever knew was possible in my teens and much of my twenties.
Going through this painful, messy, and beautiful healing journey has shaped me into who I am, and I’m happy to say I really love that person.
She is strong. She is resilient. She is present. She is grateful. She is passionate. She is loving. She is ever-learning, ever-changing, and ever-growing.
Best of all, she’s learned how to access a deep inner peace, self-love, and higher truth which no one and nothing outside of me can take away. And that’s something I wouldn’t trade for anything in this world.
There’s more to the story as there always is, but there’s only so much I can write here. I honestly had a hard time even tapping into some of the dark places I’ve been because my energy is in such a radically different space these days. It all feels like a total blur now, seeming like dozens of lifetimes ago with the amount of inner deaths and rebirths I’ve experienced over the months and years. I still felt strongly that this was the right moment for me to share, letting myself release the need for it to be “perfect” or even fully complete.
I will say that my journey is still very much unfolding, as it is and always will be for all of us. My healing has been anything but linear and I expect that to be the case moving forward. I’ve learned to embrace the various cycles I go through, knowing I’m always right where I’m supposed to be from a higher perspective even when my human self can’t yet see how.
Even though I no longer consider myself to have a chronic illness, I do continue to experience some symptoms that I manage. However, I no longer see them as signs that I’m broken or in need of fixing. Instead, they are loving messages from my body which I choose to listen to with curiosity and compassion so that I can give myself what I need to find balance (or “harmonize within,” if you will ;) ). This is my intention anyway, it’s a work in progress as all things are.
I’ll admit that I don’t always like how my body is feeling, but I’m committed to loving and accepting it unconditionally wherever it’s at in each moment. And from where our relationship used to be, that’s one of the biggest miracles I’ve experienced.
Writing all of this, I feel such deep gratitude for where my path has taken me and know that not everyone who has gone through similar health struggles is as lucky. Even though I still have many challenges ahead, I am blessed to have acquired a whole arsenal of tools to support me and look forward to gathering many more. I also have no problem reaching out for help whenever I need it now, seeing vulnerability as a strength and not a weakness as I did in the past.
Whatever lies in front of me, I trust all of it will be for my highest good and exactly what my soul needs for its continued growth and expansion.
Lastly, I know that I would not be where I am today without the countless friends, healers, and guides (and, of course, my incredible family) who walked my path with me over the years. There are too many of you to list and I’ve already thanked most of you personally, but I’m sending even more love and virtual hugs to you now. Without sharing my story with you, along with so many other things that you did for me, I never would have been able to get to the place where I can now fully own it and share it freely. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And thank YOU from the bottom of my heart for being here to witness my truth. I hope that it inspires you to find and speak your own and believe that healing is always, ALWAYS possible.