I have always been drawn to the both/and of life.

The places where certainty gives way to mystery. Where two seemingly contradictory things can be true at once. Where an experience cannot be neatly divided into good or bad, healed or broken, faithful or questioning. Since I was a little girl, these are the things I think I knew to be true from a place deep within.

And then?

My girls died; and it became no longer just a concept to be explored but something I had to learn how to live. In ways, I think my very survival and sanity depended on it. I don’t say that lightly.

I had to learn that joy did not betray my grief; and that grief did not mean I was incapable of joy. I had to let life be devastating and beautiful, sometimes within the very same moment. I had to make room for mystery while slowly learning to trust again- both God, myself and other people.

In many ways, I was beginning with a blank canvas. So much of what I had believed about God, healing, and the shape my life would take had been broken open. As life slowly began returning to me, I could no longer force it into the categories I had once depended on.

Healing has continued to teach me this.

So has loving again. So has living inside a body that remembers. So has my faith. So has sitting with women as they learn to trust their own bodies, stories, desires, and knowing.

The fullest life, I am discovering, is not one in which we finally resolve every contradiction. It is one in which we develop the capacity to remain present inside the complexity. The space where we allow ourselves to grieve and hope, question and trust, honor what has happened and still allow ourselves to become.

This has always been the heart beneath my writing. It is how I try to live and how I coach: not by reducing a woman’s experience to an explanation or formula, but by helping her become more able to inhabit the whole of her life.

And so, as Fall approaches and I begin a new season of writing and sharing here, I am giving this space a name that feels more honest:

A Nuanced Life.

This will be a home for reflections on grief, embodied healing, faith, relationships, and the slow work of learning to feel alive again.

A place where we do not have to flatten our stories to make them easier to explain.

A place for the both/and.

I’m glad you’re here.

I am so tired of the phrase “healing”.

I write about and study it all day long- and yet still? It seems overused and obscure.

Beyond that, some of the people who talk the most heavily about it haven’t even dipped their toe into the waters of their own journey.

I know this because I lived it.

For years of my life, I presented like I was processing trauma and grief when really? I was putting spiritual band-Aids, fitness ventures and coping mechanisms over it all.

Hear me when I say: faith itself isn’t a band-aid. My relationship with God has anchored me in the darkest of days- including the ones where the work itself felt unbearable, my wounds raw and open. Beyond that, a body that had been numb for so many years benefitted immensely from jumping full-on into the pool of fitness competitions and ultra runs. Our nervous systems have one goal: to keep us safe. Not happy, not logical- safe. The body prioritizes familiarity and safety- because turns out that even chaos can feel safer than peace if it’s what you know. So, when a life of unprocessed junk takes over? Your body will quite literally fight to keep you closer to that which has helped you survive (yet not thrive).

And then.

One day?

The decision to either stay in said survival or move towards actually living your life shows up.

The part of healing not many people like to talk about is part that doesn’t actually feel better at all. And if I’m honest? I understand why people don’t want to heal. Healing asks you to feel thing you’ve often spent years avoiding.

It makes you feel more, not less.

It takes away your numbing and protective patterns and leaves you raw to the world around you and within.

It removes distractions that used to help you cope.

It can make life feel harder before it feels freer.

Because the truth is that deciding to heal involves deciding you are worth it. And when you make that decision? You stop allowing yourself to accept scraps from the table of your own life.

Suddenly, you are aware of all the places and spaces where you have just been coping instead of living. And in a lot of ways? It’s losing the things that helped you survive before you’ve fully built what comes next.

What you don’t see in this picture is the hot, wet tears that were flowing down my face. Me breathing through the terrifying feeling of feeling what I had stuffed down or covered up for so long.

Sometimes, honesty is terrifying.

The unthawing is terrifying.

Where you’ve been numb- you start to feel. The tools you’ve used as distraction are left naked for you to own and see for what they are. And when things are revealed? You don’t just feel peace. You feel everything that was frozen underneath it.

So, why do it?

Why would anyone choose to go through such an unearthing- and is it really worth it?

There have been many, many points in my own journey I have asked myself this. And the whole, “because you deserve happiness on the other side” stuff doesn’t cut it for me. But something else does:

Survival isn’t the same as living.

Control is exhausting.

Numbness costs you your life, not just your pain.

Time and time again, I’ve realized that the way I was surviving was also the thing keeping me from actually living.

And miraculously so? I wanted to live. And if you’ve made it this far? I imagine that you do, too.

I don’t know where you find yourself in your own life journey, but I do know this: healing isn’t easier, it’s just more honest. And overtime? That honesty becomes the kind of freedom that survival mode could never give you.

If you are in this space right now- where healing feels harder than staying the same- you aren’t alone and you aren’t doing it wrong.

You’re probably just right in the middle of it.

There are so many moments of my life I remember feeling as if I was experiencing it all from the inside out.

I would be physically present somewhere and wanting to be fully engaged where I was yet fighting to actually feel as if reality was as full as I longed for it to be. When I was little, I remember enjoying the heck out of things- really being in them. Yet as life unraveled? Being present felt like something just out of my reach.

Struggling to stay in a moment became something I dealt with every single day- whether I was aware of it or not.

And when my girls were born and, overtime, I realized that life was going to be full of chronic crisis and suffering?

That dissociation became a means of survival.

It’s hard to describe the life with medically fragile kids unless you have lived it. Crisis is so normalized that you simply shift from chaos to a few minutes of calm here and there. With twins, it was double the possibility that at any given moment? Being hypervigilant was the difference in life or death. This was my existence for almost eight years of my life. 24/7 fight or flight.

And then?

The urgency was gone; yet I was left with a body that didn’t know the difference.

And somewhere along the way?

That body had learned that trusting a moment wasn’t safe.

The truth is this:

to trust a moment, you have to actually experience it.

Not analyze it. Not brace for what might go wrong. Not stay one step ahead.

You have to let yourself be in it.

And if your body is used to anticipating loss or even shift? Even good moments can feel like something you need to protect yourself from.

When my life finally got out of survival and I had more stability around me both relationally and logistically?

I found myself getting really anxious in the “good”.

It took me a while to realize that it wasn’t that I didn’t want happiness- I desperately did. It was that being present enough to feel it required a level of safety in my own body that I hadn’t quite learned yet.

Which is why healing doesn’t always feel like becoming happier.

Sometimes it feels like sitting in a moment that is actually good- and noticing how hard it is not to leave it.

Because if you spend your whole life waiting for the next shoe to drop?

You will never experience what it’s like to be truly present in your actual life.

It’s the middle of the night, approximately 3 in the morning. Yet again, I have woken up feeling as if there is a literal racetrack of thoughts circling my brain.

This didn’t used to happen to me.

When the girls were alive, I was lucky to get a stretch of 3-4 hours at any given time. When they were sick? That ideal also went out the window. I had a body that had completely numbed out for the purpose of survival- and tracking my sleep wasn’t something I was interested in nor was it something that would have been beneficial. When my head finally hit the pillow? I was out; most likely being pushed straight into some small window of deep sleep so that the systems needed could actually function the next day.

I would imagine that REM (the sleep that actually helps with emotional regulation and brain development) was something that I didn’t know too well during those days. There wasn’t time or space for the body that held me to even consider growth or processing. It (which means I) lived in constant survival mode- accessing only what was necessary to do what needed to get done.

And then? The girls died.

And I was still here.

I have talked so much about the modalities that have helped me to heal- truly heal- yet I’m unsure if I spend enough time talking in depth about why what I was longing to "work” simply wasn’t.

My faith- my relationship with God? It’s deeply important to me. It is the foundation of who I am. The steady Hand of Immanuel, God with me- this is ultimately what has led me where I am.

And also?

Reading Scripture was not going to heal my body.

Putting a spiritual Band-Aid on the bleeding out spaces of my heart didn’t resolve a nervous system that was frozen and tied up.

And the resource He had given me to do the very hard work that was required?

It wasn’t a Bible.

It was me.

I spent hours pouring my heart out to God- reading verse after verse- listening to sermon after sermon- praying on my knees- not understanding why I still felt like a shell of a human.

Would all those things give me internal peace?

Yes- and they still do.

Yet healing my body wasn’t a replacement for spiritual heath- it was actually a branch of it. And for me? It has become a sacrament of worship. The result has been feeling and being able to express the love of God more- not less.

Because the reality is that when we believe we are valuable enough to receive the care we so desperately need?

I don’t think we are being selfish. I think we are honoring the very lives we were actually given instead of putting a generalized platitude on the life that would be more comfortable to pretend that we have.

Which, if you think about it? Isn’t really a life at all.

I went into this article thinking I was going to write about one thing and realizing I was writing about something else. I think most real creative work is this way. I want to share with you the things in my own life that have felt like taking two steps back in my healing journey (i.e. a mind racing in the middle of the night) that have actually been a step forward.

But first?

Someone needs to hear me say that this process hasn’t called me out of a holy place- it’s called me deeper in.

The faith required to say yes to feeling the things your brain has quite literally been fighting to stay away from?

It’s immense.

If you’ve been here for any amount of time you know that I will never be a voice that pretends that the unthawing doesn’t feel exactly like it sounds it would.

And also?

I also refuse to be a voice that acts like it’s done outside of the strong grip of a Creator that trusts us enough to give us these vessels, and I believe wants nothing less for us than a life lived fully awake.

And honestly?

The very brain that keeps telling you life is only safely lived inside of the box that you are in is the same one in need of the rewiring that will set you free to let God be bigger than the narrative you are stuck in.

And if this feels dangerous to you?

I want to gently yet firmly encourage you to ask yourself an age-old question:

Who told you that?

There are some moments we can look back on and remember like they were yesterday. This is one of those moments.

Bailey Grace had died over a year prior. James was taking a shower and winding down for the night. And Ally?

She was dying a slow death every single day.

I guess in ways that’s all of us.

But for her? The years had turned to months that would shortly turn to weeks.

I was about to get her ready for bathtime- a time that her body used to enjoy but that, like many things, could no longer tolerate. She would inevitably seize during that time and most likely lack real presence for the rest of the night. But this moment? She sat up from the bed (a skill she ironically developed in her last months) and proceeded to attempt to stand (something that would not happen on her own but could briefly be implemented with my support).

I want to tell you the smile on my face was genuine, but to be transparent? Every single second of my existence at that point was numbed out and torn apart by grief.

Grief that I still hadn’t been able to grieve the death of her sister.

Grief that she too would soon be gone.

Grief that in the midst of it all, I had lost the ability to do anything but survive.

I don’t know exactly when but at some point, between the girls’ births and deaths? Life became a blur. The only time I felt anything at all was when my girls would smile or laugh. For a second- a millisecond maybe- I would feel joy. I wish I could tell you where I felt this in my body (I can’t); but I do know that I truly felt in the brevity of that. When daily crisis or hourly suffering came up? I can look back and know there was a heaviness in my chest that didn’t let up. One that I got so used to that it felt like it was simply a part of me.

I was so consumed with making futile attempts to help or heal their bodies- so overtaken with the trauma that was filling up all the spaces- that I had lost all connection to my own.

The process to come back home to my own body has been absolutely brutal.

I can’t sugarcoat it and I won’t. Because when other people go through the same journey? When it starts getting painful- I mean really, really painful? I want them to know that they are probably headed in the right direction.

I want them to keep going.

So, how do you know if this applies to you? How do you know if you are disconnected from your body- and (in time)- what can you do to change that? I would imagine that if you’ve read this far? You already suspect or even know that you are there. I want to offer five generalized reflections on signs I could have seen had I have known. This is not some comprehensive list; but it is one that others and I have often nodded their heads to.

Signs You Might Be Disconnected from Your own Body:

1. You live in your head more than your body.

When I was in my most dissociated state? My mind would have told me that I was very, very present. I was constantly analyzing, overthinking, narrating my life and the details of it in my own head. I struggled to feel- yet I was very good at explaining or even intellectualizing my own feelings. I would try and find spiritual Band Aids (i.e. state a Scripture in a monotone, matter-of-fact way) or logic to get through experiences that should have felt very emotional. I felt safest when I was “figuring things out” either with others or in my own mind. I didn’t realize I was disconnected because I was so self-aware. I felt awkward in moments that asked me to simply be present in my emotions. Most of my life felt like something I was watching from the outside in.

2. You don’t trust your own internal signals (which includes the Spirit in you if this fits your belief system).

I always needed external validation before making decisions. I second guessed my gut feeling constantly- even when it came to my girls. I would ask multiple people how they felt about situations in my own life- looking for affirmation that I was making good choices. I ignored my own hunger, rest and emotional cues constantly- not listening to my body when it was speaking to me. I spent much more time thinking, “Is this normal?” rather than listening to what I felt. And overtime? As your signals are not honored- you simply stop hearing them at all.

3. Your emotions either feel overwhelming or muted.

Something I want to make clear is that disconnected doesn’t always mean numb. Sometimes it’s actually the opposite. Our bodies, when working efficiently and without injury, are made to oscillate between homeostasis (keeps you stable) and allostasis (makes you adaptable). Trauma acts as a biological injury that fundamentally disrupts this balance, often locking the body into a state of permanent survival mode. This means that instead of looking at what’s in front of us for what it truly is? We begin to see the world in extremes. We feel too much (flooded, anxious, very reactive) or flat (shut down and hard to access). It makes it difficult for us to stay present with feelings without escaping them. This causes us to swing from control to collapse. When I look back on the days prior to my own nervous system healing journey? I see a woman who only knew how to survive the day and thought that was simply her life.

4. You struggle to feel safe in stillness.

This one is subtle but powerful. If you always need some kind of stimulation (phone, television, productivity) or you crash out? If silence or stillness feels uncomfortable or even threatening? If you have difficulty just being in your body without distraction? If rest either feels like collapse or unsafe- no in-between? You probably are not living in your body. I used to have a really difficult time being in the present moment. My mind would begin to fill up; and I very much felt restless and awkward with simply being. I didn’t realize that this was a sign that I my nervous system wasn’t fully online.

5. Connection, pleasure and presence feel inconsistent.

I saved this one for last because it’s often times both an “A-ha” moment and also the most challenging to grasp. When we are not connected to our own bodies? We cannot be fully present in a moment with another person- physically or emotionally. This makes it very difficult to actually stay present- really present- during intimacy. Conversations about things that touch places inside of us (or physical moments that do the same!) feel threatening, frustrating, or simply like something we do not have the capacity for. This sometimes looks like feeling “in your head” in moments where you should feel present and alive. This causes inconsistent access to joy, sensuality and play. I remember feeling as if I craved depth, but I wasn’t fully able to get to or receive it.

So Why Does this Matter?

Because fortunately or unfortunately? Your body isn’t just along for the ride. It’s the system that runs everything- so when you are disconnected from it? Your nervous system will constantly stay in patterns of protection (over-thinking, numbing, hyper-awareness, control).

And from that place?

Even good things- love, rest, joy for example- can feel unfamiliar, unsafe or hard to trust. You can be in relationships that are healthy and still feel alone. You can be loved and still feel uncertainty. You can replace trust with distrust every single time, regardless of the evidence in front of you.

(Trust me, I’ve lived it).

When you aren’t connected to your body? You will end up trying to think through a life that is meant to be lived and actually felt.

Your body isn’t a detail. It’s the place where life- your life- is actually happening. And when you are not fully in it? You don’t just lose sensation. You lose clarity, connection, and the ability to trust yourself or anyone else in real time.

This is the work I care deeply about- helping women come back to themselves in a way that feels safe, embodied, and REAL. I know these things because I’ve lived them. And while the journey is always a journey (and most of life is in fact the messy middle)? I’m on the other side of it enough to know that making the choice to step back into your actual life is in fact worth it.

You don’t need to have everything figured out. Sometimes all you need is a choice that says, “No more”- one moment at a time.

If you are new here, welcome. I’m Ally Morgan, known by most as @seedsandleaven. This space is where I write about grief, healing, nervous system regulation, faith, relationships, feminine embodiment, hormone health, and the brave, slow work of coming home to ourselves.

I lost my twin daughters to a rare disease at the ages of six and seven. Shortly after, my (ex) husband and I got a divorce. Being the girls’ mother was the greatest privilege of my life. And also? It took an immense toil on my body and mind. I spent a lot of their life speaking about faith and suffering- two things which still hold sacred space in my life.

And also?

I became aware that I was completely disconnected from self, putting spiritual band aids on physical wounds. Sometimes our bodies whisper and then other times they shout. In its kindness, my body began clearly speaking to me- letting me know I had to stop staying numb in order to live again.

Each of us face painful things. We all have situations in our lives that give us the choice to start living less or start living more.

By the grace of God and the resiliency I believe He Himself gave me, I chose the latter.

Losing my girls and navigating the aftermath of profound grief and trauma gave me the opportunity to face the difficult questions about what it means to survive, heal and rebuild a life that actually felt like my own. It was in doing this that I found the beauty that is embodied healing- which essentially means including the entirety of self in our own healing process. I realized very quickly how much trauma and pain I was holding onto within my nervous system and body- and that without releasing those spaces?

I would always stay stuck.

This space is a place where I reflect on all the things.

On grief and life after loss.

Nervous system regulation.

Somatic healing and embodiment.

Relationships and emotional safety.

Feminine energy and reconnecting with ourselves.

And mainly?

The courage it takes to fully live again.

This space is for anyone who has ever felt numb, disconnected, overwhelmed, or like their body is still carrying a story they are trying to understand.

If you are someone who wants more than survival after you’ve survived? Someone who wants to feel fully alive again? You’re in the right place.

If this resonates with you? You can subscribe below to receive new essays each week.

I’m really glad you’re here.

In my teen years, becoming fascinating to whatever boy was in front of me was almost like a hobby for me. There were levels of feminine energy I had within me that I would bring to the surface just enough to draw someone in without getting so close that they could remove the layer that would remove some of the mystery. I treated physical connection in this exact same way- teasing all in the name of Jesus. I realize how jarring this might be to read. I can assure you it was much more unpleasant to have to own. The truth is, like many of the things that we do? It wasn’t a conscious decision but a pattern that sunk its root deep into the identity I gave myself. To a girl turning woman who had always felt internally a little rough around the edges? Having the reputation of a good girl in the wilder crowd felt safe.

There is so much about being a woman and a mother that I wish I had understood years before I have. My marriage to my ex-husband began at 24 years old. Through a lot of personal healing, I now have so much compassion on those two young humans that had not worked through their own childhood woundings nor really knew themselves much at all. They (we) jumped from a tumultuous dating relationship smack into pregnancy with medically fragile twins within the first year of marriage. It’s a lot easier to let go and show compassion on someone when you step outside of the personal wounds felt by them and attempt to see life through their shoes. (Which also brings a heck of a lot more personal peace.) I loved being a mother to my girls more than anything I have ever done. It will always be the greatest privilege of my life. And yet. I wish I had done it eyes and heart wider open. Wish I could hold them in the confident, free arms of my body in the way that I now am able to hold space in the world.

That was not the story. But in the aftermath of their lives? I was determined it would be.

And I got there much differently than I would have thought.

Rob is the first man that I have ever felt safety with. From the beginning, his presence felt like something I had been missing my entire life. Early on, I remember tearing up while sitting at dinner with him, listening to him talk about his very unique security forces missions during his deployments. I had gone my entire life not knowing how unsafe I felt in the world around me. I also had, in turn, lived a life of hyper-independence- never fully engaging my heart because life had taught me that there were layers of myself that other people simply couldn’t or didn’t want to handle. The early months of our relationship, I genuinely felt like Rob and I’s relationship was the container God had given me for my own healing.

And while this was partially true?

Our relationship has actually turned out to be a mirror that I have made the brave choice of looking into- most terrifyingly at myself.

When I look back on my life? The majority of my days were spent muting who I was. I have always been really good at reading a room- and if I sensed discomfort at the ways I beat to my own drum? I would shift ever so subtly (or dramatically) in order to ease or manage other people’s reactions to me. This showed up as doing activities growing up that I wasn’t really passionate about- things that just didn’t light a fire in me. It appeared as feeling as if certain hair styles or clothing was rebellious- not a personal expression. And overtime? I internalized the message that who I was at my core needed to be tamed.

After my divorce, I jumped into months of what I called, “Guilt-free living”. I made the decision that I was going to literally just let myself live- however I felt like living- and not judge myself for any of it. In ways, it felt like breathing for the first time- a coming into myself of sorts. The things I knew to be true were that I was deeply attracted to God and our connection and yet also had this free-spirited nature that I had been told all my life didn’t add up with the first. Two things were happening at once: my body was still in survival from all the trauma and was intentionally staying dissociated or- at times- in fight or flight. And also? I was coming to head with a deep-seated lie that I had been telling myself my whole life:

the wild in me is bad and in direct contradiction with my faith.

It may sound crazy to some, but I cannot tell you how surreal it felt to live out of a cage. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t shoulding myself (and was telling anyone who was to fuck off). It sounds intense because it was. Something in me knew that in order to protect who I really was I had to give into my own internal temptation to simply become unhinged for a minute. So unhinged I was. And the most surprising thing happened.

I realized that Ms. Wild and Free also had boundaries and strong beliefs and opinions after all. I also found God in a million different places I would have never seen Him before. I was on the cusps of processing all of this around the time Rob and I met.

In full transparency, I have spent hours attempting to tie together and articulate all that has unfolded since. I want to meet you where you are at- speak directly to the women’s hearts reading this that have always felt a sense of both wild child and needy romantic- two titles I didn’t know how to claim for most of my life. The journey I have been on both personally and relationally in the last few years has been one that I know I wasn’t meant to learn sooner but I desperately wish I had. I understand my own feminine nature more than ever before. I see my free-spiritedness as a super-power not a rebellion. And also?

I’ve learned that no one on this planet was ever meant to save me from the parts of me that very much scare me about myself- and that until I own those parts? No one will ever be able to know me anyway. (Which is really what I actually want).

For most of my life, I have been most scared of the person staring back at me in the mirror. Of what she was or wasn’t capable of. Of the things she held responsibility for- or didn’t. Of who she inherently was and the things she most desired. I felt as if I admitted who I was then I would also have to admit that who I was? Was terribly wrong.

Wrapping it up in theology or surrounding myself with people deemed more “tame” than me (from the outside looking in at least) felt like the “right” thing to do. And yet something (I believe Someone) deep inside me knew that avoiding or watering down myself was not the answer.

Out of anything that people ever ask me, lately questions about Rob and I’s relationship are at the top of the list. I have chosen to keep a lot of us private for several reasons- the main one being that it feels restful to have some sense of life that isn’t known by (often times) strangers on the internet. I also always walk the fine line of not adding noise to this space and instead trying to be intentional with what I think needs to be said. But for the purpose of this series (you should read A Soft Love Part One if you haven’t already)? I want to say that this love continues to be incredibly hard-fought. In a world that acts as if non-married commitment isn’t commitment at all? I would argue that we have entered into each other’s for better or for worse in ways that many relationships simply wouldn’t push through. We are both so set on our own and the other’s personal growth and health- both physical and mental. So determined to not let either of our traumas write the rest of this story. And a lot of days that proves more difficult than not. Yet here we are- loving and learning to stay.

And the irony not irony is this:

it is myself that has been hardest to stay with in it all. Myself that I am so quick to abandon out of fear or shame.

I think I will end with this: Carl Jung once said this:

You cannot stay away from yourself forever, you have to return, have to come to that experiment, to know whether you really can love. That is the question- whether you can love yourself. That will be the test.

And Jesus? He said the second greatest commandment was to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Learn to stay with yourself and you will learn how to truly love.

Abandon yourself and risk never knowing love at all.

It really might be that simple.

I am all about the Chinese New Year right now- moving into the Year of the (fire) Horse- something that only comes around every 60 years. I could give you a multitude of reasons why I love leaning into the Zodiac calendar these days, but in all actuality? At the end of the day, it lights up my soul, and it is FUN. It is motivating me to self-reflect and to be intentional in the way I live in the only moment we truly have to grasp- this one.

The irony not irony is that today is also Ash Wednesday. In different seasons of my life, I would have felt like this entering into needed to be serious. There wouldn’t have been room for anything but, “Let’s get down to business” (with God as the CEO of course). I treated myself like a slave or, on a day that felt particularly holy for whatever reason, an assistant of His.

God asks us to come to Him like a child. I sit with that a lot when things feel complicated. Currently, I have view of the picture on my desk of myself as a little girl. It seems as if in modern-day religion, we give children permission to come as they are but adults instructions to tighten things up. The result seems to be people walking around exhausted, burnt-out, and afraid.

When my girls were dying, life was as simplified as it could possibly be. It seems ironic that something as complex and layered as death would feel that way; yet both times, from my experience, it’s how it was. I sometimes tell people that watching your children die is a lot like giving birth. I used to add the caveat that the physical pain is reversed yet who really knows what babies actually feel in the birth canal. I can’t imagine it’s simply comfortable. Either way, the sacredness of my girls’ deaths is something that will never be lost on me. It was peculiar even- this juxtapose of nightmare combined with the hope of something ethereal and heaven-like around the corner. I won’t know what exactly happened from their shoes until I pass through death myself. The secrets held by those that we have love and lost (at least from plain view) must be infinite.

It took me years of bravery to be honest with myself about the congruencies in some of my previous routines and habits and the ones I carry now. What I mean by that is that playing Bible roulette many mornings while seeking the voice of God is parallel to asking for His wisdom in a Scorpio reading about the coming year. That sentence is borderline heretic to some- and believe me, I get it. What has happened to me and my faith overtime is that it has become more and more genuine and less and less fearful. Carrying that unabashed honesty with myself and God has allowed me to see Him as bigger- something I have talked about much over the last few years. The freedom I have found in considering this idea that maybe- just maybe- I could expand my thoughts on who God was? This consideration has opened my eyes to how utterly silly it is to believe that out of the billions of humans that have lived on this planet, only me and the little sect of humans who taught me things are the ones that understand God and His universe correctly. This doesn’t mean that I don’t hold my own beliefs firmly in my own heart. Not at all, actually. It means that I am able to see God in everything and everywhere and that I’m not walking around hypervigilant all the dang time!

Which means I’m enjoying my life more than ever before.

Which to me? Means I am able to worship God more wholly.

I used to hear things like, “All our life is a worship” or “Don’t just come to church to worship on Sundays, worship God with your all”. I agreed with these sentiments whole-heartedly. I also felt in love with and lit up by the world- this big, beautiful planet that we live on. And not just this one but the rest of the mysterious galaxies put into place. Even though the conversation was often enriching? If I was honest, the times I felt closest to God and most at peace in my life weren’t usually in a pew but in a forest. It’s not that I didn’t see value to the building or the programs. It’s just that in reality?

It all felt shallow in comparison to the ways I experienced God in the reality of the world around me.

In the days before Ally died, I would look for God in the sky. Each and every morning and night, I would find Him somehow, someway in the way He was showing up in canvas He had painted. I relied on my Bible, spiritual songs and quotes about His faithfulness and presence, yes. But that sky? It’s what leveled me and kept me grounded in what I knew to be true.

These days, I find Him outside more than not. I hear Him in the words and encouragement of friends. I experience His love in the grace and embrace of my love. I feel Him when my body begins to balance out through all the beautiful modalities He’s placed in my life. I no longer limit God to a cage built by men, which for me has me seeing Him in ways I once never could.

If you have made it this far, I would love to leave you with a few questions to reflect on:

Does this resonate and if so, why?

What is your faith based on?

Does fear or love run your life?

God is not fragile, friend- and neither are you.

I didn’t think a lot about death until it was right in front of my face.

Death felt delicate and ghost-like, something that would eventually present itself but that was more dreamlike than not.

I also felt like death was a sort of secret that no one talked about.

Most people don’t ask me what the death of my girls was like. Sometimes, I think it’s because it feels inappropriate. Some of the time, I think it’s because they don’t want to know. And often?

I think it’s that unless you’ve walked through the actual sensations that go with holding your kids as they die? You cannot possibly imagine a reality in which said reality actually happened.

Yesterday, someone asked the question on my Instagram page- “What was the hardest part about your girls dying physically?”

I sat with the question for a while because honestly? It could have meant so many different things. Did the person who asked mean for their actual bodies- as in, what looked most painful about death? Did they mean which part took the biggest toil on mine? I made myself take the time to consider all the answers that I would give. I thought about whether or not the answer would be the same for both Bailey Grace and Ally’s deaths because the truth is that unfortunately, they cannot be lumped into one grief or one loss. I finally came to one greater truth in it all:

There was in fact a “hardest thing physically”-

the brutality of death itself. The way that I could never not understand the immortality of all things. Before, it was far off. And now? I had held it.

The picture above is a few months after BG died. I had become a shell of a person to protect myself. My body and brain were shut down- so much so that even in the last moments of her (their) life? I was somewhat just existing- present but numb. I didn’t shed a lot of tears after either of them died- and when I did? I would feel them for a second and quickly turn them off. I remember telling my therapist (who was very aware of my dissociated state) that I was afraid that if I allowed the tears to really come? They would stay forever.

I can’t lie to anyone that the weight of feeling- actually feeling- my girls’ deaths since doing the brave work of healing my body has been excruciating. The first time I envisioned holding BG while she died and my body understood those moments? It quite literally took my own breath away. My chest still very much carries a heavy weight that sometimes just doesn’t let up. That part is physically really taxing. And to be honest? There are some days where I wonder if staying numb was the better choice. But also?

I now live life fully awake in a way that I honestly only think people who have really been through some deep, dark things can. I long for the Light more because I have experienced just how dark Dark can be.

It’s the thing that has been physically the hardest that has also opened me up to living in a way that I have never known prior.

I really wrestle with how this was at all or ever fair for my girls. I don’t wrap it up in a spiritual rainbow- don’t try to tell myself that they are most certainly living in an afterlife that has taken away all their suffering.

I don’t know if I believe that any less than I did, per say. I just think I’ve faced what death really means to a level that I understand the gravity of that belief. I hold belief more sacredly and more honestly than ever before- which in its own way, feels holy.

When I look at pictures of my girls, I am filled with an ache that is indescribable to anyone but those who know it. If faith was equated with desperation, I am sure the miracle of them coming back to life would have already occurred. I have also chosen to assume that my own death will come in its own time but that for now?

I am called to live.

Which maybe, for someone who has buried two children, is in fact the hardest thing physically to accept.

The physiology of watching death creep in was gruesome. I could share in detail how its scent and sight very much take over slowly yet all at once. But really? I’m not sure that even if I did, death would seem any more real to the person who isn’t watching it in front of their face- which in these moments, includes me as well. And sometimes if we are honest? I think we feel like if we understood something more we would have less to fear. But a (maybe slightly comforting?) thing I have found is that while that may not be true? It is accurate to say that once we are actually going through a thing? Our bodies do what they need to do to give us the capacity to do said thing. Not before, but during.

So, in light of that and not tying everything up in a bow?

Maybe it’s the aftermath that hurts the most of all.

How many times have you looked outside today?

No, really.

Have you spent even 1-2 minutes looking-actually looking- at the life outside of your window?

I watched a short clip of Jimmy Fallon interviewing Gabriel Basso on why he signed off of Instagram. The actor told a short story of scrolling through socials and seeing the top of Mt. Everest. He became convicted in that moment- so much so that he instantly deactivated his account.

Why?

Because the fact that he was staring at a screen that showed him the top of Mt. Everest without him ever actually going there gutted him. He recognized in that second that it was no small thing that these screens we stare at give us a seeming false high that sends our bodies and minds into a cycle of feel good that never seems to last.

And he’s not wrong.

I am currently in one of the most healed states I think my body has ever been in. I have “done the work” as we say- to the point that most of the time, regardless of externals? I feel really, really at peace and quickly regulated after chaos. I’m so grateful for this- and because of it? I’m also really aware of what feels like a widespread outbreak of nervous system dysregulation in the world. There are a lot of things I could say on this, but today I really want to write about something that I don’t think is being magnified enough. Something that I truly believe is poisoning the world we live in. Something that we as individuals need to both be aware of and also willing to examine: the dopamine reward loop.

What is it?

Simply put, the dopamine reward loop is a cycle that we unintentionally can put our own brains in that causes us to crave the familiarity of a particular story or memory, creating a “wanting” sensation that drives us to want to repeat the thought.

In my opinion, social media is one of the biggest dangers to falling prey to this cycle.

When this begins happening in our brains, here is how the cycle evolves:

Step 1: Thought compulsion. Think something enough times in a row and your brain begins to want to think the thought again, regardless of if it’s 1. true 2. helpful. There is actually a “reward” that your brain begins to consider with repetition (hence our trouble with change, including thought pattern change).

Step 2: Dopamine-seeking behavior. The brain anticipates a reward (the story you are telling it) and releases dopamine- wiring you to want to replay it.

Step 3: Rumination (especially if negative). This basically means that your brain will begin to replay it on its own without you even having to remind it to do so.

Step 4: Hyper fixation. Now, your brain has decided that this very thought is the one worth giving most of your attention to- regardless of it has any value or not.

I strongly believe that the climate of the world we live in currently has many, many people constantly stuck in this very cycle. People are latching onto trends in the algorithm or stories in the headlines, choosing a side, and letting thoughts about said thing run their entire existence.

I don’t think that there is anything new under the sun. I think we are being fed more and more of them, and the more we are fed? The hungrier our brains become.

So, Why is this a Problem?

Hear me when I say this: feel good hormones like dopamine are God-given gifts. They regulate our mood, reduce stress, and promote connection among other things. The problem isn’t the release itself; rather, the issue is when we are allowing something that doesn’t benefit our actual lives to be the thought that runs them.

Dopamine in particular is one that helps keep us motivated and focused. When we have rapid spikes in this hormone, however? We begin to rely on short-term hits rather than long-term raises. Social media, video games, binge-watching tv, junk food, alcohol, gambling, online shopping- all these things don’t work in our favor when it comes to actually giving us the benefits of dopamine. They are also the things that are constantly in our face, telling us the lie that they will give us what we desire.

What is There to Do?

A couple months ago, I spent my birthday in the middle of the jungle. Phone service was spotty, no televisions in sight. Both Rob and I felt more relaxed than we can remember feeling in a long time. It seems we live in a world where it’s almost impossible to be able to experience this kind of peace. When I got back, I began to ask myself an honest question: can I live with a regulated nervous system in the modern-day society that is this world?

For me, I’ve begun focusing on what I can control in the space that I live in. I try to limit my short-term dopamine hits in favor of slow dopamine. Long term dopamine will always require more effort and patience, but here is the good news: there is a deeper fulfillment you experience with this that, with repetition, your brain begins to recognize and crave more. Here are some things that I have been leaning on that have truly rewired me:

Any form of exercise that requires focus or discipline. Cold water therapy (even splashing cold water in your face or adding 30 seconds of a cold shower to your routine).

Meaningful connections- building relationships that require something of you. Practicing sacrificing for the people you love- not to the point of losing yourself or not having boundaries, but so that you are able to remind yourself the beauty of the give and take of humanity. Only reserving intimacy for long-term connection. This one is nuanced and could be a post in itself.

Creative focus with a hobby. Learn something new or continue to practice a skill such as painting, playing an instrument, or pottery.

Bottom line? Slow dopamine will only replace your desire for short-term hits when you make the conscious decision to pursue a lifestyle that tells your brain that story.

Lately, there is a lot moral tension for me in what I write about versus the problem I contribute to. The reality is that I spend a lot of my time creating on Instagram- a platform that I personally have tried to distance myself from more and more based on all the information I just shared above. The truth is, I struggle immensely with knowing how to write and share and impact in a way that matters without feeling like I am adding to an already large problem. The irony of writing about short term dopamine hits when this is the case isn’t lost on me. I have found a large discrepancy in the vibe on the internet recently versus prior. I still believe that these spaces can be used for good- it’s why I’ve given my life to this work. I also think that we all have to be aware of the effects it is all having on our brains- and where we see it causing harm rather than good?

We have to learn when and where to step away.

I don’t know what it is for you, but if you find yourself in a loop, reading the same things and having your energy drained from it? Maybe it’s time to figure out how to gather some long term good up within you rather than reaching for something instantaneous that may not be helping you (or anyone else) at all.

Maybe it’s time to look out the window.

When I was in college, I went on a retreat where they encouraged us to start making a list of what we wanted in our future husband. I wish I could find mine (the list above is definitely not it) but I remember that everything on the list involved either Jesus or externals- nothing in between. The truth is, I knew who God was much more than I knew myself. Wanting someone who checked spiritual boxes that I also found “cute”? That seemed like the best way to stay within the lines. And in spite of my natural instinct always being to draw outside of said lines? I kept trying to fit what felt like my misshaped self into the box that I was “supposed” to be in. It’s hard to take myself back to 20 years ago. So much has both happened and changed- and I realize that many things can be true at once without being present contradictions. Along with that, I really do find myself walking a fine line when it comes to including reflections from my past marriage- the most frustrating part being that even my reasons why feel like they cannot be aired at times. So, I find myself with the present story, attempting to let the blanks stay blank while staying true to the story and to my own authentic vantage point.

The list above I began making during my ex-husband and I’s separation. My therapist and I had spent a lot of time talking about both my dissociation in grief (and therefore life) and also my own complete lack of sense of self. The moment I realized that I could have control over the second is the moment that everything changed. Because so much of who I was had always been wrapped up in another person? It felt natural to think about who I wanted rather than who I was.

I didn’t just go from relatively no dating experience to a college relationship turned marriage turned 16 years. I did all of that with the added caregiving, trauma and death of my girls. I say that not for pity but for context. I went from not knowing who I was to completely losing myself in a family that had great, insurmountable needs. I don’t have to repeat myself in saying that parts of this were the greatest gift I will ever be given. And in that? There was an aftermath in which I genuinely hadn’t lived portions of my own life.

I will never expect anyone on this planet to fully understand my life or the choices I have made. I don’t imagine that I “get” the things that other people choose either. We don’t walk in another’s shoes; therefore, all we can really assume at the end of the day is that everyone is doing the very best that they can with the things they have left. I do know that when I stopped worrying about what other people were thinking and simply started living in the best way I knew how? Freedom was waiting for me. The context of other people’s stuff isn’t mine to air out- and any attempts of mine to force ownership on someone else will always be futile. But me? I have to face myself every single day. And there came a point where I wanted to recognize the person that was staring back at me.

Meeting Rob completely turned my world upside down. Our first conversation lasted almost three hours. Everything with Rob was effortless. From the second we met in person, there was absolutely no doubt that he was going to be in my life for a very long time. The list above that you see part of? He easily checked them all off and then some. Shortly before we said I love you, I remember him telling me he recognized that I was opening my heart up to him and that he was committed to caring well for it.

Not long after that, the alarms began blaring in my mind.

I found myself screening for reasons to not trust Rob at every turn. He had given me absolutely no reason to do so. He was consistent. He was direct. He was loyal. He was clear about everything.

So why couldn’t I just receive it?

If I could go back? I would make a list of who I wanted to be in a relationship right alongside what I thought I was looking for. So often, I think we forget to consider the person we are bringing into our relationships. We don’t sort through the baggage on our own, we simply sit it down in front of the other person as if it’s theirs to deal with. The truth is, healing beside Rob has been one of the most beautiful things of my life. And also? It’s been messy. Incredibly, incredibly messy. I have found that it took me months of finding safety with Rob before I could admit to myself the person that I actually wanted to show up for him as. The woman I want to be? She’s soft- not because she isn’t strong. But because she can be.

Admitting that I wanted to be able to tap into the softer sides of me felt like taking off my clothes and then stripping myself of another layer of skin. For almost a year, I genuinely fought being that version of myself. I would let my guard down only to find a reason (rational or irrational) to build it back up. I would push and pull, react and react some more.

I had never been this woman and yet, here she was- undeniably in my own body.

And then one day? My therapist told me something that literally changed my life.

“You don’t have trust issues. You have a nervous system injury”.

For whatever reason, hearing that opened up a portal to understanding myself in a way I hadn’t yet before. I was living a life in which I was constantly looking for danger, relationally inasmuch as anything else. If something good happened? My self-protective guard would come out, looking for the catch. I would analyze the world around me as if I thought it was my job- searching for the “what-ifs” or “maybes” behind every corner.

It wasn’t because I was crazy (although sometimes it felt it).

It was because I was injured. And that changed it all for me.

I started treating my nervous system as if it was an open wound- speaking kindly whenever it tried to shout. Reminding it that we were safe- that what it was looking for versus what was real didn’t have to be (usually wasn’t) the same.

Because if I wanted to show up soft in love? I had to show up that way for myself first.

Part two to come- but I will leave you with a question to reflect on: are you wanting others to show up for you in a way that deep down you are afraid you could never show up for yourself? And if so-

What would it cost you to admit that to yourself?

(Feel free to share in the comments if you would like to process out loud)

I’m about to share something that I have never shared publicly. It’s not some big thing; but it does give a layer of my heart that hasn’t been explored out in the open. This picture was taken on a night where an event had been organized in honor of Ally. It was right around my birthday, and while she was certainly getting closer to her last days? We had not yet officially started “end of life” care. With Bailey Grace, a similar gathering had happened the week before she died. I will never forget looking out the window and recognizing what was going on. To be honest?

It was like a nightmare of a surprise party. I specifically remember feeling anger when I looked out the window. I was so grateful that people wanted to love on our family; and even then, I could recognize that our community was floundering to figure out how to do round two of child death from the outside looking in. There was no blueprint- no right or wrong way. You would think that an outpouring of support would have felt soothing, yet there was a huge elephant in the room in the form of my body remembering. I glanced out at the scene and looked at my ex, gripping Ally in my arms.

No.

I said very clearly.

We aren’t going out there.

It’s not time yet.

The truth is that we were in fact weeks from Ally’s death and lightyears away from me wanting to accept her being gone at all. Participating in this display of love felt like surrendering to a process that I hated. And while I was eventually talked in to taking Ally’s frail, vulnerable body out to the porch?

The tightness in my chest was pushing out any semblance of peace I might have been able to latch onto.

Years before, watching Bailey Grace die had been one of the wildest experiences of my life. I recognize how borderline bizarre that sentence is in reference to my daughter dying. But taking that reality out and simply talking logistics of watching a body slow down and eventually stop? It was like nothing I had ever seen prior. I specifically remember feeling as if my own heart would stop- this picture showing a subconscious reality out in the open.

For whatever reason, I’ve always held trauma in my chest.

As a little girl with a really big throw-up phobia? I would often complain to my parents about my “heart feeling funny”.

As an anxious high school girl, I went to the cardiologist for unexplained heart palpitations.

Fast forward to the grief of my girls and then the ending of my marriage.

My body began to scream at me to the point that not listening felt like a genuine death sentence- and I don’t say that lightly.

I could no longer refuse to care for the very temple that was holding me together without utterly falling apart.

There are many different places people hold trauma in their bodies- but today, I want to speak to those who feel the weight of it all in their chest.

The Why:

This isn’t just woo-woo talk- it’s neurobiology. People often hold grief and trauma in their chests because that’s where emotion, connection and survival physically converge. The chest holds the heart, lungs and vagus nerve (the main highway between the brain and body that determines safety versus threat). When something becomes too overwhelming? The body is always going to shift into survival. In these moments, the vagus nerve tightens the chest to reduce feeling and conserve energy. Shallow breathing follows. That restriction- that very moment- is what locks the emotion in place.

Not only that, but loss-related grief actually forms injury within the body’s attachment system. Attachment lives in the chest because:

The heartrate changes when we are with someone we love

Oxytocin (the bonding hormone) affects heart rhythm

When our bonds with someone are broke, particularly suddenly? The body reacts as if it has lost oxygen

This is why grief actually feels heavy. It’s why the physical ache, pressure, or feeling as if you cannot catch your breath isn’t just all in your head.

When trauma occurs in our bodies? The intercostal muscles tighten. Our diaphragms lock up. We begin to re-posture ourselves to be more guarded. We literally brace in attempt to not let any more pain in. And overtime? This becomes a default.

Oftentimes, chest-held trauma is the body’s attempt to stop the feeling of trauma altogether. This is why traditional therapy or simply time do not heal many wounds. Because at the end of the day? The only way to move forward in your grief is to release the spaces that are stuck.

In time, I am going to be sharing practical, physical wisdom on how to release said trauma. Lately, I’m really determined to set the stage for you to get an understanding of what holding trauma in your body does. I openly offer up the places my own journey has brought me because I want you to know how not leaning into somatic practices was hindering my own healing. Do I believe God is capable of doing the impossible? I do. I don’t think that impossible exists for Him. And also? I think so much of our time on earth is about trusting and walking and living the process. I think our Creator invites us to participate in our own becoming in real time. And because of that? I don’t think I could have prayed my way into more healing because I don’t think that was ever the point. I have learned to love my body more as I have accepted the invitation to release what no longer serves me. It’s been hard- really, really hard. Letting go of anything we are used to isn’t easy. Even still, it’s been in the letting go that I have found more freedom and peace than I ever thought possible.

Things I desperately want for you as well.

I also know that it took me years to even grasp the dissociation. I was so numb that I couldn’t even see how numb I was. Because of that? I try to be a space where you can gently dip your toe in the water of acceptance. So today? If you want, why don’t you just start with this question: Do I believe I’m holding grief and trauma in my body and if so? Where do I feel that most?

With you and for you and believing for the weight of things that have lived in you for so very long to be lifted.

After four years away, I’m dabbling back in the church arena. There wasn’t some big turning point; not any kind of “repentance” of sorts. Despite what I am sure many (well-intentioned yet what I believe to be ill-informed) people might believe about my hiatus?

My time away from the building and yes, typical community has been sacred. And seasoned. And just what I needed.

I didn’t know if I would ever step back into its doors. What I did know is that whether I did or I didn’t? I wasn’t going to let that choice be determined by anyone but the Spirit within. I also wasn’t going to let my ego get in the way- which is a task within itself sometimes. I’m unsure what this will look like or what it means; I just know that it became a space I craved to be in again. So? I’m trying it out with no expectations for what it means or looks like. It’s been surprisingly undramatic and a fun little addition to our Sunday.

And that’s it.

There was a time in my life where everything faith-related felt so high stakes. To be honest, there was a time in my life where because of that, everything as a whole felt that way. Life was serious and meant for those willing to suffer. I didn’t realize there could be another way because I was only consuming things and putting myself in environments where it simply wasn’t.

It was in the stepping away that I was able to see clearly.

I’m genuinely not that great of a writer; but I do believe I’m a gifted expresser. It’s why I keep writing- because I know there are things that need to be said that are easier for me to articulate than others. I had always been told that if I stopped going to church, dangerous things would happen to my faith. I actually think what people meant to say was that my fixation on religion itself would be endangered- which turns out, hasn’t been dangerous at all.

The truth is, once I stopped only drinking from the exact same man-made water fountains? I was able to see that The Well Himself was the One that had been keeping me (and my faith) alive all along. It sounds cheesy, yes. And for those with religious trauma? I know even sentences like that can be too much to read. When I say that, it comes from a deep place within that knew God in the exact same way prior to now but was going about that faith in a very different way. And for me? In that season for sure, what the church was prescribing was simply not what my soul was needing.

I needed creation. Quiet. Questions. Laughter. Sex. Music. Journals. Conversations with those outside of the box I had lived in. Community with people who I simply clicked with for no reason other than we did. Less over-analyzing every little thing I did or thought or said and more worship through l-i-v-i-n-g.

I needed to fall in love with the life I had been given again.

The funny thing about my healing journey (that I am writing about much more in the manuscript I’m currently putting together) is that it could really be described in a few simple (but very complicated) steps:

Step 1: Realizing that I carried a lot of trauma.

Step 2: Thinking that bringing it all to Jesus and spiritualizing the whole thing was the answer.

Step 3: My body saying NO, that in fact is NOT the answer.

Step 4: Choosing to heal.

Step 5: Thinking I’m healing because I’m doing lots of healing things and feeling good.

Step 6: Body begins to unthaw (from doing the work). I start to feel again- which means feeling it all. It does not feel good.

Step 7: Sit in feeling all the things until I’ve healed from the inside out.

I’m hopeful that while Step 8 will include some wash, rinse, repeat?

That the reason this part is taking so dang long this time is because I waited so dang long (my whole life) to process any of it at all.

Because of where I’m at in the process? This year (meaning time not just 2026) has been HARD. It has made relationships messier at times. It’s been embarrassing and humbling. I have had to look in the mirror in ways that not healing allowed me to not have to do.

I hate it. And at the same time?

I love it and I have never felt prouder of myself and the brave work I am doing. Instead of living for the highlights or a made-up fantasy in my head? I’m living my life. I’m co-creating with God a reality He already knew was possible. A reality that is better than the less layered dreams I would have come up with myself. One that lets ME show up as ME and invites the people around me to do the same. One who knows who me is and knows what I actually want.

It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and also? I’m believing it to be one of the most rewarding.

And?

I’m convinced choosing to authentically know, heal, and process the lives God gave us is one the rarest yet beautiful forms of worship. Not to mention one of the kindest things we could do for the world around us.

So, how does all this tie in with social media?

Our entire online experience is brought to us by an algorithm. We hear this word a lot; but let’s break down the meaning: essentially, an algorithm is a data-tracking system that keeps up with our browsing habits in order to present us with similar content.

At different seasons of my life, you could find an array of things on my own socials. Fitness, faith, wellness. They’ve all found their place there. You know what doesn’t? Things that I don’t intentionally seek out. This isn’t inherently a bad thing unless it begins to give us the false assumption that there isn’t a world outside of our own. The average American spends over 70 days a year staring at a phone. So, if you started this habit at 15 and you stop it at 80? That’s 4,550 days of your life. Which is almost 12.5 YEARS. On a phone.

Let that sink in.

The reality in itself should cause us to pause (because keep in mind- this statistic doesn’t include televisions, computers, IPADS or the like). Outside of the initial gravity of what that means? What does it look like to spend 12.5 years of your life simply looking at a reality that only you created? That doesn’t include any outside opinions or thoughts?

I don’t have to know specifics to know how much this limits a life.

We live on this big, vast beautiful planet. Technology has made it that we are able to receive information about what’s going on in the world around us more than ever before. Initially, this would seem (and maybe did seem) like it enlightened or enlarged us.

I’m now pretty convinced that the opposite is happening. I fear that our own little algorithms have us caged, looking down at a screen and digesting opinions and confirmation biases like they are truths- in a very similar way that my own church attendance was starting to do. Reactivity of enraged nervous systems has taken the place of responding to house phone answering machines a couple days later. Our neighbor is more and less accessible than ever before- and it just might be killing us. We read post after post, article after article, that does exactly what our stunted brains want it to do: reassure us of the thoughts already swirling around in our own heads to give us a false confidence of knowledge and control that was never ours to have.

Before I fell in love with Rob? My understanding of politics, military or anything government-related was limited to that which affected me personally. I’m not proud of that; but I also will simply own it. The irony of being a part of a profession (Social Work) in which you would think that I would’ve cared isn’t lost on me. The truth is, I associated things like justice, mercy, helping the poor, and the like with my faith. I didn’t always vote; and I didn’t really think it mattered. Rob’s background is security forces- and while I cannot write about it in detail here- he’s spent years of his life seeing, guarding, and experiencing the realities of what lack of security looks like. He’s risked his life, sitting in camps in other countries, listening to the news from back home telling blatant lies about the missions that he or his fellow Airmen were a part of. 16 years of sacrificing normalcy for the security of people- and I know he would do it again in a heartbeat. Why?

Because he cares deeply for people. He values freedom within safe bounds. His heart to protect very much matches his fierceness in it.

And yet many would hear his background and immediately categorize him as a meathead, gun-loving … whatever you want to add.

I bring this up because if it wasn’t for him? I wouldn’t be able to step outside of my own vantage point and actually ask questions in order to hear. I would assume that only one side of the story was lying because it’s the side I’ve been filling my own eyes and mind with.

Two things can be true at once.

I wonder what it would look like if we didn’t have these screens. If we weren’t consuming the same messages over and over and over again. If we had to talk in person; and if a requirement for talking was actually knowing the person in front of us first. I know one thing:

we would be in a much healthier place both as individuals and as a country.

When we shut our minds off to anything but the words that we already have in them? Our own messages simply play like a loop in our head.

The only way to grow is to step outside the labyrinth of our own heads.

I for sure don’t have the answers; but I do think it’s important that we start asking different questions. That we get off the hamster wheel and connect with actual human beings- including ones that we disagree with. That we at least get curious about the possibility that our perspective only gives us one view; and that choosing to look at the world around us with only one filter doesn’t mean we have the correct one.

This isn’t a threat to your beliefs, morals or opinions. It’s having faith that if what you see is in fact a reality meant to keep? You’ll circle right back to it in time.

If we want human beings to treat all human beings? It has to start with us. And, out of all the terribly beautiful things this world has to offer?

It will always be people loving people for me.

“The Universe is telling you”.

“Manifest it”.

“If you believe it, it’s already yours”.

“My Intuition is telling me”.

“Trust yourself”.

If you grew up in certain environments, you probably read the above with suspicion.

For years of my life, this was definitely me.

The corners of religion that I placed myself in, while I personally believe were well-meaning, preached fear and caution against any view that was different than our own. Certain phrases and environments were considered dangerous at best and evil in bulk.

“A gateway to leaving the path of the narrow”.

This is what I felt like even exploring any views outside of my own would bring.

For me, being a writer essentially means I have a running tape of things that are going on much deeper than the surface infiltrating my own reality. At the risk of sounding fanciful? It’s almost as if I have a connection to a deeper reality than the one that we walk around in. Often times, what is actually going on is far removed from what I am contemplating or experiencing. This picture was taken over 5 years ago. I wrote about this moment from a layer that, while authentic, was not capturing the depth of what I was truly acknowledging or feeling. My ex and I were on a short getaway trip. Both Bailey Grace and Ally had died; and we were wrestling through attachment with our fairly newly adopted son while trying to figure out what our life actually was anymore. The night before was full of over-eating and over-drinking followed by arguing and not much sleep. I don’t remember the details of why; but I do remember waking up the next day and sensing change ahead that was outside of the obvious. I went on a run and wept as I asked God for a breakthrough in our life. A lack of feeling at home in my own home was creeping in but really?

It was the discomfort in my own skin was growing, and it was beginning to feel like it was incapsulating me from the inside out.

This feeling was something I had felt before at various seasons of my life- each time chalking it up to simply needing to do a better job of “dying to self” or learning contentment. Yet this time? I recognized that I had/was doing those things. I understood the wise caution of not simply living for me. I had lived almost a decade of a beautiful, albeit hard, life doing just that. Beyond that, it wasn’t discontentment I was feeling- it was invitation.

In the winter, what looks dead is actually simply resting.

I assumed accepting the invitation to grow would initially feel similar to that. And yet, oddly enough? The adrenaline of saying yes carried me well into the first couple years of it all. Cryotherapy, endurance racing, infrared sauna, micronutrients, massages. These things all felt so good, which I (falsely) assumed meant that the healing itself was feeling good. And then?

The real healing began.

The truth is, sometimes trauma has us in such a numbed-out chokehold that finding initial safety is actually the precursor to going through it. Healing in itself is not sanitized. It’s blood, sweat and tears. It doesn’t always (often doesn’t) feel good at all. And for me, it took me over a year of all the unthawing before the actual growth began.

Healing is feeling; and sometimes feeling doesn’t feel good at all.

So, why would I talk about perspective in this and what does any of it have to do with faith at all?

New growth produces new things. Creation is constantly telling us something new- and even if it looks like something we’ve seen before? Life is living- each moment different than the one before it. The Bible speaks of these things often and a lot. Allowing healing into my life has given me new perspective into the world around me. I think when we say yes to expansion? We are able to see both God and the world around us with wider eyes.

And a bigger lens will always help us to see more, not less.

Lately, calling God the Universe has felt really comforting to me. I consider Him to be in everything and everyone, everywhere- Immanuel, God with us. If this is true? What greater name could there be than one that encompasses it all? And yet, at certain times of my life? I would have read or heard that and automatically assumed it to be counter to my own beliefs, not connected. The same goes with the rest of the phrases above as well as many more. Manifesting wasn’t trusting God- it was selfish woo-woo. Intuition certainly couldn’t have been another way to call out the Holy Spirit. And trusting myself? That was the quickest way to fail.

I’m still smack dab in the middle of the real work. It doesn’t feel good a lot of the time- at all actually.

But it’s real. And true. And it’s leading me to a version of myself I have always known existed but was too afraid to meet.

There was a time where I wanted to publicly skip this part. And honestly, pieces of me tried to for a while. But what I recognize is that when I get just a little farther along in this journey? You will be able to trust the words from my mouth because you will have seen the experiences of my heart laid bare, out in the open for the world to see.

I keep healing for me.

I keep sharing for you and the version of you that you, too, know exists somewhere already inside of you.

Perspective is everything.

May we correlate growth and healing in such a way that God and the world around us expand more and more.

And may we know above all else that a God who asks us to shrink isn’t a God who is big enough to worship.

The Universe can, in fact, hold it all.

May we trust It.

I’m in-process of becoming an ICF-certified Trauma-Informed Somatic Women’s Coach- which is a mouthful to say that my professional focus is learning how to best walk alongside women with complex stories in order to help them move forward in whatever season they are in thriving in what is. A lot of this beautiful work centers on the nervous system and helping people both understand and heal their bodies through somatic work. I am passionate about it because in my own grief, it has very much saved my life.

All that being said, talking about the Nervous System right now is quite the trend. There is a lot of great information out there and also? Like every popular topic of the day, there are many misinformed or ill-communicated conversations happening that have confused the topic altogether.

I’m here to take away some of the fog and spell some things out clearly for you. So, let’s start with the basics:

What is the Nervous System?

In short? Your Nervous System is what keeps you connected to yourself and to the world around you. It’s your body’s communication network, composed of the Central (your brain and spinal cord) and Peripheral systems. The Peripheral NS breaks down into two separate branches: the Somatic (voluntary movement) and Automatic (involuntary). Lastly, the Automatic us broken down into two parts: The Sympathetic and Parasympathetic (both involuntary but serve different purposes). The Sympathetic NS is all about activation and alertness. The Parasympathetic NS has the job of recovery, repair and rest.

The Automatic Nervous System is where regulation is governed. If you’ve read anything about wellness in the last year, you’ve at least heard about this concept of having a regulated nervous system.

But what does that really mean?

Lately, so much of what I read talks about nervous system regulation as if it’s synonymous with calm.

Does having a regulated nervous system mean you are constantly in a Zen-like state?

No, no, no.

Regulation is all about the body’s ability to shift between the Sympathetic Nervous System and the Parasympathetic Nervous System without getting stuck in survival mode (only SNS).

One of your Nervous System’s main jobs is to look for cues of safety or threat (it’s called neuroception). Even when the threat isn’t real? Perceived danger is also going to cause your Sympathetic Nervous System to jump in. And when that happens? Your heartrate goes up, your cortisol (stress hormone) levels raise, your digestion is slowed. Your body basically puts all the focus on using all of its energy towards the “threat” in front of you.

When you are actually out of safety? This is a really good thing. But when you aren’t? The Parasympathetic Nervous System needs to be back on and running so that your body can get the balance it needs.

Nervous System Regulation is the body’s ability to get back to baseline after danger or stress occurs.

Chronic stress or trauma is one of the ways that the body gets stuck in Sympathetic Nervous System mode- which is another way of saying you are stuck in fight or flight aka survival.

And when you are frozen in chronic stress? This impacts your entire life.

The Nervous System controls literally every process that your body goes through.

Your hormones. Metabolism. Immunity. Sleep. Digestion. (You know, all the things people complain about).

So, if you are constantly dysregulated? The entirety of who you are is affected.

Mood. A woman’s cycle. Sex drive. Energy. Recovery. Appetite.

You name it, a Nervous System that isn’t functioning correctly is going to mess with it all.

Technology is wild because it gives us access to so many different vantage points with the touch of a button. The wellness community can often make it seem like healing mainly involves $500 infrared sauna sessions or going to some obscure islandic silent retreat; and while some of these things are helpful tools?

There are some much easier (and way less expensive) ways that you can work on giving more health to your Nervous System.

Some (mostly free) Ways to Heal your Nervous System:

Focus on improving your circadian rhythm (which maintains balance between the SNS and PNS) by:

-Going to bed and waking up at the same time most days

-Aiming for 7-9 hours of sleep (less OR more than that isn’t ideal)

- Get out in the sun or at least be near natural light within 30 minutes of waking

-Don’t look at a screen (yes, this includes your phone) for an hour before you go to sleep

Increase vagal tone (your body’s main nerve in the PNS) through:

-Cold therapy in short spurts (30 seconds in shower, cold water on your face)

-Breathwork (Make sure your inhales are shorter than your exhales. Example: 6 seconds of inhale, 7 seconds of exhale)

-Humming (actually vibrates the vagus nerve, stimulating activity)

-Side eye movement (Hold your gaze to the left for 5 seconds, then the right. Repeat several times)

-Walk for 30 minutes

-Laugh

-Dance to music for at least 5 minutes straight. Bonus if you sing during.

Lower your stress (allostatic) load by:

-Eating enough. And eating at consistent times throughout the day.

-Low-intensity exercise 2-3 days a week over high-intensity. (Think hikes, walks, yoga, or moderate strength-training versus workouts that send you to higher Heartrate Zones)

-Limit caffeine and alcohol intake- especially without eating appropriately. (Ideally, alcohol is at a zero and caffeine is never consumed on an empty stomach and is kept to under 400 milligrams or less if anxiety is your thing. Which it probably is if you are reading this article. Baby steps.)

-Limit processed foods and added sugars (fuels inflammation which adds to stress load on body)

-Stay hydrated (dehydration increases cortisol)

-Don’t live in isolation. Research shows having healthy, life-giving relationships with 3-5 people is all you really need. Quality of relationships over quantity.

-Co-regulation through eye contact, cuddling a pet, hugs, connecting sex.

-Avoid porn or masturbation that doesn’t involve present real-time connection. The research is clear this absolutely messes with your brain structure and your ability to both connect and seek out long-term regulation, which increases dysregulation altogether.

-Mindless activities are exactly that- mindless. They are useful when you need to have a moments breath; but they are not good long-term resolutions for regulation. 911 tool versus an actual helpful resource (and can be harmful when our brains get used to only regulating when said activities are present).

-Grounding activities. Go stand barefoot in the grass for a few minutes. Get out in nature. The life around you scientifically produces a calming, grounded affect within you- signaling safety to our bodies.

-Form a routine with healthy habits. Repetition equals safety to our brains. We don’t want to get so rigid that it, in turn, sends the opposite message of what we are trying to send; but sticking with something good for you when it comes to food, movement, your relationships and living environment is very helpful.

-Take a warm bath in an ambience you intentionally create.

William James, psychologist, said that the greatest thing… is to make our nervous systems our ally instead of our enemy. So much of our lives are not in our own control. I hope these words are some simple reminders to all that actually is. I hope you are empowered to think through the ways you could take 1-3 steps today to do something kind for your nervous system. Your world will thank you.

Let me know what questions you might have in the comments. What has been most helpful for you in your own healing journey?

It’s almost 11:00 in the morning. I got up, had my typical morning time, headed to yoga, and then went to the lab to get some blood work done (which required fasting). Very hungry, I headed home and ate breakfast. Since then? I’ve been taking pictures of this plant in my office area, telling myself it was a productive thing to do for today’s post.

It’s not.

This seemingly small example is the kind of thing that I believe is disempowering people from their very own lives. Little habits tend to turn into bigger ones; and the more we talk ourselves into rationalization? The more likely we are to miss living altogether.

It always goes back to the things we are telling ourselves. Always.

My freshman year of college, I was raped at a party. I’ve talked about this pretty openly. My sexual intelligence at that point was slim to none. I hadn’t heard sex talked about outside of youth group discussions at my friends’ churches and those messages gave me no context about what sex was- just that you shouldn’t have it before you were married. I really didn’t know how the whole thing went down. It sounds ridiculous for a sorority girl who wouldn’t have seemed sheltered yet very much felt it. I was very clear that I wanted to “save myself for marriage”.

I don’t think I even knew what I was saving myself for- just what I was standing against.

It took me years to fully believe that I was raped. Not because I thought the sex was consensual. Not because I hadn’t had confirmation from the very person who did it that he, too, knew what he had done. I held onto personal responsibility simply because I had placed myself in that environment and had in fact chosen to drink and put myself in the situation I ended up in.

As life has gone on, I’ve had many people attempt to tell me that none of it was my fault. That narrative was always tempting for me because after all- who wants to own purity being taken from their own hands?

And yet.

In recent years (almost 20 years later) I have found a lot of solace in letting myself own the portion of those events that are in fact accurate. I didn’t ask to be raped. And also? Staying in environments where you are able to trust the people around you is important. Drinking to a point where your ability to speak up is compromised isn’t wise.

It can all be true at once.

I’m not undermining the story above and the effects it has had on my life. I do, think, however, that this idea of the freedom that comes with personal responsibility actually starts with the little things and overflows to the larger wounds and milestones of our lives.

If the narrative that we always tell ourselves is pointing outward- if we are constantly looking for someone or something to blame outside of us? We will never get to experience the beauty of letting two things be true at once and allowing the stories of our lives to bring us growth and change.

We live in a world where it’s turning into us versus them everywhere we go. There are things that happen to us that are so dense that we feel like if we take on any sense of responsibility in it, we just might drown. We also tell ourselves the lie that owning our own stuff takes the other person off the hook- which couldn’t be farther from the truth.

After my divorce, I did this for a while. I was so fearful of being misunderstood- of others not seeing my ex’s role in the demise of our relationship- that I felt scared to look into the mirror. I was fearful I would find a narrative that was different than the one I was surviving off of- but instead?

I began to believe my reality more when I let myself see it more clearly.

The truth is this: we cannot control other people. We say we know this and yet I am unsure we do based on the extremes we will go to in our own futile attempts. People are going to see what they choose to see- believe what they choose to believe- every single time. And really? Who cares if it’s one that you know isn’t the full picture.

That’s on them, not you.

But you?

You do have control over one person and it’s the one you look at in the mirror every single day.

Most of your world involves the messages that you are allowing into your mind.

Taking personal responsibility over the role you play in your own life? It doesn’t take anyone else off the hook, whatever that means. It simply empowers you do to be able to move forward with more wisdom and context for the rest of your moments here.

They get to choose how they process their own perspective and story and you?

You get to do the same.

Change your circle if you need to. Ask for boundaries. Give responsibility where it’s due and then?

Retrain the messages that live in your own mind. Allow yourself to be human and choose growth by admitting where it needs to happen.

And mainly? Start small. We begin to trust ourselves by following through on the promises we make ourselves.

So, write the article instead.

It is 2017, and I am at the beach with my family. Outside of a couple weeks out of the year, I lived my life inside the walls of my own home, doctors’ offices and hospitals. This week was always a subconscious yet stark reminder of how very different my life was compared to most. I would find moments of solace in the early morning hours, glancing up at the ocean nearby. I might go on a walk with my sister or get a drink with my (now ex) husband. And yet, honestly?

The week was always incredibly stressful.

The truth is anything outside of our home was like attempting to fit a square into a round hole. Trying to step into churches, vacations or even simply community as a whole no longer felt enjoyable because the people I loved most didn’t belong there. My girls thrived at home in their mothers’ arms in front of a television with bright colors and fun music or others that loved them. Outside stimulation was simply too much for their always working hard to process brains. But we did those things from time to time because they felt important.

I always remember the comfort and relief I felt when it was all over- when I could go back to the confines of the world I had curated within the four walls of the space that we resided.

That statement can only fully be understood by those who have walked similar roads.

During those times, we would sometimes get what felt like pushback but was mostly well-intentioned encouragements to participate in what most would consider the real world.

But for me?

What the rest of society deemed real no longer was.

As a mother, comforting your children is like breathing. It’s natural, and as soon as their little hearts start beating outside of their bodies? Your greatest purpose in life is to care well for them. Everything else feels secondary. When you have kids whose needs are different than many? There is this constant tension of making everyone else happy or choosing to do what is best for your children. But no one wants to hear this, or rather, most people refuse to.

We often discount things we don’t understand, don’t we?

I would have stayed in the bubble with my girls forever had God allowed it. I didn’t care anymore about most of the things I thought I had cared about before. There was life before Bailey Grace and Ally, life during, and now? Life after.

There is a shocking dissonance between the support you find before children die versus the long-term support you receive after- and I don’t think it always has to do with the ones in the supporter role. The truth is that grief and trauma change you. Biologically speaking, it is impossible to not walk through the unimaginable and come away the same. Two things can be true at once, and for me? While I have mourned and been disappointed in the conditional love I feel like I received from many around me in the aftermath of my girls’ deaths? I also can recognize that sometimes, relationships simply hold expiration dates. Friendships are often seasonal, threaded together and valued for who they were with and where they were. Many of the people I was in community with simply are not people that want to engage someone who is different than them- at least not someone who once felt more similar and now is not.

And I no longer feel the need to be a part of relationships where we only bond over what makes us feel comfortable about the other.

My greatest friendships post-Ally and Bailey Grace have been the ones in which we seek to know each other rather than question one another. Relationships where we aren’t afraid to give our own opinions in the same breath that we can say, “But I will never pretend I know what’s best for you over you knowing what’s best for you. I trust the story of your life and I’m with you in it no matter what”.

God Himself seems to be the One who has modeled this for me the most- which is why I never shy from both continuing to speak of who I have found Him to be while also never layering it with less Mystery than I believe to be there.

I spent the majority of my life thus far seeking the approval of people that were never going to approve of me in the first place- at least not the real me. I lived in homes where I knew that deep down, who I was? Wasn’t really wanted. I don’t say this for pity at all. I speak these words both in honesty and also to acknowledge that what I do with this information moving forward is entirely my responsibility.

What other people think of you isn’t yours to monitor or hold- and yet you still have choices.

Pretending that we don’t care is, in my opinion, both silly and futile.

I think that truly looking at the reality of what is in the face and then deciding what you are going to tell yourself about that reality is the key to both empowerment and peace.

I no longer spend my days mourning over what I wish was but isn’t. I let myself be honest with myself about the disappointment felt; and then?

I move on past it into the life that has always been here for me.

Staying stuck in the emotional turmoil of the past is no way to live a life.

What matters now is what you decide matters.

Not because you are the god of your life. No. Because God is God and we are not and that has always been a good thing.

Are you living someone else’s script for fulfillment in your life or are you living your own?

The answer to this could change everything.

Most of my life, faith was synonymous with fear.

It wasn’t worded that way.

In fact, I was always told the opposite.

That we weren’t supposed to fear.

That with God, I didn’t have to be afraid.

And on levels? This reality did in fact give me courage.

Yet when it came to self and my own created being? It felt as if I was supposed to be leery of every little thing that made me, me.

I write about this more in the book I’m currently writing- this idea of what I used to believe about faith versus what faith has taught me. I think growth gives us room to say things like, “I’m not sure if someone else told me I should feel this way or if I simply did”. So, I guess that’s my preface for today’s reflections. But in ways? I’m not sure it really matters. What’s relevant is the repercussions of a life lived feeling like I couldn’t trust anything about the core of who I was. Up until the last few years? Every big (and often small) decision I’ve made in my life wasn’t made because it felt right for me. They were made because they lined up with what I believed to be right for everyone. This had a profound effect on many things- my confidence and sense of self, yes. But also, my relationships. My parenting. My friendships. My career choices. My marriage and yes, the end of it. At times, I didn’t even hear a still, small Voice saying otherwise. My thinking on it all was very black and white.

Feelings are bad. Taking care of self is selfish. You can only trust the people that tell you that you can trust them- and those people? They will often tell you that trusting yourself is the real danger.

It wasn’t until I was forced to listen to my body that I was able to see how relievingly wrong this thinking had been.

Sometimes, I think going off the hinges for a little bit might just be the wisest thing we can do. Around 2022, things like the above kept happening to me NOT at random. The front of my car literally just fell off one morning. I hit three deer in one week. A bird killed himself on my window. Over and over again, God was making it clear: something’s got to give. The old formulas of listening just weren’t cutting it anymore. There was this adrenaline inside me that knew what it knew what it knew. Yet everything it was telling me felt like so much of what I had been told was wrong. So, I did what I thought at the time every “mature” Christian would do. I fought it. I considered it the Enemy. I tried to pray it away.

My flesh was the problem here- and if I ignored it enough? Eventually, it would leave me alone.

Or so I thought.

My body got LOUD. Like, really, really loud. I’ve attempted to articulate the sequence of events that led to the freeing of me in many different ways; but I’m unsure that complex words are really needed. The point is that at some point? I began to realize that figuring out who I now was, finding spaces to be safe as is, and learning to love both me and the story that existed was the only way I could survive.

And if survival was selfish? Then, selfish is what I would be.

What followed was the exact opposite of what I thought I would. Making choices for me- trusting the Intuition I had? It freed me up to have more compassion, not less. I was a kinder mother because I felt more comfortable in my skin. I could love the people around me with more frequency because the container of who I was became more spacious, not less. Suddenly, the world didn’t feel so scary. I could look it all in the face- maybe especially my own- and not feel the need to look away. Initially, a lot of the “work” was done in honor of the little girls I had been. Loving the kid and the teenager who didn’t understand unconditional love because she had never known it (more on that later). But lately?

I do it for the future woman in me that I’m not sure deserves it any more or less than the next, but I know wants it.

I show up for myself as the woman that I am with all the wisdom earned- including that which involved some stumbling around.

The truth is, loving myself has been the hardest thing I have ever attempted to do. And loving myself doesn’t mean I’m obsessed with every little thing that makes me, me. No. Sometimes, I annoy the absolute shit out of me. I get exhausted by patterns or reactions that creep up no matter how hard I try to hide them. So instead? I’ve learned to embrace them and treat all parts of me with kindness. Not because I like them all but because I choose to love them- love me.

And this? This has also not ironically been the way I have learned to love others most fiercely and authentically.

I don’t know where you find yourself as we head into a new year. I have a feeling that if you are reading this, you are the type of person who is both reflecting and committing to some semblance of growth and change. I believe those to be big, beautiful things! I hope whatever those intentions are, that at the forefront of it all? You will look at loving yourself as the foundation to your own humanity. That loving you- self-love- will be the essence of all that you want in the coming days, weeks, months, years.

It isn’t dangerous, love.

Promise.

What the hell is a healing journey anyway?

I had this thought a few weeks ago in the middle of the night when I woke up absolutely enraged that I was there again.

I’m doing all the things. I’ve opened pandora’s box and jumped right in. So why does it sometimes feel like I’m going backwards instead of forwards?

These are the things those of us that talk about healing and encourage you in yours don’t want to say. In ways, it feels like admitting this is admitting that I don’t really know what the hell I’m doing with all this. That it’s “not working”.

But fortunately, not fortunately? I’m realizing that may not be true at all.

A few years ago, my therapist attempted to get me to do some biofeedback work in order to get my nervous system to even begin to be in a place where I could do this whole healing thing. I went to two sessions and then never went back again. The truth is it (briefly) took me out of fight or flight- a state my body was very much used to being in. My body had adjusted so fluently to not being “at rest” that feeling at rest felt really unsafe.

The very thing I needed was the thing that I was afraid of most.

It took me two years and my body screaming at me for me to finally decide I could no longer ignore my own reality. It was almost as if my physical being was trying to unthaw itself- and the ways that it was showing me that were too obvious to ignore. I had heart palpitations most nights, my sleep was all jacked up, and my hands were constantly shaking. Up until this point? I had felt like superwoman- resilient to all that had happened and assumptious that my faith had somehow sheltered me from the blows of the heavy, heavy layers of trauma that continued to pile up.

But, by (what I strongly believe to be) the mysterious grace of God?

Something inside me said, “No more”.

I can’t speak for everyone but for me? The initial decision to begin to heal- meaning to let myself feel instead of live numb, to decide I wanted to live (really live) instead of walking around half-alive- that initial decision? It included days (months really) of confidence, adrenaline, excitement, and peace. It was as if I knew I was making a brave, good choice and I was riding on the high of it all.

And then the real work began.

I think the means to healing is in fact sometimes glamorous. Being out in nature, prayer, green smoothies, yoga studios, acupuncture rooms, hot baths with candle lit scenes. We’ve created a world where someone says they are on a healing journey and all we picture is some serene retreat without and within- and while the path I have chosen in recent years does in fact include that?

It’s the messy shit that’s happening on the other side of it all that is really doing something.

The truth is? The unthawing does exactly what its description says it does: it unearths all the things you were afraid to face and then asks you to face them. And I want to tell you that once you face it that it’s not so scary. But that would be a boldfaced lie because facing it all- facing myself and the story written for me in its entirety really- has been the most terrifying thing I have ever done.

The longer you avoid it all? The more layers there are to unpack.

Six months ago, I started acupuncture. It’s been both life-changing and has absolutely gutted me. My acupuncturist described a traumatized nervous system like a beaver dam that’s backed up. She said acupuncture assists the body in clearing some things up so that the body can operate more effectively. This sounded really pleasant until I realized that my body operating more effectively was going to involve it remembering all it has carried. Once the work started working?

The tears began to flow.

The rage began to appear.

The terror and sadness of everything was there.

It felt as if someone had torn my very heart out of my body without anesthesia, placed my own heart in my hands and said, “See! Here it is. This is everything. Hold it.”

And the greatest miracle of it all?

I decided to say yes- which really means, I made the decision that I was going to love myself and my story not in part but in whole.

And it has sucked as much as you would think it would.

But also?

I think it has saved my life.

I don’t know who you are- your story or how you’ve found yourself here. I don’t believe in coincidences, that’s for sure. In light of that, I want to share a portion of my journal entry from this morning- words to myself that I hope you will speak over your own life as you see fit.

For the one who is choosing to live instead of walking around half-dead. Feel instead of staying numb:

You’ve never done this before. No one taught you how to heal- and yet you are doing it anyway. The bravery required to be in your shoes is remarkable and regardless of what anyone else around you has to say about it? I hope you will give yourself the gift of acknowledging the courage needed to simply be you right now. The Spirit that made you and the body It gave you will lead you if you listen. This healing? It will be more painful that whatever led you here in the first place- which is why many will not walk nor understand this road you are on. You will want to give up if not many times at least sometimes- which makes more sense than you will give yourself credit for. In ways- not healing would be the easier choice. Not owning the role you’ve played in your own suffering. Not asking other people to own theirs. It sounds simpler, yes. But the question you have to ask yourself is this:

What are the repercussions of a half-lived life?

It was years after this picture was taken that I first made the decision to heal- and just like a lot of commitments in our lives? It has been one that I have had to make over and over again, oftentimes feeling as if I have taken one step forward and two steps back. It has been excruciating at times and has both positively and negatively affected the relationships around me. Inasmuch as this road has seemingly made a lot of things in my life (really, my life as a whole) much more difficult?

I hope you’ll hear me when I say that I don’t regret a single step of it.

The holidays can bring up the best and the worst in us. Growth can feel like it’s disappeared. One second you are a bad-ass grown-up and the next you are a seven-year-old pitching a fit because you didn’t get the piece of cake with the most icing. A reminder to be gentle on yourselves and others and remember that soon enough, we’ll all be giving ourselves the “This next year will be my year” speech again. (And for some of us, we’ll mainly feel like this year wasn’t our year based on a few brief interactions or one too many egg nogs that occur between now and then and not the entirety of the year in itself. Let’s try to not have short-term memory loss with that one, mmm-kay?)

I’ll leave you with a quote from Alyce Taylor:

Some days you will feel powerful enough to move mountains with your bare hands. Other days the weight of your heart will feel too heavy for your rib cage to hold.

Both days you are growing.

It’s December 15, 2020. I have been waiting on my (second) daughter to die for technically over a year but literally 17 days.

I never thought I could beg death to come the ways I did. I still don’t have the capacity for the desperation in our home- a begging that came from the depths of a place where I thought death was the worst thing that could happen. No. Death itself actually is quiet. It’s the waiting that undoes us.

More than anything else, death taught me the inevitable: that love will always equal losing. At some point? Caring will hurt. The amount of ache we receive from it is essentially completely out of our control- and oftentimes? I think the more surrendered we are in love, the more likely we are to get pain in return. You can call it cynical, or you can look back on your life and call it honest-

that is if you’ve ever loved anything or anyone at all.

At the end of the day, we all have to ask ourselves: what is love anyway?

It’s a spectrum of sorts- and if we are truly real with ourselves? We might find we have loved the things or ideas around us more than the people in front of us. The idea of marriage and a family. The idea of a strong faith. The idea of close-knit community. The idea of a successful career. The idea of whatever image we care to portray to others and (mainly) the person staring back at us in the mirror.

Let me explain- faith and fitness being a good example in my own life.

There have been times that for better or for worse my identity was showered in religious beliefs. Did I love God? Inasmuch as I understood (understand) it, yes. But religion was what had a hold on me- my own theology, Bible studies, church, and ideas of what it looked like to be a woman who loved God completely clouding the bigger Being Himself. I didn’t know it at the time- which makes sense because we usually don’t grasp most of what is happening to us until it isn’t.

When it came to fitness? It became a quick love- not to be mistaken for lust which comes and goes. Lust sizzles and fizzles. Love stays and presses in when the heat rises.

I often wonder if we draw near to those we supposedly love when we relate or connect in either closeness or opinion. Friendships that are present solely because of commonalities or hobbies. Enjoyment of time with a person simply because you talk about the same things. A relationship beginning because right time, right place.

I’m not even saying these are bad things really. Life is seasonal. A friend (who, not ironically, is no longer in my life) once told me that accepting this reality is a part of finding contentment and letting go of bitterness. It doesn’t have to be weird if anything in our life expires. Most things do. And some of the greatest pains in our life involve trying to keep something alive that isn’t meant to be.

I will say, however, that I believe love leaves room for all of this and still doesn’t go anywhere. If it’s love- really, really love? It stays. Not only that but also?

Love doesn’t ask you to show up in parts but in whole.

The irony not irony of this is that inevitably, this means that more pain will ensue. The more of you that’s present to be hurt? The more of you that probably will be. The greatest griefs come from the containers that were deepest.

A few months into dating Rob, I would have told you I was very much in love with him- and he would have said the same. Now? I’m realizing what I think I really meant was that I knew we were going to love each other. I knew we were going to grow. I knew there was going to be something there that couldn’t be replicated elsewhere. Love sears in over time. Love becomes more and more- which isn’t to say it cannot exist quickly. It’s just that the beautiful parts are formed in the complicated moments, I think. And loving after losing my girls has challenged me in ways I don’t remember anything else ever doing. This gift of a bond we have been given? It’s ours. Ours to figure out. Ours to break down and then repair. Ours to live out. Ours to decide where to go and what to do with it. But he isn’t “mine” and I’m not “his”. This is ours- and the intimacy that continues to form in our partnership is one to be unwrapped and opened as we go.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Loving after losing that which was most precious to me has been so intense.

It’s made me have to look in the mirror at myself in completely new ways.

It’s revealed to me the reality of life- that loss is just a part of the assignment.

We can choose to not fully give our hearts because of this, or we can do the brave work of expanding our capacity more and more and more.

We get to choose.

What has loss taught you about love?