Illness, My Greatest Gift and Teacher

Oh, how life has a funny way of waking you up. I’ve been wanting to write this blog post for some time but the thought of putting myself out there terrified me. The fear of rejection, and other people’s opinions on the matter, on top of my own judgment and self-deprecating thoughts creeping in. Thoughts such as, “what makes me so special? Who am I? Why would anyone care to hear what I have to say?” Until it hit me; that I went through one of the hardest times in my life, something that not only pushed me to my absolute breaking point, mentally and physically but I came out on the other side with the most love, purpose and joy I’ve ever experienced. Sharing this message isn’t about me, it’s about the people hearing it and the hope that it may help them.

The truth is that around 2-3 years ago I began to notice my mental health declining. I had a series of unfortunate events happen on top of the worldwide pandemic that we all had to endure. Looking back now I realize I was living life full tilt because so much of my worth and validation came from the outside world. I was so unaware at the time that I was doing this. There was absolutely no room for anything to give, and the sheer thought of getting sick felt like a burden. I believe so many of us live this way, as our society glorifies being busy, and equates it to success. Being an entrepreneur before the pandemic I was quite active in the “business” world. I went to networking events and joined masterminds. I was met with the same message everywhere I went, the "Hussle" culture. Messages like “use your trauma to propel you forward, prove people wrong.” Or “fake it till you make it, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there”. I fell into the trap that happiness was external. I listened and followed what was taught and as promised had gained everything externally that I sought, some would have said I was the manifesting queen. I gained everything I wanted externally but couldn't understand why I was further away from the feelings of happiness and fulfillment that I thought were supposed to come with it. The truth was that I traded so much of my life/time for the validation of others which I thought would bring me the life I was seeking. But the reality was that I was crumbling, and I was incapable of sustaining it or holding it together.

Shortly after I noticed my mental health go, with no surprise, my physical health went too. I felt so defeated. If you have known me or followed my story on how I built my company Rooted, it was through my ability to heal my skin through diet and nutrition. So much of my identity was wrapped up in it. Now here I was back at square one and my diet was no longer helping. I felt like a fraud, a fake and my previous truth was no longer my truth. How could I be doing everything, eating, exercising, sleeping, quote on quote right and still be so sick?

I saw doctors, specialists, allergists, therapists, naturopathic doctors, Chinese medicine doctors, and energy healers, I read dozens of books and spent hours searching the net for answers. But at the end of the day, all that was told to me was that I didn’t win the genetic lottery and that I most likely had an autoimmune of some sort. Also that I was incapable of healing this on my own. Don’t get me wrong I appreciate and respect all these professionals and the work they put in immensely, more than I can even express, my experience with every one of them was from a place of love and truly wanting to help me, but the reality was that no one really could tell me what was going on. They all had ways to mitigate, medicate and dampen the symptoms I was experiencing but no one had any answers to why it was happening or how to fix it. The last and only option I was given was a medication, a biologic/JAK inhibitor. From my understanding and what has been explained to me was that they are newish drugs that work by blocking the attachment of cytokines to these receptors. When cytokines have no binding site, the immune system does not produce as much inflammation, which in turn can reduce the severity of a person’s symptoms. It was a last resort sort of deal and there wasn’t anything they could do beyond that to help me. I went through the vetting process that is needed to go through to be accepted to be a good candidate for the drug. I joined support groups online and talked to others about their experiences with it. The fact that I was at my last resort scared the living shit out of me. How could this be my reality at only 36 years old? My mind was turning on me and I was dealing with terrifying thoughts such as, “What if this magic drug doesn’t work for me? Will I live in this pain forever? Can I live like this forever? I don’t want this life for my children, or my husband. Their lives would be better without me. I’m such a burden”. I was spiralizing into a deep dark hole. That paired with the debilitating amount of pain, and the extreme itch I was experiencing, with no sleep was a recipe for disaster. My mind at the time was telling me to take the drug but I just had a nagging, heavy feeling, call it intuition, screaming not to take it, at least for now. To be honest, at the time I wasn’t a very spiritual person but still to this day I don't understand why I was saying no even though I wanted to say yes. I now believe there was something bigger than me guiding me at the moment.

It was around this time that I was sitting with one of my best friends Trista over a ceremonial tea/meditation practice. So unbelievably raw and broke, I sobbed and shared and she held space for me the way she so magically does always and just listened. (Trista if you are reading this please know how unbelievably grateful I am to have you and your friendship in my life, I love you!) At some point, she shared with me that she believed that this could be something deeper rooted and that she may have a friend that could help me. She believed that all the past trauma I had experienced and so often buried deep inside of me over the years had been building up in my body, and may be coming out physically. The thought of it made sense. I knew I had a tendency to ignore my problems and just move on from them. I created a belief that "moving forward" was a form of strength but the reality was that they never really left me. These less-than-ideal situations were slowly poisoning me and made me more jaded, and scared and I started to operate from a place of fear. The more I buried the quicker the quality of my life depleted. The beliefs/stories that I was creating based on my past experiences were dictating how I was showing up and experiencing my life today. As you could imagine they weren't good. That was when I decided to set up an appointment and try, I had tried everything else so why not this?

I booked an appointment, but little did I understand how much this would change the course of my life. To try to explain my experience in detail would be too much information to write down but in short, it was a way of truly validating my childhood trauma that had been lost or held in my body through true embodiment. I walked out knowing that I was not my body and my body wasn’t I. In the words of Deepak Chopra, “Your body is more than a life support system. It’s the vehicle that will carry you on the journey of your evolution. The health of every cell in your body contributes to your state of well-being because every cell is a point of awareness within the field of awareness that is you.” I realized I had walked in there on a subconscious level hating, and critiquing my body and walked out realizing my body was a gift and blessing from God (whatever you would like to call it, spirit, universe) that houses my soul. At the time when I realized this, I was identifying as my body and the inner dialogue that was being continually repeated was that I/it was a failure and we were useless. I only then realized that I was subconsciously and passive-aggressively talking down and hurting one of the greatest gifts to have been given in my life and didn't even realize it. I was able to turn my head to it by masking it, in the form of good food, exercise and regular sleep because I was taught that was what health was. I was seeking external validation outside of myself and giving all my power to all the “experts” in the field. I was raised to believe if the doctor told me to stand on my head I would stand on my head. It didn't just stop at doctors it was ex-boyfriends, parents, people I was trying to please, and societal standards that we have created as a whole that I was taught to trust and believe had the answers that would bring me a full life. It wasn’t until I was able to quiet my mind and this belief that I knew nothing, and sit with myself and ask the questions that mattered. “How am I actually experiencing life on a day-to-day basis? How do I really feel? Where and when did the belief that joy and happiness come from achieving goals set by societal standards start dictating my life? why do I believe it? How can I change it?” Followed by, “When did I give away all my power? Why do I listen to everyone but myself?” as Oprah would say "What happened to me? Not, what is wrong with me?" It was one of those aha moments where I realized I hadn't listened to myself in a very long time and my body was not giving me the choice anymore. The quote “listen to your body whisper, so then it doesn’t have to scream” really hit home. My body had been communicating to me in whispers and I had refused to listen to it, so it began to scream.

This is when I truly realized my sickness was a gift. My body knew that something wasn’t right years before all this had happened. When I looked back, it had been communicating to me in the form of small red flags, such as anxiety, small panic attacks, mood swings, irritability, and small rashes here and there. I was able to bypass and ignore them by staying busy and masking the rest with medication. It was a slow ticking time bomb and it was ready to go off, then BOOM hello autoimmune flare. It gave me no choice in the matter and forced me to listen.

For six months I wasn’t able to do anything. I was in so much pain. The only place I found relief was in meditation. I spent 2-3 hours meditating daily, getting to know my true self. Not the self I had created to fit into this world, the people pleaser in me. The first realization I had was that so many of us spend hours over coffee getting to know a friend but won’t stop for 10 mins to get to know ourselves. I’ve learnt more about myself in those 6 months than I had in my entire life. I finally was able to stop walking through my life mindlessly and on autopilot and started to really experience it, this included my pain. I found beauty and gratitude in things I never did before. The more present I became the more aware I was of my thought and the actual quality of those thoughts. I became more understanding of my relationships and the things that challenged me. I was able to see when someone triggered me that it was an opportunity and gift to understand myself better. I realized that the people I reacted to more strongly, whether, with love, disgust or hate are just projections of my inner world. What I disliked, was what I most denied in myself. What I loved in others is what I was wishing for in me. It gave me self-knowledge and awareness I never had before. The more I developed a relationship with myself the more I wanted to be present in my life and experience it fully. That included my pain, my pain was the catalyst for it all. The pain forced me into presence like nothing else could have. If I hadn’t sat with my pain I wouldn’t have gotten this experience or the view I have on life now. Our feelings and emotions are our bodies' innate ability and unbelievable way to communicate when something is wrong. They are never the problem they are the symptom and answer to what you are seeking. They’re a gift.

Today I’m not 100% healed but I’m around 95% there. The more I felt, the more present I became, the easier I altered the course of my life and the quicker I healed. To be completely transparent, I never went on the biologic but I did take temporary painkillers and supplements (plant medicine) for relief and support. That all being said I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take medicine or that medicine is even bad. I'm not a doctor and I can only speak from my experience. Everyone’s experience is different and unique to them. I am so grateful to live in a world with Medicine, and its ability to help and support me when I needed it. That being said I also believe that the body's main objective is to survive/heal. If we give it the right environment internally and externally it will do so. Obviously, there are situations where medical intervention is necessary as I stated above but it's not the only option.

Today the quality of my life is tear-worthy in the greatest way. Every morning I thank God for the ability to experience another day. I have joy, pleasure and love in my life unlike I've ever experienced and I neither added nor changed anything externally. I choose how I experience my life and give no one else that privilege. I'm responsible for how I experience this one precious life I've been gifted with. As Mallika Chopra states in her book Living with Intent.

" Getting to know yourself isn't always easy, but the effort pays off with greater clarity and a deeper sense of purpose."

Finding Fulfillment in a Relationship

First off, I'm not claiming to be a relationship counsellor, I'm just talking, here, from my personal experience. I was listening to an audio book by Tai Lopez today, and he said something that resonated with me. "The best person to argue anything, is someone who has tried everything."

I was raised in a broken home, my parents separated when I was very young and, I too, failed at my first serious, to-be-forever, relationship. So my track record of holding a healthy relationship from an outsiders point of view was definitely against me. I had two ways to go about seeing my future in a relationship. I could have decided to throw my hands up and say, "Universe, your right!  I'm doomed and cursed when it comes to finding a loving, healthy relationship. I guess it isn't in the cards for me" or I could pick myself up, dust myself off and refuse to believe what is supposedly "wrote out" for me and change. Charles Darwin once said "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change."  I could have allowed my, not-so-good experiences run the way my life was going to pan out, but instead I chose to see it as a lack of knowledge, and that every failure is just a little more wisdom. The answer was to educate myself on what a healthy relationship is. To be good at anything in life takes knowledge and work, why would a relationship, be any different.

I think relationships are among the hardest things we do everyday because real emotions are involved. So when it came to me, I felt I didn't have the right tools in my tool box to have that healthy thriving relationship. Through extensively educating myself on what makes a relationship last, I was surprised to find out that it wasn't about what the other person did for me but what I did for them. What a concept! lol. Relationships aren't about you. They're not about how much you get from a relationship, but how much you bring to it. My happiness doesn't lie on my husbands shoulders, and why would I want it to. I would prefer to have my happiness in my control. If you go back to the beginning of a relationship, it wasn't about what they did for you, but how it made you feel, to do good by them. You would do anything for that certain someone. You would get all prettied up for every date, massage them because you felt like it, buy them gifts, heck you'd even put on your best looking pj's before bed. In turn, it lit up your own life. My happiness, in my relationship comes from what I do to make my husband happy and to better our relationship. Don't get me wrong, my relationship with my husband, like all relationships, has it's downs, but we made a promise to each other that we would find our balance within ourselves, and to never allow things to go so far, where resentment becomes an issue.

Take full responsibility of your own actions! Take the victim out of the picture. In a loving relationship there are no victims. You are in control of your own happiness. People get in the habit of making relationships a competition, one where the people involved are making tallies of who's doing more or less of certain things. I see this mindset as a recipe for disaster. It's not a competition or a game. If happiness and love is what you're in search of, I've said it once and I'll say it again, your happiness comes from you. No one can give it to you. If you are in a relationship, where you're unhappy, adapt. What I mean by this is stop playing the victim and pointing the finger. Look at your own action first and see where you can change your thoughts around the situation. Respect your partner's opinion. This doesn't mean you always agree. There is a big difference in respecting one's opinion and being a walk on. Know the difference between devaluing yourself and respecting others in their views. It's very important that this be a mutual effort and that your partner, in return, should respect your views.

Something that took me a long time to realize was that, a persons argument is just as right in their minds, as yours is to you. Communicate concerns and feelings with your partner, before the issue becomes bigger than it should be. Keeping things internal will surely lead to resentment. Understand that no human is static. We are constantly changing and evolving. I believe that a loving healthy relationship comes when you commit to, evolving, adapting and communicating with each other. With your main focus being love and happiness, because let's face it, that all life's about.  

If any of you are wondering, the photo's above are from mine and Jason's engagement photo shoot 5 years ago (hence the brown hair lol) , done by my VERY talented and good friend Maria Lang. I just had to pull them out again because she was able to capture the love between Jason and I sooooo perfectly. To Jason the love of my life, when you read this, and I know you will ;) every day that goes by I love you more than the last, I feel sooo lucky to spend the rest of my life with you!!! xoxoxo

Photo Credit @maria_lang  www.marialangstudio.com