Day One.

Original Post: 12/5/22

It’s been 840 days since my first post. That’s 2 years, 3 month and 18 days.

It’s not actually that long of a span of time, and yet I feel like I’ve lived 1000 lives. The journey of 1000 miles.

Sitting here right now, I feel like I would be a stranger to the person that I was when I wrote that first pandemic post. I can see that person, I can empathize with what she was feeling, but it doesn’t have the same strangle hold on on my heart that it did at that moment. So much has happened since then, it’s just water under the bridge. I appreciate that I now have that understanding firmly planted in my spirit… This too shall pass. Whatever it is, whether the beautiful highs or the desparation of the lows, it will always pass. Through the experience, you’ll gain wisdom, maturity and the right tools to accomplish your next and greater purpose. I now understand the concept of purposeful detachment so the fog will clear from your eyes and let you see the full journey. Some things I still don’t have resolution on, but still I’ve come to a place of peace. I fully understand that hind site is 20/20 and everything will reveal itself to in the end. Truth.

2020 was ushered in by a pandemic that led to an immeasurable consciousness awakening for so many people. It happened in spite of a tornado of human darkness, anger and separation surrounding everyone. For myself, 2020 was a rebirth and an awakening. Our county was one of the last in our state to leave phase one and start reopening. When we finally did reopen, employee space requirements for proper distancing made it impossible for the entire team to work full time. Our business location had also been taken over by an increased homeless population and open drug scene that forced us to have to keep the front doors locked to ensure the safety of our staff and clients. This felt nothing like the years before where a flourishing downtown area was flowing with familiar faces, live music and voices filling the air in the historic Front Street Business District. This felt like we were walking through the remnants of a ghost town and definitely felt like the end of the era we’d been living. By December of 2020, I knew the time had come. I didn’t renew my lease, I sold the assets of the business for pennies of what it had been purchased for, locked the door and turned towards a future that I had no idea what to do with. I was starting over again and I had no idea what that looked like.The constant feeling of dread never let me fully take a deep breath.While my very public, professional life collapsed, my private life also became unhinged. Pandemic differences strained and distanced some important friendships and an emotional family situation was the first thing that kicked me in the gut every morning when I woke up and inevitably rode around on my heart all day long. I slept in bits and pieces and cried on the daily. I stayed consistently high just to keep my sadness and anguish at arms distance.

I didn’t want to be here anymore, there was nothing I could attach happiness to, and knew I had completely lost my way. Nothing gave me relief from the sadness. I knew it was time to save myself, although I had no idea where to even begin. I started lighting candles, bleeding into journals, petitioning my ancestors to point me towards a path that would bring me back to something that felt familiar and happy. What I was being told was that I was going to stay in that darkness until I walked myself out of it. This wasn’t going away by itself and it wasn’t going to happen overnight. I needed to become my own new project.

I love to develop businesses. The ability to create something tangible out of a concept in my head puts me in a flow state like no other thing in my life. Not just the construction of a business, but visualizing a way to create connection to people through that business. A Good businesses tells a story. How you connect that business to the people you’re targeting is the storyline you get to develop. If it’s done the authentic way, you get to tell your story while creating an experience for yourself and the community you’re trying to reach. The beginning is always my favorite part of a new venture. That moment when you “know” you’re in the right place and you can see a solution to every problem that could arise. The moment you feel that rush of magnetic energy pulsing in your core and you know you’ve clicked into that flow state. After 2020, and in that moment through the emotions I was living, all I felt was a void of emptiness and nothing. Nothing was flowing. I was spiritually fragmented, disconnected and so emotionally raw. When I recall that period of time, the only thing I feel is the heavy constriction that permanently lived in my chest, a feeling of anxiety and loss that would greet me even before the sun would rise. Nights were worse then the days and I rarely slept until sunrise, so I started getting up on those cold dark mornings and attempting to meditate alone. Those meditation sessions almost always ended up with my mind running down the same entangled thought paths and eventually me scrolling on social media just to zone out. I knew I was dealing with more then I could handle so I picked up the phone and made an appointment with my counselor that I hadn’t seen in over a year. That was step one.

There’s something about taking that first step. Telling yourself you're ready to move on. Just that one act of defiance against the internal darkness seems to show you all the places in your life that light could have gotten in, but you weren’t ready to see it. I started lighting candles and incense every night. I would stand in front of them and call out to the universe to show me the way. In moments of despair, I’d demand answers that I couldn’t see. I don’t know if I was ranting to myself or calling out to a higher power, “You brought me here, now show me the path!”, and one step at a time the path started to illuminate.

A life transformation platform called MindValley started showing up everywhere I looked so I signed up and picked one of the programs that resonated with me. Be Extraordinary by the founder of the platform Vishen Lakihiani…“Learn how to tap into altered states of mind for answers, creativity, and problem solving.” Well, At least this gave me a daily ritual and maybe something would speak to me. In the mornings I listened to the 20 minute message and learned the meditation technique. For no identifiable reason things got a little easier and I started to feel like I could get through the day. On the days that I meditated, I would sometimes go hours before the first obsessive thought started. That reprieve from constant thought was immense. Instead of looking for the answers to my problems I started proclaiming what I wanted in my life. “I’m surrounded by inspiring people who want to expand their consciousness.” “I feel pulled to a purpose.” “I have depth, love, inspiration in my relationships and any relationship that holds me back from the feelings I want is going to fall away with an inexplainable peace in my soul.”

Instead of looking for solutions to my problems, I presented to the universe how I wanted to feel about my life and sat back to see the way things arranged themselves to make that happen… and it did.

I signed up for a 6 month long Kundalini Yoga teacher training down in San Diego. I had no idea what Kundalini was. From what I read, it was the yoga of Energy. That sounded mystical, and like something that might have answers to unwind my mind, and that resonated with me. It was a trauma informed focus program. I felt like I’d come out of a war, so likely I would benefit from the subject matter too. During that program I was gifted connections and friendships with people who were sent into my path to help me find myself again. I was shown it was acceptable to feel and acknowledge how certain situations sat in my body. I learned to acknowledge those feelings to make them work in my favor, not act as a road block in my journey. At the same time, I was shown that the happiest I am is when I help other people find their purpose. My perspective was at times the thing that helped someone else or I had a specific word they needed to hear. All of a sudden, I realized that everything I’ve done to heal myself is the path I want to help create for others, not just for my own life. My strength is my resilience and resilience is what I bring to the world. I’ve developed a calm that’s come from living through the storm and surviving. I’m not a surviver of my circumstances, I’m an experienced, expert whose walked out of the fire and knows how to survive. My purpose journey is to guide other people through the smoke to find their purpose too. I begin to see that what I do to heal myself, heals and strengthens everyone around me and within that circle I would again feel happy and whole.

For some, there comes a moment when you understand that you chose your own path before you ever stepped into this world. A lot of grace comes from the realization that you wanted the lessons that have come to you. You know you are strong enough to handle what has and will come, and instead of shying away from the discomfort you lean into it and try to see how you’re supposed to be growing within it. What a change of perspective. The first time you feel disconnected or lost and you stop and find a better or more positive emotion to focus on, you suddenly see the shift. That altered perspective inevitably will lead you to an experience or person that brings something to your world you had never envisioned.

I now see that the journey is my purpose, and helping other people find the direction for their own journey gives me what I’ve been looking for. I’m not waiting to arrive at a destination to finally find myself. This evolution doesn’t stop and the uncertainty of life never clears, it just changes.

I started writing this blog two years ago, hoping to ground myself. I don’t think I fully have yet, but I’m beginning to see what parts of my system have become deregulated, and I now have my next venture. Me. Only this time, I don’t feel like I’m a surgeon trying to stop the bleeding. Instead, I feel like the Architect, removing the rubble to build something more beautiful and useful in it’s place.

The beginning is always my favorite part and I get to choose every aspect I write into the next chapter of my life.