***Disclaimer: unfiltered sharing ~ ~ ~ have a problem with graphics and F-bombs? Maybe this isn’t for you. I don’t disclose this information in hopes of receiving sympathy… instead it is my hope that by sharing authentically with others, they will find aspects that mirror parts of their own experience or a loved one’s story, and through that, feel connected and less isolated. Our stories are powerful and they are ready to be shared with the world!
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Lately I’ve had several people reach out to me for support and a listening ear, and expressed that it was through my willingness to be vulnerable and transparent that they felt comfortable to come forward and seek help, whether it be through me or a qualified professional. Among some of them, have been those who have been or are contemplating ending their life because the pain and confusion they feel encapsulated by is simply too much to bear. This is one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever heard and experienced as a human. It’s also one of the hardest challenges I’ve been presented with. It’s not a burden, but truly an honor.
My heart has been ripped apart and broken open. Sometimes I wonder if it’s meant to stay THIS open, or if I should be picking up the pieces of it that are scattered here and there… in the ant crawling on the underside of a leaf… in the rose petal on the asphalt… in the blade of grass breaking through the sidewalk… in the smell of rain falling on pine needles in the forest… in the ocean tide kissing the sand… or the irises of that human I see in the coffee shop who I haven’t talked to yet but feel a connection with simply because we are sharing this enigmatic experience labeled life.
I notice that in this relentless and highly tender opening, there is endless space for me to honor myself. To honor you. And most of all, to honor us coming together in both our joys and our sorrows.
Ultimately, I am evermore guided to soften my heart again and again.
I refuse to let this world harden me. But sometimes… it’s fucking hard not to give in to the lies I am told. By Ego. By the Fascists. By those who stopped listening to their hearts long ago and let them harden. It’s especially hard when things like I’m about to share below happen in our lives…
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It’s only within the last two to three months that I’ve really been able to begin traversing the intense terrain of my inner emotional landscape with the guidance of a wonderful therapist. Attempting to do so on my own had provoked so much intensity that I was left feeling weaker and more confused. Now that I’m feeling stronger in mind and body and delving deeper than I ever have into reflecting back on my life as a continuum, and particularly the last year to two years… Here’s a statement I am ready to make: I AM A BADASS WARRIOR! I’ve been to fucking battle and survived. Can we be humble and still be confident within ourselves? Yes!
This last year has been both painful and humbling beyond measure, and in that pain and humility, I discovered courage, grace, self-love, accountability, and determination.
I have been to hell and back and suffered some intense life or death situations, in a very brief period of time. Rather than the transition into motherhood being a season of unbridled joy, it has mostly been a season of inexplicable tumult, deep sorrow, dismal darkness, torturous insomnia, legal upheaval, and pain – both physical and mental/emotional. What I went through is inconceivable to most people I share the unfiltered details of my story with.
Here’s an intimate snapshot, not of my life as a continuum, but the last 365 days of it:
A few months ago, for several consecutive days, I was holding a 357 magnum. I sat on my bathroom floor and I studied the gun. I noticed all the ridges… I peered up and down the barrel… I was fully aware of the sensations of the cold metal resting on the outer edge of my thigh… the feeling of the grip panel in the palm of my hand. I opened the cylinder, emptied the chamber of bullets, then reloaded it. Next I put my right index finger on the trigger without applying pressure, and I held the gun to my temple. I wasn’t afraid of shooting myself and dying. At that point my greatest fear was shooting myself and not dying, but rather being mangled, or even more of an invalid than I already was…..
When I didn’t have my finger on the trigger or the gun at least in my grasp, I knew that it was always within reach and that I could surrender into that piece of cold, hard metal any time I wanted. It gave me solace to know that that object was resting in the drawer of my nightstand. I looked at it frequently. Obsessively, really.
Being a new mother is one of the hardest things on the planet. It’s a loss of identity, among many other things. Tack on being a brand new single mom, the new onset of a debilitating illness and physical/emotional trauma happening simultaneously and you have a recipe for devastation. It didn’t matter how smoothly I tried to navigate the uncharted waters I found myself in— no amount of deep breathing, prayer, yoga, or positive affirmations were pulling me out of the tunnel I was encapsulated by. The tunnel had so many layers and was burrowed deep within the ground. There wasn’t a speck of light. I had truly lost all hope. The optimist in me was annihilated and drowning in a sea of emptiness.
I went from working long hours as a Critical Care nurse while carrying a baby in my belly and financially/emotionally supporting myself and the person I was in an intimate relationship with at the time, to coming home to an abusive and psychological war-zone every day and night, to watching him drag our dog’s limp body outside while her blood painted streaks of red across the snow after he sliced her underbelly open 5 days before I was due to give birth to our child… to having a homebirth without drugs and being in sheer awe, then within minutes, thrust into a state of shock as I watched him cut our newborn’s umbilical cord without the midwife’s knowledge shortly after she breathed her first breath as I lay in the bed unable to defend her… to strategically planning my escape for days, ultimately making a spontaneous call for help, packing up what I could into a couple garbage bags and fleeing for mine and my daughter’s safety as I watched the land and home I had been pouring my heart into fade away in my rear-view mirror. Two days later I was served legal paperwork accusing me of kidnapping, and I remained in the throes of the judicial system for 8 out of the 13 months I’ve been a mother. I resigned from my job and moved to 4 different residences in 3 months time.
I made an impulsive choice to attempt to reconcile against my intuitive judgment and found myself and my daughter back in his clutches — my keys and phone were confiscated and I was held hostage. One morning I was able to break free. I’ll never forget running faster than I’d ever run and hiding in a thicket of juniper trees at 6 a.m. on a 25 degree morning in early May while I held my baby’s tiny body tightly against my bare chest and did my best to keep her warm as we waited for what felt like an eternity for law enforcement to show up, during which time I heard the abrasive sounds of glass shattering and metal scraping metal echoing in the background… it was my vehicle being demolished with a sledgehammer. My newborn was diaper-less and had urinated all over me. My pants were wet; goosebumps covered my body.
When the officer showed up, I talked him out of calling an ambulance. He was worried my daughter was going to go in shock from being outside and unclothed for the past hour. “She’s cold, but I assure you she doesn’t have hypothermia. I’m a nurse. Her color’s fine and she’s alert. Just blast the heat in the car please – we’ll be fine,” I said. My baby didn’t make a peep for that entire hour. She didn’t cry or fuss. I was amazed. It’s as if she knew that we needed to remain silent in order for us to stay safe and not be found by her father until the police showed up. I sat in the passenger seat of the cop car and watched the man I once thought I’d spend my life with get forcibly put in handcuffs ~ our eyes met through the windshield before they led him into the backseat of a different car and I remember feeling my throat drop into my stomach. I cowered and thought I might hurl. I saw hatred written all over his face. His rage was palpable.
That situation became the least of my worries. Little did I know that another war bringing with it a level of pain beyond what I could have imagined was on the horizon.
I was always drawn to the world of fighting. I grew up with a dad who loved boxing. He taught me the ropes and I got my second degree black belt in Korean martial arts when I was 13. As a teenager, I’d go to bars to watch the UFC fights when they premiered. Not because I liked violence, but because I value perseverance and am amazed by what the human body is capable of – there’s also something magic about reaching that ‘flow state.’ Same reason I was drawn to rock climbing.
Martial arts wasn’t just a sport or hobby. It was a type of manual outlining core values that influenced how I lived my life. My father used to tell me, “When you get knocked down, it’s okay to rest for a bit, but it’s not okay to not get back up. You get up and you kick some ass. Promise me you’ll never give up no matter what life brings your way.” After my dad died, I didn’t show up to train for several years. “Come play with us,” my martial arts teacher would say. But my head wasn’t in the game. Anytime I’d put on my gloves, I’d be swallowed by grief and wasn’t safe to be in the ring. Three years ago, I went to a ji-jitzu class and just like that- I instantly felt back in my element. I didn’t stop smiling that day. So I re-established my connection with the martial arts world, yet I never could have imagined what it’s like to really fight for something that matters…
Four months after giving birth, I was diagnosed with a mysterious disease that almost took my life and rendered parts of my body paralyzed. While finding myself in and out of the hospital and specialists’ offices, I arranged a living will and wrote letters and poems to my daughter that she would be able to read someday. I dispersed the letters to friends and spoke with people I trusted about how I would like my child to be raised – they gave me their word they would hold true to my wishes. (Yes – I really am amazingly blessed to have these types of people in my life!)
While most new moms I knew were complaining about not being able to lose their baby weight and only sleeping 4-5 hours a night cumulatively — I was frantically trying to retain weight as I was shedding it rapidly and was able to sleep for an hour a night for months on end. Within a matter of a couple weeks, the clothes I’d been wearing for years prior to becoming pregnant were falling off my body. I wasn’t reading books about what food you feed your baby first or researching daycares. I was merely trying to survive and make it through one day to the next. To say that I was fucking infuriated at how my life was playing out is an understatement.
Through research I found an integrative treatment center and I had faith they would be able to help me. I traveled 1,500 miles away from my community and the place I called home and channeled every ounce of strength I had left into the fight for my life. For months, I was given daily IV infusions, swallowed 40-50 pills a day, and had countless vials of blood drawn weekly. My biceps and forearms were bruised from all the needle pokes. I felt like a lab rat. I didn’t recognize the person looking back at me in the mirror anymore. The dehumanization factor that accompanies going through treatment for a severe illness is real.
And… I’m still here. I’m still breathing. My heart is still beating. Some days I really can’t believe it. While I’ve experienced periods where my heart has felt so wounded and hardened that I thought I could never love again or give a fuck about much of anything, I have proved myself wrong. I am still deeply concerned about the welfare of others – MORESO than ever before. And I do give a fuck. Endless fucks. About the REAL, important stuff. The suffering has given way to heightened compassion, empathy, and a deeper understanding about human connection and the struggles others go through. I feel more open in so many ways than I ever was before. Apparently, I had to completely break in order to grow into the woman I am proud to be now.
I still notice myself riding the merry go round of denial and fear. Shame and grief aren’t exempt from the picture. Yet in the midst of it, I eventually manage to keep coming home to the truth where the resounding voice inside reminds me that I have nothing to hold against myself. I only need love myself. The negative self-talk and blame has to end.
I am PROUD of the woman within for finally having the courage begin the journey of reclaiming her self-worth. For becoming a stronger, more authentic, and less people-pleaser version of a human. I am grateful for the trauma which became the catalyst that ignited my voice and a newfound fire within me. I am coming into my own more than ever before. The soft spoken maiden is gone… the ‘no-bullshit-see-right-through-every-situation-to-the-heart-of-it’ queen is in the house!!!
She doesn’t fuck around. She knows what she wants and how to get it, the wholesome way. She knows the difference between her needs and desires, and how to meet those needs without begging to be rescued by another. She knows life is fleetingly short… too short to walk on tiptoes born from a place of avoidance or a fear of feeling uncomfortable and rocking the boat. She understands that time is a precious gift that can’t be bought and it’s not something any of us are guaranteed. She is highly passionate and true. She is here to make noise and take up space. She loves with a fervor that the majority will never understand. Most of all, she is not a victim. She has learned what it means to take accountability for the ways in which she contributes to the sequence of events that play out and also, to not take it personally when life hands her situations that she couldn’t have seen coming. She is a survivor and a fighter in the name of love.
I’ve never been as selective as I am now about who I choose to associate with and what I make time for. Most of what I used to think mattered so much matters very little to me now.
I don’t care how many degrees or certifications you have, how many countries you’ve been to, how defined your six pack is, or how healthy you eat. I used to base my worth on these sorts of aspects of our bizarre human existences. Now all I give a fuck about is WHO YOU TRULY ARE underneath the façade and persona.
What I care about is the REAL … and therefore, I ask myself these questions every day:
- Am I present with what’s in front of me instead of being swept into a current of thinking that is embedded in the past or tied to the future?
- Do I tell people I love them when I feel it even though they might not say it back?
- Do my actions and words align?
- Do I communicate honestly and openly?
- Do I make eye contact with people? Am I committed to being seen in my vulnerability and messiness?
- Am I willing to take five minutes out of my day to truly listen to someone I don’t know because they want to share a part of their story with me simply because it means something to them?
BOTTOM-LINE:
AM I A CONSCIOUS CREATOR OF MY LIFE?
If the answer to these questions is anything but a “hell yes,” then something is ready to shift. Change begets growth.
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I am always open to having a discussion and listening to your story and/or thoughts, whether they are in opposition to my own or not. I will hold space for you without judgement. There isn’t anywhere I’m not willing to go or any topic off limits in the realm of open conversation and expression.
I LOVE YOU. I really do.
We are all broken. We are all stumbling and falling and learning and hurting and laughing and rejoicing. We are all perfectly imperfect. We are all made up of the same raw, cosmic stardust.
Our capacity to love others is enabled only to the degree that we love ourselves. I feel so much inside of me right now – I feel so much for this world right now – and YOU.. we, are a part of this world. Don’t ever forget how loved you are – you are the reason someone is smiling right now. I assure you.
“I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” ~ Brené Brown