Posts tagged with “healing”
Forever Healing: 4 Things I Now Prioritize After Cancer
“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” ~Audre Lorde
I’m a year out after completing chemo treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and on my healing journey. Cancer is a nasty little thing and can rear its ugly head at any time again. So, to minimize those recurrent chances and to feel like I’m doing all that’s in my control, I’ve accepted that this healing path will be for the rest of my life.
I originally thought I’d be spending this first year rebuilding myself. And I have. …
How My Divorce Was the Portal to My Greatest Dreams
“The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they are given wings.” ~Rumi
You can create your dream life from devastation.
I speak from first-hand experience.
On Thanksgiving Day, my husband knelt before me and said he didn’t think he loved me anymore and didn’t think he wanted to have children. He had flown in that day from our home in NYC to see me perform in a Christmas musical in Salt Lake City. Both being working actors, …
5 Things I Did Because I Didn’t Feel Good Enough and What I Do Now Instead
“You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” ~Louise Hay
Since I was a little girl, I believed there was something fundamentally wrong with me.
So I was always trying to find a way to fix myself and be worthy. To feel good enough.
No baby is born thinking they aren’t worthy, and neither was I—or you.
This came from our early beginnings.
I had a very traumatized dad, who I now understand was struggling with his own pain from his childhood.
He would lose his temper …
My Husband Left Me for Another Woman: How Forgiveness Set Me Free
“Allow yourself to be proud of yourself and all the progress you’ve made. Especially the progress no one else can see.” ~Unknown
I watched my then-four-month-old daughter wiggle around on the floor on her belly, arms flailed out to the side in her pink-footed pajamas, giggling hysterically. Her brother, four years old at the time, was launching himself from our king size bed onto a pile of pillows next to her, over and over. He’d land with a thud and a loud “oof,” cracking himself up,and she would break out in hysterics right with him.
I
Why I Sense Threats Everywhere and Panic All the Time
“Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.” ~Bessel A. van der Kolk
I have a prescription for Lorazepam.
After coming home from picking up my first ever bottle from the pharmacy several years ago, I threw the bottle at the wall and cried.
I used …
How I’ve Been Shaking Out My Pain Since Losing My Daughter
“Movement has incredible healing power.” ~Alexandra Heather Foss
My ten-year-old daughter, who had been ill for all her life, was dying. She was hooked up to tubes and monitors, and they were always going off. Her numbers were off the charts, and the doctors kept saying, “Your daughter’s numbers aren’t normal, and we would normally have a team coming in here to check on her breathing and to rouse her.”
After the last operation, one doctor said she was surprised that she was still alive when she came into work. We all were. She kept fighting. She would just be …
How Tonglen Practice Healed My Pain After Trauma
“Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure. In this process…we begin to feel love for both ourselves and others; we begin to take care of ourselves and others. Tonglen awakens our compassion and introduces us to a far bigger view of reality.” ~Pema Chodron
It was challenging to focus during the summer months, with my six-year-old son at home more than usual. I had tons of ideas to write about, but my creative energies were exhausted from hours of playing. When the school year started, I finally sat down to write. The words took their own …
3 Things I Learned About Healing from an Autoimmune Diagnosis
“To truly heal, we need to create a healing space—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.” ~Lynn Keegan
Growing up, I never understood the importance of taking care of myself. I thought my body was invincible, and I treated it quite poorly. I stayed up late, I ate out a lot, I partied, and didn’t have a care in the world.
In my early twenties this all began to shift for me. I began experiencing all types of symptoms. My body was doing things I was embarrassed to share with anyone.
I started having eight to ten bowel movements per day, I was …
How Trauma Affects the Brain and How I’m Healing from PTSD
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.” ~Brené Brown
Several months ago, I was stoked about writing a piece on the living legacy of trauma, sharing how much we think we know about these so-called injuries of the mind, body, and spirit when, in reality, we know diddly squat.
I thought that a piece on this topic would inform and help folks like me. I’d suffered long and hard from PTSD, triggered initially by the sudden death of my brother and, simultaneously, the unfortunate finding of an email that confirmed
How I Finally Starved the Disorder That Was Eating Me Alive
“If we are ready to tear down the walls that confine us, break the cage that imprisons us, we will discover what our wings are for.” ~Michael Meegan
It’s weird, isn’t it? One day you’re playing hide and seek with friends without a worry beyond the playdate you’re having or dinner options for that night. But in a blink, those carefree days vanish. That’s what happened to me, and my teenage years started ticking away right in front of my eyes. Eleven, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen…
And a realization hit me: “It’s still eating me alive.”
Maybe it wasn’t …
How I Healed My Strained Relationship with My Addict Mother
“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” ~Sam Keen
Like so many of us, my relationship with my mother throughout my life is best described as complicated.
We’ve had our fair share of turbulent times in our journey, and her alcoholism and drug abuse while I was growing up fueled great dysfunction on every level: literal physical fighting when I was a teenager (yep, Jerry Springer-style), seemingly continual acts of rebellion, a total lack of understanding, deep mistrust, unwillingness (or likely even an inability at the time) to …
Dysfunctional Family Survivors: 7 Myths that Hold Your Healing Hostage
“I have never known a patient to portray their parents more negatively than they actually experienced them in childhood but always more positively–because idealization of their parents was essential for their survival.” Alice Miller, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child
If we’re born into dysfunctional families and, by some miracle, manage to recognize there’s something really wrong there, we can end up devoting a huge portion of our time on Earth (if not all of it) to piecemealing a life not defined by the despair and pain we felt as children.
Coming out of Survival Mode: How I Healed and Found Peace
“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” ~Audre Lorde
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I realized that I no longer needed to fight for my survival, but I do know that it came after several years of prayer, healing, and intensive work. It wasn’t an event, but rather the feeling of peace and calm that comes after a storm.
For me, the storm dissipated slowly. It was the kind of storm that kept swirling and re-emerging until I finally realized that it would take concentrated …
How I Calm My Anxiety Octopus at Home with My Aquaponics Zen Zone
“Stay in the moment. The practice of staying present will heal you. Obsessing about how the future will turn out creates anxiety. Replaying broken scenarios from the past causes anger and sadness. Stay here, in this moment.” ~Sylvester McNutt
Like many people, I have an anxiety disorder that twists my thoughts and feelings. I call it my “anxiety octopus,” as it feels like there are tentacles in my brain triggering fear-based reactions for no reason. In everything, even things that I am confident in, I suddenly feel insecure and unsure.
It takes time to realize that the “anxiety octopus” has …
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