I’m so glad you want to know more about my journey.

I have to be honest though, this spiritual journey is fairly new. A calling, or awakening, if you will. I consider this my 2.0 life, well earned through a rocky climb of loss and life lessons.

For the past 15 years, I have worked as an OT in a variety of settings including acute care hospitals, outpatient therapy, home care and community based settings which were all fulfilling in different ways.

In every setting, I worked with people with real physical pain.  Some were simple sprains and breaks, many were horrific accidents affecting many body parts and a lot were individuals suffering from chronic pain.  I saw 2 very consistent themes while working as an OT. What I can tell you in a nutshell is that 

1. The ones who got better believed they would (mindset)

2.  Physical pain can manifest from emotional wounds (energy/healing)

Now, I knew this very clearly but I still wasn’t integrating a ton of mind/body work into my sessions.  I was mostly focusing on the physical (exercise) and sometimes guiding people on healthy choices to speed up recovery (nutrition).

It honestly wasn’t until I experienced my own healing journey that I realized my commitment to others had to include more than physical work for optimal healing. This came in the form of listening to the cues my body was trying to give me that something was not right.

Body Language

In my late 20’s I could check all the boxes.  Married, 2 kids, big house, career.  From the outside in, I had it all.  I worked hard to obtain my Masters degree and worked full time in my field, traveled to different countries, saw my friends often, ate pretty healthy and made time for exercise.  I had so much to be grateful for.  

But as the years passed, I had this nagging feeling that there was something missing.  Gradually I was getting short tempered and my moods were changing.  Then, out of the blue I started having severe panic attacks.  They would happen randomly while I was doing the dishes, driving home from work or when I was playing a game with my kids.  Nothing specific seemed to bring them on.  Each time though, my throat felt like it was closing, my heart would audibly pound in my ears to the point where I couldn’t hear anything else and my chest felt like a thousand pound weight was crushing my sternum.  Also, without reason, I was pushing my husband away and I was suddenly completely unfulfilled and sad. 

I couldn’t help but feel angry with myself for feeling so ungrateful and weak.  But I also couldn’t shake the feeling and the panic attacks got more frequent and worse.  This resulted in me self medicating and drinking wine nightly, numbing the overwhelm and not being entirely present for my children.  Also during this time I had frequent bronchitis, laryngitis and a weird chronic cough that no doctor seemed worried about.  There was a lot of action going on in my neck/throat/chest area and although in my bones I knew something wasn’t right, I would talk myself into feeling like I was crazy and it was just the stress of being a working mom.  

When my thoughts started shifting negatively I knew I needed help.  

Enter therapy.  The most gigantic realization that I never processed turmoil in my early life. 

The Realization

When I was 14, my mom passed away from cervical cancer.  I was starting high school 2 months later and I made up my mind that I wouldn’t be the sad girl. Being a freshman would be hard enough and  I wouldn’t be known as the girl who’s mom died. I literally pretended like it didn’t happen and I never talked about it.  It helped (not in the long run) that my Dad was a steel trap, stereotypical war survivor who didn’t show emotion. We never discussed how we were feeling. As my father turned to alcohol, I kept myself as busy as possible minimizing the time I spent at home. 

In hindsight, I was a textbook people pleaser. I stacked my school and work schedule, played sports and got good grades. As long as I can remember,  I always worked 2 jobs and had an active social life. It never dawned on me that I was keeping busy so I never had to sit alone with my thoughts … I said yes to everyone and everything so I didn’t cause problems and no one would think I was sad.  In my messed up little mind, being sad was being weak.  

Other Contributing Factors

• I went through a bad break-up (duh, first love) and instead of process the feelings, I moved to another state

• I was near-raped in a vehicle by a co-worker and never told anyone

• My dad died 6 months after I had my son. Instead of grieving, I submerged myself into parenting never asking for help 

  
  
  

Clearly I had serious (lack of) communication issues! When I started having panic attacks, my suppressed emotions were spilling out.  My throat was closing because I had something to say and didn’t know how to communicate.  I had laryngitis again because I had literally and figuratively lost my voice.  By the time my kids were a little older,  I was feeling the weight of work/life balance, illnesses, running to extracurriculars and sports, stressing about finances, never telling my husband I needed help and still never had time alone. My people pleasing tendencies were running rampant and I was on a destructive path.

Determined To Heal Myself

For me personally, it was never an option to take medication for anxiety or depression.  I knew I needed to do the work and not just mask it with a band aid.  I had years and years of conditioned habits and negative thoughts, so I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.  But I did the work.  I learned to meditate.  I slowed down instead of sped up.  I stopped looking for opinions and approval.  I stopped stuffing my feelings and being “ok”.  I started to open my mind to emotional and energy healing techniques,  and instead of accepting the mindset that I was broken because my parents died, I adopted the mindset that my experience helped me grow as an empathetic, understanding human.  I knew loss and it freaking sucked, but it shaped me into who I am today. 

I was feeling better but I could still feel in my soul that there was more to life.  I became obsessed with self help books.  I started going to a Naturopathic doctor. I actually read books titled ‘How to Be Happy’ and ‘How Not to Be a People Pleaser.  I spent thousands of dollars on mentors, mindset training, studied Reiki and started to strengthen my connection with myself, source and intuition.