I don’t want to write this. I have the title at the top of my page and stare at it blankly each time I open up my computer, refusing to type a word. Ending. Yuck.
 
I’ve been wrapped up, consumed, overwhelmed with transition, completion, saying goodbye. I’m terrified and sad.
 
I just keep soothing myself; my adult self telling my scared child self that I’m going to be okay.
 
It’s dry and warm. I can feel my lower lip slightly chapped, as I wet it with my tongue. I am the last one to board the plane, my feet feel like lead as the slowly carry me forward, my breath is a mystery. I sit in my seat, hot, cold, not sure. My body remembers this feeling, it is the same before every medical procedure, every potentially challenging conversation, every final _________ . The anticipation of the unknown.
 
I call my Mom… she’s emotionally stranded in the main terminal, not able to leave either. I’ll be the one who has to leave. I’m always the one who leaves… an interesting role I’ve chosen.
 
The plane takes off and tears roll down my face. I don’t wear sunglasses. People in community can learn to tolerate the discomfort of emotion. I’m trying to do so with my own. This feeling of crying without anyone noticing or responding feels familiar.
 
I have gone through major transitions before in my life, many times actually. Many big moves, endings of relationships, and new adventures. This is different. Exhale. Tear. Because this time I’m feeling. In the past I stuffed down my emotions, pushed them forcefully away without even knowing I was doing it. I’m pretty sure I would have imploded at the time if I hadn’t. Our bodies are smart.
 
But now, apparently I have “skills” and can handle the gut-wrenching feelings associated with the grief and loss of saying goodbye to the world as I know it. To choose on purpose to shake up my life and delve into the unfamiliar in hopes of health and impact. Of staying awake and feeling through it all, because this is human. The pain at razor’s edge with the excitement and potential of what it will be like to step off this airplane and be bombarded with humidity, plumaria, and salt-water.
 
And I want you to know, that I will miss you. That you have changed me by being my friend, my inspiration, my reader, my illness, my hard mountain earth. That now our relationship will change because we are constantly becoming different people, and my life experiences are about to be vastly altered. And I have so much sadness, as well as so much excitement for what that will look like! 
 
We want to go unconscious during the ending, but this is the time to feel our humanity. The suffering and the joy only exist because of each other.

Wishing you all the gift of feeling through the many endings. It's worth it, to create space for the beginnings. Exhale.

I’m clicking my bright red sparkly heels together. Click, click, click.
 
I long to come home. To the way things were. 

Only here’s the problem… sometimes I click my heels and get back home, only to realize that home doesn’t feel the same anymore. Home looks different. It’s a skeleton or façade of what it used to be, and some new tenets have moved in… everything is different. This body, this house, these people that I love, everything that I thought I was working so hard to come back to has changed while I was in oz.
 
When we’re in recovery from something I think we focus a lot on what we’re recovering from. I’m more interested in what I’m recovering to. The idea/metaphor of home is what I’m recovering to. But if home may not be home anymore, then what are we working so hard to come back to, and is it worth it?
 
My most recent setback has been this sprained ankle. A new experience layered apon many other setbacks and recoveries. I want to do hard-core competitive recovery… I want to do do do. I want to feel like I have some control of how fast I come back. I want to use stim therapy, hot/cold pools, ultrasound, acupuncture, massage... 
 
I went into a bike shop yesterday, and tell the guy at the counter what I’m doing to recover… he says, oh ya, that’s Type A recovery. In that moment I realize I’m trying to recover the same way I got injured. Where’s the lesson?
 
The etymology of the word recovery comes from the 11th Century French “come back, return, get again,” and the 13th Century Ango-French “to regain consciousness.”
 
This has as much to do with my values and motivations as it does my body. First it’s about knowing what I’m coming home to, and second it’s about the process of coming home. And trying to do all of that differently than the tornado that swept me away in the first place.
 
1. What am I coming home to? Potentially a new body and life. I will have lost a lot, and a effected body, heart, and mind lay in the wake. But the resilience and potential to create something new, of value, authentically and unabashedly me is what sits in the void of potential.
 
2. The process of getting home is by “regaining consciousness.” By staying awake, no matter how hard it hurts. By being brave. By feeling the pain, because it means I’m coming home, to my new home. By being soft, slowing down, resting, and being quiet so I can listen. Shhh. Living in the integration, not missing any of it. This process is what teaches us.
 
Before I had a palace that I never fully appreciated, a body that did what I wanted it to and performed to the utmost degree. I come back now to see that I have a humble home with a few shingles falling off on the outside… but the fire inside has a Phoenix rising in it. And I’m awake.
 
Recovery isn’t so much an ending to something, as it is a beginning. For me I realize it’s about integrating the home of the past, and creating the home of the future. Shedding tears for what has been painfully lost, pulling up my big girl pants, and clicking those heels into the future with massive curiosity and excitement about where I land. Less Victim more Co-creator. I’m pretty sure that my wildest dreams can’t imagine the world I’m recovering into. And I have every reason to believe that home will be more evolved because of the series of tornados, witches, and flying-monkeys I’ve come through.
 
So I click my heels, slowly, wisely, listening to each click, knowing that I’m being taken to my new home and I want to experience it all. Click click click. 

There will be tough times. Sigh. There will be tough times for all of us, and some of us are more sober about that fact, based on our past experiences, than others.
 
Tough times come in many categories: challenge, growth, fear, overwhelm, striving, burning, new, transition, change, pain, joy (yup that can be just as hard) or those tough times that are downright shitty in all areas. We know this to be true. It will be hard, we will transform, and so will those around us.
 
Yesterday I was mountain biking up a hill. It was tough, and of course it was both a literal hill, and a metaphor for those tough times in life. It got me thinking about something simple I do, that works for me, in those tough times to get through. My mantra.
 
The word mantra works for me. The literal Sanskrit (ancient language) translation is “to think, to think a thought behind speech or action.” This is something else I’m curious about a lot, how our thoughts lead to action, movement, behavior. Good old Webster says “a word or phrase that is repeated often or that expresses someone’s basic beliefs.” Again, I’m curious about how we live our beliefs and values in the world. So mantra, something I repeat to myself, to support me in action, so I can live in the integrity of my beliefs.
 
There are lots of mantras or words/phrases out there to try on (Thomas: I think I can, Dori: Just keep swimming), but I think it is the most potent if we create our own. Something short, memorable, potent, and emotionally charged, which will light a fire under our ass during those tough moments, and remind us that we will make it through. Taking a breath, letting it out. Feeling the intensity in my gut.
 
I’ll share mine as an example. My mantra is #jazzhands.  It’s an unlikely mantra, but to me it is a potent seed of transformation. This is a mantra that already existed within me, came out of my experience, and creates that feeling between laughing/crying where I feel the hope and tragedy of my life intermingled. And, most importantly, it immediately snaps me out of whatever messy thought pattern I’m in, brings me back to the present, and reminds me, oh right, yes I can!
 
Jazzhands is about my prior career, the career that I left because of my illness, the grief and loss associated with my illness, the metamorphosis and change process and growth as a result of hitting bottom, having a sense of humor, and being present on stage… the stage of life. Not wasting a moment. Being curious and joyful about living in this body, in this lifetime, even when it feels like suffering and pain. And that everything I’ve gone through has lead me to this present moment where I get to show up completely and say yes to my life. #Jazzhands.
 
So what’s yours?
 
Try some on. Keep it simple, memorable, and potent. And then hold yourself accountable. I wrote it on my mirror. I wrote it on my website. I say it out loud in groups and get other people literally doing jazzhands (choreography!). Fully mind, body, spirit people! So get in there and do some internal questing to uncover your personal mantra. Remember, there’s nothing too silly, odd, or weird, and the only person it has to make sense to is you! You don’t have to justify it, you just get to live it.
 
And then start practicing, because if you want something to be there in the tough times, you’ve got to practice it in the other times. So when you’re biking up the “hill” you can shout out loud #jazzhands, make yourself laugh, scare some prairie dogs, and keep peddling. 
 
Post your mantra below or on Facebook, to get some accountability and claim it, and have fun with it! 

This past week I had the great fortune to go to Las Vegas and witness the ending of an era as the show Jubilee, which has run in Las Vegas for the past 35 years, had it’s final show. I was a performer in Jubilee for almost 2 years.  
 
My identity as a performer, dancer, and showgirl is something I have grieved repeatedly since I became sick. Unable to walk up a flight of stairs, I remembered walking up and down thousands of stairs a night, with 4 inch heels and a headdress on in Jubilee.  I cried and cried in my bed, night after night, feeling like I didn’t even know who I was without performing. It’s all I ever wanted to do. It was my identity. And now what? Goodbye rhinestones.
 
I slowly began to realize that there were other things that I could do, such as become a Dance/Movement Therapist, which incorporated many of my interests. I began graduate school, but still felt a hole… the nagging feeling that it wasn’t the same as performing. There is always that comparison. 25 years in my performer identity, and only a couple years in grad school not yet fully owning a therapist identity didn’t outweigh each other yet.
 
And then an odd thing happened. I began to feel better, and stronger, and, wait … maybe I could perform again? I think that time was maybe even worse, in that it was so confusing. Like a carrot being dangled in front of my nose, while I was already moving down another path. So I thought, maybe I could go back to Vegas one day, and be a showgirl again, because now I was feeling better. The previous identity was rearing it’s head again.
 
And then I got sick again. Damnit! There is no way that I could rely on my body to dance through 12 shows a week again consistently for years. So, I began to grieve again. Goodbye rhinestones, and feathers, and lashes.
 
Was I at the mercy of my identities? Where did I get to take the responsibility to choose… but what do I choose? It seemed like there were only two options:
1.  Don’t give up- be the person that goes back to their prior identity, doesn’t let things get them down, fights for it, and becomes greater at it than ever before. Plus has a physical illness… impressive! Or:
2. Brave new world- become the person who grieves, lets go, and chooses the new scarier unknown path, and shines brighter than she could have ever in her prior identity. And, PS, she did this all after an illness… also impressive!
 
Either or, either or, either or.
 
Then I got quiet enough to get out of my own way, and see what was already happening. The truth is, performing/old identity is known, this new career is not. Do I want to spend my life doing what I already do, or growing to what is unexplored and create that? And most of all, how can these maybe, actually, work together. News flash: de-compartmentalize!  These are both threads (and contain many other threads) to who I am… how do I integrate them? Is there space for the past to become present again, in a whole new way? Can rhinestones live in therapy?
 
Seeing Jubilee I felt nothing but proud, and excited, and grateful to be part of an amazing lineage. I was reminded by someone I love dearly that no matter what I am doing in life I will always be a performer, a dancer, and showgirl. So for the first time this was not an experience filled with grief. It was an experience filled with deep reverence for the part of myself that is still me. And brought up a lot of questions around how this part of me still gets to shine, sparkle, and be in the spotlight today.
 
We all have parts of ourselves and our identities that seemingly die with illness or other set-backs, and we have to try to make sense of who we are now. Now that we’re not who we once were, but we aren’t someone new yet either. Instead we’re in the very uncomfortable and messy in-between.  We may not get to choose what happened to us that made us sick, but we do get to choose how the threads of our past identities get to live in the present.  It may be a rough road of realization, but with support, creativity, and (for me) glitter, we can “figure it out.”   
 
So, does this feel true for you?

I reach into my purse and pull out a piece of paper. It’s a remnant from my doctor’s appointment yesterday, my most recent check-up.  White, crisp, data. Simple numbers distributed on a page in an orderly fashion.  It is so clear to me that these numbers and letters don’t possess feelings. My name is at the top, my birthdate, my age: 34 years. 34 years. I feel like I’ve lived several lifetimes in these years. In the last five alone. It’s dizzying. I notice sorrow creep into my belly. I sigh.
 
It’s just a piece of inked paper, but for me it is a constellation of cycles of diagnosis and recovery. What’s in a diagnosis? How is a diagnosis acted upon by time? Five years of time.
 
It’s about to be solstice. The day with the least amount of sunlight, and most darkness. I’ve allowed in both the darkness and the light, because it’s all true.  To try to deny any part would be futile. I believe it’s all part of me, stardust, the Universe, trying to experience itself in this unique embodied form, in this lifetime, in this human body.  This seemingly broken body that I’ve painstakingly put back together again, one tear and laugh at a time.  The white paper says: today’s clinical visit summary.
 
It’s about to be the new year. New Year. As if things change in a day… I guess sometimes they do. On New Years five years ago I was flying to India, intuitively knowing I had to go to shift my life.  I was seeking and finding no answers here. So what do privileged people from Boulder do when that happens? Go to India. Go somewhere else to find yourself, to find the part of yourself you already know to be true, but you’re terrified about accepting, so you give yourself a glamorous and culturally-appropriated intervention.  Thus, I went to India, because I had an intuitive hit from my future self that I needed help to shift.  And I sat in temples and meditated and frivolously stated that I was open to whatever help I would receive.  “I’m open.” Just help.  Guess I should have been more specific.  I started feeling ill two weeks later on the flight home. The white paper says: trip to India is seemingly unrelated.
 
Now, it’s about to be my birthday. 35. I’m a crone. I’m not trying to be funny here, archetypically I feel like a crone. Metaphorically, I’ve spent the last five years contracted in Winter, and am just now crawling out to feel the rays of sunshine pierce my inner seed. I’ve been under a blanket of snow while my purpose has been working on me.  On the outside it looks like I’ve been sparkling, like I’m the model patient, like I’ve triumphed over incredible illness.  True.  In my past life as an actress I painted on the face, as a patient I added the smile.  Underneath the surface I went from professional seeker of the silver lining to professional griever.  I’ve grieved, and grieved, and grieved. I’ve lost, and let go: of my past that I didn’t want, of my past that I didn’t get, of my future that can’t be my future anymore, of my future that will be but I’m scared to own. The white paper says: next check-up in 3 months.
 
So on this upcoming birthday, as with every birthday, I will have gratitude to be taking another breath, because it is precious.  And I will have fear, as with every birthday, of what I will become in this year. Both the potential for another shattering, and the potential for stepping more fully into my expansion. I feel exhausted by the freedom of choice and responsibility that comes with being authentically human.  And my specific version of human- to burn brightly but not burn out.  More accurately, to not burn out again.  So what will I become this year as I continue to step into my purpose?  
 
Let’s not forget this piece of paper with scattered data in my hand.  This paper tells the tale. Of diagnosis, of feeling fragmented, of it not being fair, of slow improvement yet continual destruction over time.  It says Autoimmune Hepatitis, Pancytopenia, enlarged spleen.  It says to: continue Prograf.  I feel my doctor’s thoughts pour through the page as he typed the numbers: “you haven’t let your liver disease define you. That’s as rare as your disorder.” The prescription he stapled to the back for a new blood test to see the level of my liver damage. The word “cirrhosis” bleeds from the page and takes flight in the air, and my liver increases its weight in my abdomen. 
 
In the unspoken white of this paper are five years of heartache, pain, not being seen, acceptance, grasping, identity, new identity, discovery, joy.  Of who am I? But I don’t want to be that: sick.  But I don’t know how to be that: healthy.  And who am I now?  Of solstices, and New Years, and birthdays.  Of that which dies away and creates new space.  Of slowing down, feeling the anxious beating of my heart in my chest at night, because I don’t have time to waste, I could die at any moment. And then there’s another breath. Follow it.
 
I wonder, how does the seed know about gravity, of how to find the sun, of which way is up?  Where to put down roots and where to grow?  Where to hold true and where to expand? 
 
And I wonder, how do I write about this experience, own my experience, and continue to live my experience in a way that can inspire others who are in their own crisis?
 
I don’t know.  I guess I just continue to be.
 
So I neatly fold the prescription and the piece of paper, and place it delicately in my purse, with reverence, because it holds the last five years of my history. And I find my hand on my heart sensing for my next breath.  My cells, my family, my liver, my relationships, the earth beneath my feet, the stars over my head, the seed of my purpose, it all holds my history.   

Does this feel true for you? Like/comment below ~