It was easier before when I didn't feel.
 
Before my illness, I didn’t feel my emotions. They were neatly stuffed down, and I was numb… with the occasional explosion, of course. It took a liver disease, and being in bed staring at my ceiling for what felt like forever, to crack the thick layer of ice I had defensively coated my emotions with.
 
In the past I’ve traveled, and moved around the globe, and not felt a thing. I truly couldn’t relate when other people said they missed me – I thought, well that’s weird, I’m on an adventure! No breath. I felt nothing of this human “missing.”
 
This time is different.
 
As the plane lifts off from the mainland sweeping me back, once again, to my new little island home I realize for the first time that I’m homesick. I hate to admit that. Hate it. I “should” be above such a 13-year-old-at-summer-camp experience. Be that as it may, everything in me wants to dig claws in and prevent the take-off of this plane. Breathe. My life is clearly on this trajectory for a reason. And in this moment it is so that I can experience missing for the first time.
 
I have not written a single blog since I made this big move. My mind has created all sorts of good explanations about why that is, speaking at conferences, not having time, traveling, it wasn’t relevant, etc. Although all true, it’s important not to trust only our thoughts about what’s actually going on.
 
The truth in my body: I’m homesick. Ugh. My gut feels like an achy cavern. I don’t want to feel that. And I certainly don’t want to share it. Doesn’t that make me weak? Shouldn’t I feel more excited about exploring, and my choices to slow down and support my health?
 
Palm trees are great, but don’t make up for the gaze of your mother. The touch of your partner.
 
So, more accurately than home-sick, I would say that I am people-sick.
 
What is my imprint, my ripple, my impact. How does this get affected by distance and lack of contact? How do I remain in connection? What’s the opposite of out of sight, out of mind?
 
For the most part I am okay, but there are a few key people that I weep for in the distance. I am told, it is fine. It’s not a big deal. Don’t overthink it. A phone call is a phone call. On the other hand, I feel somehow it is heartbreaking how far I am away. And I try to tell myself it is fine, no big deal.
 
There is a battle going on: I want to protect myself from feeling the sadness by shutting it down, yet at the same time I want to feel it because I know it is human and healthy. And I also struggle, wanting to make other people feel more comfortable around me: they all do better when I  say I’m fine. Then they don’t hurt as much. Of course I know I’m not making them do anything. Yet in my self-judgment I tell myself that me feeling is mean – like I’m causing them to then feel the pain they can’t tolerate. And at the same time they’re trying to tell me they’re just fine too. We are all trying to save each other from the feeling of sadness, loneliness, and longing to be together.
 
On certain days, like today, the distance feels like a punch in the gut.
 
Oh, life is so short. To me the most important thing is connection. Relationship. Feeling our humanness. We regulate by gazing into the face of another. This is what we feel from our caregivers, and it is no different today as adults.
 
When we understand illness we understand disconnection. From our bodies, our families, our communities. We realize mortality is knocking at our door, the inevitable disconnection. We realize there is not time to waste in the precious life.
 
I ask myself, is it okay to sit in the discomfort of missing those I love? Of course the answer is yes. I am slowing down and supporting my health, which is why I came here in the first place. And I still feel the threads of connection to my people. Through the distance I feel aching and I also feel all of our strength and resilience.
 
Sometimes it’s harder to feel, but I think it is worth it in our quest to experience an integrated and rich life. To be with each other in a real, raw, honest, and human way, rather than run away. I don’t have the luxury of not feeling anymore. My illness blew that privilege out of the water. So, instead of being “just fine,” I commit to keep feeling. And today, that means missing. 

I sit down to meditate. Instantly I see myself in a pile of debris, of World War II post air raid fallout piled around me, and a big piece of concrete on my diaphragm, pressing so I can’t breathe. I touch my diaphragm, my abdomen, with my hands. I hold her: I soothe and rock myself. I tell myself I’m okay.

This current acute insult on my organs is bringing up residual memories of 3 years of pain and fear. My mind knows there is no more physiological invasive attacks planned, but my body doesn’t. My body is locking up to protect itself, to protect from further tragedy… it’s smart. And also the tension is hurting me, its literally painful. I tell myself, I’m safe-enough, okay-enough, and thank you.

The tension eases up almost imperceivably. I can see it looking at me like a four-year-old child that tilts her head and isn’t quite sure whether to trust the adult or not. Is this a trick?

I can’t lie, it could be, I’ve tricked myself before. For years. Telling myself I was okay when I actually wasn’t. Until my body screamed so loudly I couldn’t lie any more. So she has a point, which is currently living as tension in my abdomen.

Right now myself doesn’t trust my Self. Wow, that’s hard to write, hard to admit… breathe, stare into space, necessary dissociation. Myself doesn’t trust my Self. How do we gain this trust back with ourselves and our bodies, when we have a past record of lying to ourselves? When our bodies had to turn the volume up so loud that it was a scream, for us to finally listen? 

And now with one tiny painful invasive procedure it’s like we’re back at square one, with my body saying fuck you… you didn’t listen for 30 years, why should I trust you now? She says, I tried to tell you. I gave you inability to sleep, nightmares as a child, tingles of anxiety on the skin of your arms and face, shortness of breath, pounding heart, colds, injuries, stomach problems, a hard time relating with others…

While you were going: perfectionism, control, business, awards, beauty, party, perfect, spotlight…

So I was like, okay: fear, pain, jaundice, shutdown, hospital…

And then you were like, big insight: oh, maybe something’s wrong. Maybe I need to change?

And now you have a measly 5-ish years of attempted good behavior.

So now I’m scared. I don’t trust you. If I don’t scream, you may not listen or realize we’re hurting. I’m doing this for both of us.

Alright. I get it. But you need to trust me. Please. I know so much more now, because of you. I am trying to tell the truth, and I’m willing to keep changing. This is just a setback. Let’s get a little bit cheesy and work together on this one. We need each other for the collective wisdom. Thank you for the protection, sounding the airraid siren, building a concrete barrier when you were scared. You saved our lives.

Okay, well, thank you for trying to listen even though sometimes you’re a shitty listener. But, seriously, thank you for understanding that I’m only trying to help, and I won’t freak out so much if I know you’re paying attention and we keep communicating. I want a relationship, I don’t want to have to just take over all the time.

Diaphragm releases, deep full breath, a moment of relief.

It’s amazing what happens in relationship, when we listen to the parts of ourselves that in that moment know better. When we figure out it’s safe-enough. When ourselves can trust Ourselves. 

What do you think? Comment below:

Let’s begin with the cast of characters:
A mom in the waiting room.
Watching the clock (tick, tick).
One hour is okay. They said one hour.
2 hours is not okay. 2.5 hours is definitely not okay.
Page the doctor again.
Anxiety. She’s in trouble.
Why can’t it be me instead, this is not the natural order of things.
I’m not okay.
 
A dad at work.
Looking normal on the outside.
Going through the motions with machines and metal and tools and oil.
Shoving down emotions.
This is life.
She’ll survive, she’s tough.
I’m not okay.
 
A Doctor in the surgery room.
I explained the procedure.
I told her she’d be fine. No problem.
This is beyond my expertise.
I think of what I would do if it were my mom, my sister on this table.
She’s had too much sedation, she’s been prodded too much.
And I call it.
This situation is not okay.
 
There’s an RN.
I get to hold this hand like it’s my job.
It is my job, to have compassion, to send love and care through this hand.
To comfort and soothe. To joke. But to know this is serious.
When I tell her she’s okay, I mean it.
I’m here, you’ll be okay.
But am I okay?
 
A group of friends spread throughout the world.
Connected by Facebook.
They don’t know, because it hasn’t been shared with them.
So they go about their day, wanting to send love but not yet asked to.
Tomorrow there will be infinite “likes” and words of encouragement.
Today they post selfies and motivational memes.
Some are okay, some are not, but their pictures smile.
 
And a man in a far off land.
That feels a lifetime away.
Normalized in a world of hospitals and needles.
But it’s different when they belong to her.
My heart aches that I am not there.
I want to wrap her up in my arms.
And make sure she knows I’m not a thousand miles away.
That she can lean on me even though I’m not okay.
 
Freeze.
Camera zooms in on me:
Lying on the hospital bed
It’s cold in my thin open nightgown
They put warm blankets all around me
The RN holds my hand
The Doctor moves into my jugular vein
My mom is in the waiting room with 20 strangers holding her breath
My dad is dissociated with a wrench at work
My friends create their day in the world
And he holds someone else’s hand in a different hospital
And I wonder, is everyone else okay?
 
Fentanyl
The world goes fuzzy black
I feel pressure on my neck
Time looses meaning
 
Who I was: Glitter toenail polish fading from a month ago in Vegas as I relived my showgirl days
Who I am: Humbled on a cold hospital bed
On the outside: Vitality and beauty
On the inside: Twisted uncooperative veins, weak blood damaged by disease
Outside potential: Relationship, speaking, MedX at Stanford
Inside potential: Internal bleeding, possibilities of eventual transplant
So much potential all around that doesn’t matter in this moment
A steady beep, beep, beep is what counts right now
External projection: She has her shit together, I want to be her
Internal projection: She’s a mess, I feel sorry for her
 
And…. Action!
The silent incongruence that lives between glitter toenail polish and a hospital bed
 
Stay tuned for next week, where we lather, rinse, and repeat… all the while hoping for a different outcome.

Any experiences resonate? Comment below! 

As I sit down to write this morning I am hyper-aware of my desire to write something that could possibly encapsulate and be in service of today. To this moment. This moment that feels heightened by the anticipation of a medical procedure tomorrow.
 
Yet, I feel torn because “this moment” actually feels like the moment of “before.” It is hard for me to stay present when I am filled with anticipation. The inhale. The calm before the storm. I am at the mercy of overwhelming imagination. I am creating a whole world that will come to fruition intensely in many layers in the near future, particularly tomorrow. I am guessing what may and may not be, for better or worse, for sickness and health. The actual procedure and the implications. I am here, but my focus is over there.

And I wonder, am I missing today? How do you hold present, future, and “before” all at once without exploding?
 
And of course there are layers, it’s not just about anticipating tomorrow. It’s about at least three huge areas of my life that are in destruction for the sake of creation. And the awareness of this is compounding it all.
 
Health: Feeling strong and vibrant, yet filling out advanced directives for the hospital.
Career: My career is in the pain of an acorn longing to be a tree.
Relationship: Everything I thought to be true has changed.
 
Each of these represent aspects of the known and unknown. Of identity, change, and fear. Of the potential of relief and joy.
 
Health: Am I sick; or am I healthy.
Career: Am I to be fulfilled in my capacity to move, inspire, and reignite people to their own awakening process through my life experience, and be a success (grow into an oak); or am I going to be lost in an inability to act and move forward into my own professional fears and finances, and by default fail (stay forever as an acorn).
Relationship: Am I responsible for creating a crisis; or am I in the messy birth of a relationship that is so beautiful it is too much to receive and take it all in.
 
These are questions of identity. Of slowing down and sitting in the unknown of the “before.” Of making meaning, and enriching the stories and labels.
 
Health: I am creating my version of health that includes me being sick.
Career: I am fulfilled in my successes and failures. They teach each other, and I’m nurturing my own soil.
Relationship: I am in a crisis of beauty.
Anticipation: I can be in the heightened state of the “before,” and already be complete and present right now.
 
One side is not at the expense of the other. I can say yes to it all. And that is what is true. Confusing, overwhelming, intense, uncomfortable, and true. I can say to myself, I know these things are coming, one as early as tomorrow morning, and yet here I am, taking this breath right now, and I don’t want to miss it because it is just as precious. I don’t want to just merely get through today, because I know tomorrow is coming.. I have plenty of space and time to be fully in those other breaths later., so I give myself permission to be fully in this breath now. 

​I can be present in my anticipation.
 
How is this for you to stay in today, when you can feel a big moment coming? 

Let’s face it, unless we’re in complete remission/recovery forever and not in a relationship at all, we’re probably going to be going through some sort of set-back/relapse/diagnosis process at some point while also being in a relationship. 
 
And it’s hard. 
 
In my experience my illness/diagnosis bonded us, but also took a toll on my relationship,. When I was diagnosed I had periods of feeling closer in my relationship: like we were a team, like we were beating this together, like if we can make it through this, we can make it through anything. It was the experience of bonding through trauma. 
 
And then came the moments where I felt anger, resentment, shame:
No, I’m not healthy yet (will I ever be healthy?). Stop expecting me to be on a different timeline than I am. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to be normal.
No, I still don’t want to have sex. I don’t know if I ever will.
You know what, you don’t even get me anymore. This relationship is broken.
 
I’m a different person now then when we met.  
 
We all do the best that we can.  Maybe we grow closer together, and maybe we grow farther apart, and there’s also a  whole realm of combo deals out there as well.  There are as many scenarios as there are facets to relationship. 
 
Main point: when things happen to us personally the person we’re in a relationship with takes the most direct hit. Diagnosis in not fair to anyone in the relationship.
 
We want to protect each other from the pain we’re in, from the fear of our own and each other’s mortality, from the reality of the truth. So we stay quiet. As much as this is a noble cause we also miss out on support, and being seen in our pain.   
 
So if you want to be in a real-ationship, my encouragement is to keep communicating.  The harder it gets to be honest about the pain you’re in: be brave and share it.  It’s only going to be worse if you’re holding it in and not sharing, and both people feel isolated and unseen in the relationship.  Hard things, are, well, they’re hard to share. Sometimes impossible. But we have to take each other along on the journey if we want to stay together and grow. If we want a real-ationship. 
 
So what would happen if the things that you think you can’t share about your medical experience, you actually chose to share? 
 
And what would happen if at the same time you could trust your partner to let you know when they need a break from talking about it, and that you’ll come back to it, but you don’t take it personally?
 
This gives everyone an opportunity to be with each other in a crisis when we need each other the most, with enough space to deal with their own issues.  That’s part of one definition of compassion: having all the love in the world, but with a little bit of space. 
 
Everyone gets to be responsible for their own experience, and also be deeply loved. We get both autonomy and support. We get to rock each other to sleep.
 
But, here’s the trick: it’s a practice, and it can feel hard, scary, and vulnerable… but at the end of the day do you want to be in a real-ationship or not? 
 
If so, get brave, and get sharing.   

Does this seem true for you? Comment below:

I look at my iCal calendar on my computer, all organized in bright vibrant color-coded blocks of time from 5:30a to 10p each day, to-dos at the top of each day at least 10 long and I choke on my inhale. Slow down. Breathe. Have patience.
 
But I should know better.
 
A few weeks ago I was doing better. I had days, whole days, that had nothing written on them… well actually, maybe one day. And, well, really that was in December. No, wait, in February I had 3 days off! Good job. Okay, well actually it was because I got the flu and couldn’t go to the 3 day training I was supposed to be at. I remember feeling so relieved I had a 102 degree fever so that I could take those days off to be at home. What’s wrong with this picture? 
 
I am exhausted. My liver aches. One thing gets added to my schedule unexpectedly and I feel overwhelmed, like I’m going to throw up, like I want to hide forever from the world and let go of all responsibilities. But I can’t, I’m committed,.  I did this to myself. 
 
My alarm clock goes off at 4:30am again.
 
I’m making myself sick by being busy. Being busy is my addiction.
 
And right now I’m relapsing. I’m consciously watching myself do my addiction, feeling powerless to stop it. Like I’m a victim of my calendar and all the things I have said “yes” to. Feeling like I need to do all these things in order to cope with what’s going on in my personal life, to cope with not wanting to feel. I’m too busy to have time to feel. How convenient.
 
And the world says: you’re amazing that you can do all of that, it’s inspiring. And I’m justified. Validated. Empowered. To keep doing my addiction. To "get shit done." To use my calendar to avoid living my life.
 
And then I’m fatigued. I’m exhausted. My abdomen aches.
 
You know better. This is how you got sick in the first place. Change your lifestyle. You have to.  And I judge myself. And my alarm goes off at 4:30a again.
 
STOP.  Just stop... Slow down sweet girl. You pace is dizzying, running around in a circle. Listen deep within. Grown up Zina has you now, and is rocking you. It’s okay. Just feel. Feel your precious heart and this moment of life that will not come back again. Who do you want to be when you grow up into this moment? Who do you want to be with? How does that time look, feel, and taste? Don’t miss your life.
 
Sometimes we relapse on our own toxic behavior. Even when we know our lives and health depend on us staying sober. And we suffer as we watch ourselves. And it’s okay… hand on heart, breath in belly. I caught myself sooner this time. I see my pain and frustration. I’m going to be okay, and I’m moving in the right direction.
 
I look at my calendar, start taking out blocks of color, make a few phone calls, sigh into the blank spaces. Alarm goes off at 7a.
 
I can choose to be busy, but less busy, and be aware and awake. I can have self-compassion. I can feel a little. I can be in community. I can do the counter-cultural thing. I can say yes, but also no. I can change. I can honor my health.
 
Does any of this feel true for you? Comment below:

Sometimes things seem too potent to try to share using narrative writing. At moments like these I watch myself turn towards my own bastardized form of poetry, to get to what’s vital. So here we go...
 
I wanted to share with you a little bit of what I learned from conversations in my relationships (with myself and others) this week:
 
​
Isn’t it sad how we come into the world in diapers and then go back to diapers. It’s pathetic.
No, it’s humbling.
 
What am I doing with my life?
I want to curl into a ball, in a cave, and never come out.
To give up. Because I’m overwhelmed.
But instead it’s time to create
These are growing pains.
 
They rock me like waves.
What lies beneath the waves?
What anchors me so I don’t float away from my potential?
 
You and your potential are fruit
The pain right now lies in how ripe you are, yet still on the stem
You will fall to the ground at some point regardless of ripeness, and be incorporated there.
So, how do you nurture yourself to feed your own fecund earth?
 
I know I need to nurture, I need to slow down… I’m overwhelmed, and I did it to myself again.
My business is how I cope.
I judge myself for not being able to internally motivate to change.
Right now it just feels like it needs to come from the outside.
But you don’t want it to come from your doctor.
(No, I want it to come from you.)
 
This is the hospital calling to schedule your next procedure.
 
Ego check.
Reality check.
Vulnerable. Scared. But of course I’ll be fine. I always am.
There’s my external motivation. It’s not the one I wanted. It never is.
But part of me is relieved. Now I have permission to come back to what matters.
Health. Relationship. Purpose.
 
And I’m reminded to:
Live your truth and share it,
You never know who you’re going to inspire.
 
 
Humbling growing pains
rock me like waves
The ripe fall.
 
Slow down.
Change is calling you.
 
Health. Relationship. Purpose. Inspiration. 

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! 

​I look at my Facebook thread and read: David Bowie - Trending.  Sinking in my stomach, heaviness in my chest cavity.  David Bowie passed away at 69, from cancer. 
 
It’s interesting what happens when we are confronted by the tangibility of our own mortality. I exhale…inhale. And in this moment am flooded with the relief that the inhale is still there.
 
I scan down my Facebook Home feed and notice that Elizabeth Gilbert, wrote some beautiful words regarding Bowie's most recent album, and video, which he was working on during his final days.  She writes, “Can you imagine, to be making art like this (fearless art that both comforts and challenges) right up to the moment of your death? How do you do that? How do you BE that? To work with your death so imaginatively, in order to perfectly time out the last beats of your life? … I am overwhelmed by awe. This is what it means to be a great artist.” In the background I hear him singing, “I’ve got scars that can’t be seen.”  My breath gets caught in my throat. My abdomen gives a bottomless throb. 
 
And I wonder to myself, what might it be like to reframe what it is to be an “artist” and make “art.”  I know this could be a controversial subject for many artists – I can relate to this with all the discernment of having been a professional performer.  Yet one thing I know to be true, my illness flipped my idea of being an artist upside down.  When confronted with my own impermanence I realized the potential of every moment being art, if we choose it to be, in it’s horror, dignity, and beauty.  As far as art goes, what if everything counted? What if there was no moment to small to be “art?”
 
Memories waft in, and I suddenly re-experience many versions of “art” for myself, such as walking to the mailbox, spending a day without having heart palpitations from the anxiety of being in the unknown, taking a medium sized breath without pain...  And riding a bike again for the first time, well, for me that equaled a masterpiece!
 
So what if we live like our life is already art?  What if we’re all artists, and these precious breathing moments are our palate of colors?  What if we could be in awe of our own lives as art? What if we continued to say yes to experiencing the full spectrum of the joy and the brutality of our illness experience, not wanting to minimize any part of it. If all who live will die, and if our life can be lived as “art,” then really we’re all dying for our art?  Perhaps, like David Bowie, we can spend these remaining moments making an album of our life.  A smile creeps across my face and the thought, that today I can choose to be aware of being artful… full of art.
 
In my room by myself I lift up my cup of tea to David Bowie and to myself. Both human artists. Both made of stardust. One transcendent of this reality making art in another realm, and one for left here to make art in this moment. 

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

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 ~