A Recent Health Scare

Life kind of came to a crashing halt for a few days this week when I found a lump in my breast on Mother's Day.  For three days I imagined what I would do if I indeed did have cancer.

It was by far the scariest three to four days I've experienced as I waited to get my mammogram and ultrasound on Wednesday.

Here is a short video I took in days leading up to the mammo. I haven't shared it with anyone till today but if this scare helps someone be more mindful and in tune with their bodies then it's worth it. 

Being in this place of facing my own mortality really put a lot of things in perspective and made me zoom in on a few things in my life that perhaps may not have been in focus before, such as people I still need to forgive and ways I've checked out of my body and how I would like to nurture my body more through food and movement. While this is something I've been working on for a few years now, nothing like a health scare to put things into complete perspective. 

On Wednesday, I went in for my mammogram and ultrasound. 

It turned out that it was an enlarged cyst.

I literally just broke down, crying of relief, when the ultrasound technician told me not to worry, that it was just a cyst.

As strong as the feeling was of terror for those few days, so was the feeling of gratitude for my life on Wednesday as I walked home from the hospital. I felt like I was given my life back.

I realize not everyone gets to walk away relieved after a mammogram and many must face their own mortality and the painful journey of trying to beat cancer and live. For those of you who have been through the real deal, I send you massive love and respect. No one really knows what it's like for you unless they have been there. I merely got a taste of it, but I don't really know what it's like.

It's Sunday, one week later and I am still trying to find my center again. Self care has been ramped up to more exquisite self care. I've been eating healthier, acknowledging my feelings more, even went in for a foot reflexology appointment and have been paying really close attention to my body which is what it was craving all along.

The truth is I know I'm under a lot of stress with moving from my apartment and going on a trip to Italy (oh yes, did I tell you I am going to Italy for 43 days??). I am feeling the pressure though and trying to find ways of easing it, including perhaps not moving right before my trip.

Time will tell and I am focusing on getting clearer and receiving ease in all decisions that I make.

The ironic thing is, eating healthier and moving more, really does bring more clarity.

Lots of sugar and carbs and the resulting mood swings, really makes things fuzzy for this brain of mine. I'm learning to listen and get quiet enough to hear and the body is such an integral part of that.

The temple needs to be clear of debris and static for the truth to arise. I'm learning this big time right now.

Thank you for all the prayers on Facebook, for the private messages and love you all sent my way.

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Next journey begins June 1st.

This 4 week course is about practicing living your yes, living inside of it, becoming it, learning how to tune into it, how to identify what your yes energy is and feels like, what blocks it, what sets it free, and ultimately harnessing its power.

For more information visit the registration page here.

The Flipside of Motherhood

From Healing the Mother Wound

This is a repost of a blog post I wrote the day before Mother's Day in 2011.

I know many of you struggle on Mother's Day.

For me, Mother's Day, is a wonderful celebration of being a mother mixed with the sadness and anger of having a mother that could not love me in the ways I deserved to be loved.

And on this day as well as other days when I least expect it, the young child in me grieves for the loss of her mother.

This is for all the women who have experienced painful mothering, may you find a way to mother and nurture the inner little girl within you.

The Flip Side of Motherhood

Saturday, May 7th, 2011 at 5:27 pm

This post is for the many mothers I know who had toxic, abusive, painful mothering as children.  I know many of you personally and I am one of you. I am also a mother and I celebrate that beautiful fact and am eternally grateful for being graced with this amazing being who came through me. 

So tomorrow will be bittersweet as I allow myself to be celebrated and celebrate the mothers around me, and also sit with the pain of not having been mothered.

I see all the tributes on Facebook, my Fb family putting pics of their moms as their profile pic and the many statuses reading: I love you Mom, or some other wonderful sentiment.  As per my usual modus operandi, I was seeing, but not seeing, reading but grazing over what I may be feeling, going so swiftly through, that I never gave myself the chance to acknowledge what I was feeling.

And so today, I allowed myself to stop and feel. And what came to me is this sadness about my own mother and this feeling of being on the outside looking in.  It is also came to me that not everyone is celebrating their mothers tomorrow or may have some really mixed emotions about celebrating their mothers. Some of you may be feeling exactly like me.

So here is what I am feeling today, the day before Mother’s Day. 

For me there is this great sense of loss even though my mother is alive. There is this sadness, that I barely felt the warmth of my mother’s touch. Tears come, right in this moment as I write this, the longing still soft and tender.  Touch, the idea of it, the longing for it, the gaping hole left by the absence of it, and the ambiguity that reams in and out because of my undeniable experience of it as toxic…all just makes me want to cry.

Today on the day before Mother’s Day, I grieve for the little girl who did not have the powerful mirror of MOTHER, staring back at her with love, joy, encouragement and admiration. I grieve for the little girl who encountered cruelty and violence in the eyes of her mother and felt unsafe in her world and feared living another day. I allow myself to see that what I experienced was not mothering, I let myself feel the space that was left by my mother’s inability to nurture me. 

There is a part of me that longs for mothering still. 

Today I allow the space for this longing, and the sadness, lest it spill sideways.  I breathe, and cry, and breathe, and cry some more and move through, and each time I do, I am healing by filling the space with the love and compassion I so desperately needed then.

I know there will always be a corner of sadness for the mother I had, and the mother she had and the line of dysfunction which kept us all from fully loving.  I am saddened by this generational rage, this wall, this fear that made its way into all of our lives, keeping us from the greatest gift of all…to fully embrace ourselves as mothers and to love and protect our children fully.

And yet there is a joy for me and I hope for you, that we did better, whether it was to choose not to have children, or to love the ones we had in a different way, we are not our mothers.

Tomorrow is our day to be celebrated as mothers and to celebrate the mothers around us. We can have our truth and not be overwhelmed by it. We can take care of our beautiful selves, take time to mother ourselves, allow ourselves to be nurtured and loved by others. We can make space for the grief. 

We can give ourselves what we needed then and find safe and supportive people who will serve as healthy mirrors.  We are capable of standing in all of it with power and grace, even if sometimes it means we crawl under the covers to stand in it.  When we resist, and suppress, we suffer. But when we move through, we move through to the other side, and each time, there is a healing.  Each time we move through, we heal another piece of the broken child and make space for love and joy to come in and wrap its loving arms around her/him, lifting her back up with dignity.

Holding you in my heart.

Lovingly,
Stephanie

Awakening

I wrote this in March of 2014. I'm revisiting the deep truth in it today. I hope it is helpful to some of you who are struggling to "be here".

I have felt an amazing awakening in my life, but it did not come without some periods of  deep unconsciousness (being asleep at the wheel of my life), being so far into my pain that I could not fully experience love or life fully.

I've been there, more times than I have been in this beautifully alive place.

I still visit that painful place now and again but I am now becoming way too anchored in the truth of my life and the visits into pain are less intense and do not seem as true anymore if that makes sense.

This poem is about the transition from not wanting to be here to fully being here. It is very raw and personal, but I know from experience that sharing myself in this way is both healing for me and for so many others and that is what continually opens me to sharing my journey with you.  I'm including the written poem as well as a video of me reading it.

Awakening

I’ve always had one foot in one life,

And the other in the after life.

I remember carrying the

Endless screams of wounding,

like badges of honor

like proof that I had suffered enough

that I deserved better,

I had done my time.

Anything had to be better than this.

I didn’t want to be here but I clung nonetheless, cause quitters suck.

And I was not a quitter.

Walking in two worlds makes for a weary life

Non committal

Always having “maybe” at the tip of my tongue

Looking then looking away

Seeking then shutting it down

Hopeful then hopeless

There were times when I convinced myself

That my time here was up

And I found extreme comfort in it

I didn’t awaken in one moment,

things did not become clear,

in one shining miraculous moment of self realization.

My awakening was a slow burn,

it still burns

 But somewhere there were a string of moments,

When I decided to be more here than there

I remember the moments

When I recognized the

Deliciousness of this life

how precious

Tangible

Messy

And Beyond Lovely

This life can be

I remember the brief yet undeniable moments when I chose this life over the other.

 The moments when I understood that the afterlife could not match this. here. life.

Where love just explodes in your heart

Where being human held such delicious tangibility and possibility

Where one can heal, change, transform and awaken

And feel it deep in your bones

How sweet awakening is…

How alive and vibrant it is to open

After being closed

To feel love again after feeling broken

To feel the touch of another

After living protected and untouched

How sweet it is

to remember who we are

Never will there be such delicious contrast

It is reserved only for this realm.

I remember when I decided to live

And being here was much cooler than being

dead.

Here is a video of me reading my poem Awakening set to images of my art

Spectrum Giveaway!!

Hello everyone! Just wanted to announce I have one free spot to giveaway for Spectrum which starts May 1st! Yayyyyy!!!

This is going to be a beautifully rich experience. I am proud to be teaching in this year's Spectrum. My lesson is"Reclaiming the Lost Child Through the Power of YES" .

Here is just an excerpt from the Spectrum page:

"Spectrum is an online Holistic Creative Circle
that integrates Visual Journaling into an experience about so much more.

We will move beyond the vision in our pages, word and paint
into applying, exploring and celebrating the dynamic truth of *YOU* as Living Art."

To enter the giveaway, please share this post and either leave a comment here or on the FB post to let me know you shared.

Winners will be announced April 15th.

If you know you are ready to sign up, you can sign up through my link here (I'd so appreciate it!)

Good luck everyone!

In the Darkness

I am learning to look at the places of struggle, challenge, perhaps even darkness as the spaces in which I come back to myself. I'm learning that I seek more in this space, that I am more aware of myself in this place, that I take more time for myself, I look for ways to bring in more light and in so doing I am connected to a wisdom I might not otherwise find.

These uncomfortable times of not knowing what's next, of moving far away from your own truth are the places where you can dig deeper and access otherwise hidden layers of truth. It is a place where I need to take greater risks and open and soften even if all I really want to do is crawl under the covers.

From the vulnerability real truth has room to rise. While I do not in any way want to romanticize dark times, I am aware that these are the times of my richest growth and the expansion. What  follows such contracted periods tends to be richer, more full of rawness and soul.

I find my shadow side, the places of resistance, the ways I'm holding myself back and even the way I am fed by the resistance. 

I write deeper, I paint deeper, I live deeper. 

A Glimpse into My Healing Work: Reclaiming my Body

This weekend was my core weekend and I bumped up against something that I knew was there but had not quite consciously faced in "process" or with others.

Those of you who have been following me know that I have struggled with my weight. I spent a  year walking, working out and saying yes to what my body can do.

That was really important for me and although I didn't lose a huge amount of weight, I felt happier and more in tune with myself. And I realized my body could do a lot more than I ever thought it could and so those doubts are actually gone now. Even when my mind tries to say, "you can't do that", I know that I can. It was a beautiful journey of reclaiming the power of my body.

This winter, I ate to deal with personal stresses and I gained weight. I left my body in many ways, and opted for comfort over health.   I became sad and disappointed and even though I will never look at that year as a failure, there were moments that I felt like had gone backwards.

But since I'm in it for the long haul, there is no end point for me, there is no place where the "work" ends and so I continue to want and long for a time when I am in a body that feels more like who I am on the inside.

This weekend we were asked to partner up, to share with someone the envy we feel towards them. I knew exactly who I needed to work with and luckily she was right next to me. As soon as we met with our eyes and confirmed we would partner up, I just started to cry. As they gave more instruction about what we were going to do, I just could not stop the tears from flowing. I was scared and feeling like this felt really deep and was touching a deep wound for me.

We paired up and I went first since my emotions were right there and ready to go. I admitted that I had a fantasy about losing weight at the beginning of a core year (the program is usually 10 months) and having people witness my transformation. It was a fantasy I've had from last year and again for this next year but I was not able to do it and here she was doing it.

She was losing weight throughout our year and looked amazing and I envied that. I cried basically throughout speaking this truth. It felt really hard to say but it was so true for me, so painfully true. I wanted that and I felt I couldn't have it..a life long story/pattern of mine.

It's more like "I do not get to have it".

It was powerful for me to admit that to her and she held space so beautifully for me.

After we finished our work together I was asked to claim it, to claim the want. I was put on one side of the towel and she on the other and we were supposed to pull. Using the towel to energize the longing, but as I stood eyes closed holding that towel, something screamed in me, to let it go. I knew I was supposed to hold on, but I couldn't and I just let it go and said "no, I don't want to WANT".

And the floodgates opened about how hard it is to want and to not always get what you want and to hold out hope for what you want. At this point I am purely in my process, crying, eyes closed, my hands at my eyes doing I don't know what, perhaps hiding or trying to catch the tears.

I want to be really clear here that what was coming out of me is not the truth of my higher self, but of my lower self, the wounded place.

I know from my higher self that hope is everything, that ultimately I can have what I want.

But the work of core is getting to those lower self places and letting them have a voice and moving through that energy.

Because the truth is that's there too. We all have those lower self places and we all have the higher self too.

And so as I stood, ranting about how hard it is, they gave me the racket and cube (it's a big cushioned cube) so I could hit it and say "it's too hard, I don't want to want, I won't, etc. It was time to move this stuck energy.

I screamed at times, loud blood curdling screams that felt like they set my insides on fire. I needed that like I needed water, like I need air. I needed to scream.

I could hear myself say, "i just want to climb out of this body, this body is not me, this body does not represent who I am, I can't stand it" and I could feel my arms and hands making the motion of climbing out, in disgust. Again more lower self that needed space to come out.

While I cannot remember each piece of the process, I do remember the wanting to climb out of my body to be a really clear want. I may even have called it a prison at one point. I think someone asked, what do you want?

I said very clearly I wanted happiness and that's why I wanted to lose weight, and sell my art and find love and all the thing I wanted in my life were really because I wanted to be "happy". And that felt like a really clear "want" and in that moment I allowed myself to fully have it. To fully feel it in me.

That same night we had a spiritual service that was mostly dancing for about an hour and a half. My usual M.O is to avoid anything to do with movement especially in public.

That night I danced in my body across that large room, like I had no weight at all. I felt like a child, free in ways I was never really free as a little girl.

Being able to say everything I felt earlier in the day and being able to let the pain come out allowed me to make space for the love I have for my body, and space to BE in my body.

The next day (the workshops are a full weekend) we had to do about an hour of movement and again, no self consciousness, just completely in my body and moving and falling in love.  During our share time I said, "I feel really embodied, I felt no self consciousness at all. I wonder who is this? But I really feel "in love" right now.

The processing continues and the real work is not forgetting, the real work is taking this home into my real world. The real work is to continue loving and nurturing my body and finding my happiness in me.

Did you miss my post on depression last week? Here it is.

Find a painting that speaks to your journey here